Rep. Rashida Tlaib
Over the weekend, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Detroit Democrat,
joined some 150 other area residents in a peaceful protest at a Lowe's outlet in Allen Park. The demonstrators were on hand to express their disgust at the home-improvement company's canceling its advertising from Discovery/The Learning Channel's show,
All-American Muslim. That happened two weeks as a campaign by an obscure, Florida-based "biblical values" group
made clear it believes there's no such thing as an all-American Muslim.
The TLC show follows five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan. The campaign by the right-wing Florida Family Association has spurred 87 companies, the group claims, to pull their advertising from the show. But Lowe's has caught most of the blowback. Included in that was the publicity give to music entrepreneur Russell Simmons's buying up all of Lowe's abandoned ad space on the show and the outrage and threats of censure coming from Democratic California state Rep. Ted Lieu.
The advocacy group People for the American Way issued a statement in the matter:
Lowe’s should have ignored the canned emails and gone about its business. Instead it caved to a group of fanatics who want to make everyone live in accordance with their narrow and rigid religious beliefs.
“Lowe’s should not base its advertising decisions on religion or the complaints of groups preaching intolerance. The company claims it is committed to diversity -- it’s time to prove it.
“There are millions of Americans who happen to be Muslim, and there are tens of millions more who won’t stand for religious bigotry. This holiday season, Americans should boycott hate. Lowe’s has taken the side of the bigots. I’m encouraging our members, and all liberty-loving Americans, to take their business elsewhere until Lowe’s rejects extremism and reinstates its advertising on ‘All-American Muslim.’”
It was encouraging to see a state legislator speaking up at the protest. However, Tlaib is the first Muslim-American woman to be elected to the Michigan Legislature, and only the second anywhere in America, so her presence, though welcome, wasn't exactly a surprise. Where were all of Tlaib's colleagues? All the legislators of other faiths, or no faiths at all? Why weren't a dozen of them standing beside her?
Lowe's, of course, is free to alter its advertising policies to favor whatever fanatic fear-mongers its management chooses. They want to boycott the show, it's their privilege just as it's the privilege of their customers to shop somewhere else until they reverse their cowardly surrender to the Florida Family Association. They might follow the example of the FFA's latest targets in the campaign, Campbell's Soup and Hershey's, two companies whose public images are practically synonymous with good, old-fashioned American values. Those two and many other companies have not surrendered to the haters and continue to show strong support for All-American Muslim. How long until Lowe's gets the message?