The boycott isn’t being led by Muslims, but rather by Christian groups that are offended that Lowe’s has caved into pressure from a single far-right Christian organization that demonizes Muslims.
The nationwide protest against Lowe’s Home Improvement stores is standing the notion of advertiser boycotts on its head. Such boycotts generally seek to punish advertisers for supporting negative programming. But the latest demonstrations protest the decision by Lowe’s to pull its ads from a TV show, “All American Muslim,” whose message is essentially positive.
Actually, the program might as well be called “All American Shiite” since all five families in the program are Lebanese Shias.
An inter-denominational group of Detroit-area faith leaders called a picket line at the Lowe’s in Dearborn, Michigan, which has a large Arab-American population and is the location of the reality TV show.
At a protest earlier in Paterson, New Jersey, protesters held signs that said, “Don’t Appease Hate Mongers” and “Discrimination is Low, Lowe’s.”
Robert Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York, told the MinnPost, an online news service in Minnesota, “Most of the time, people are asking buyers to boycott stores that advertise on shows with negative portrayals of something. Here, they’re doing it for a positive portrayal.”
The reality show, which has run nationally on the TLC (The Learning Channel) Network since debuting in mid-November, chronicles the daily lives of a group of Muslims in Dearborn.
But the program came after pressure from the Florida Family Association (FFA), a Tampa, Florida-based organization that reportedly consists of its one founding member, David Caton, and is unaffiliated with any national organization. Lowe’s caved in and pulled its ads from the show. FFA complained that the show exists primarily to portray Muslims favorably, which FFA sees as dangerous.
FFA said on its website, “The Learning Channel’s new show, ‘All-American Muslim,’ is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”
Some commentators who object to FFA’s view are, however, pleased at FFA’s campaign.
Fordham University communications professor Paul Levinson, author of “New New Media,” said, “It is clear to anyone with a rational mind that a show like ‘All-American Muslim’ is helpful to our society, because it shows that Muslims living in America are as American as any other religious or ethnic group.
“Lowe’s decision to kowtow to The Florida Family Association is disgraceful,” he says. “But the silver lining is that this cowardly act will only bring more attention to the ‘All-American Muslim’ show that the Florida Family Association wants to banish — and this increase in attention is good for all Americans.”
John Bowen, professor of sociocultural anthropology at Washington University, said he is struck by how mundane the show is, even boring. “These are really, basic, ordinary people living ordinary lives like Jews, Baptists, Presbyterians and all the rest,” he says. “It seems misguided to me that this is a reason for concern.”
Even as protesters heap criticism on Lowes for abandoning the show, the program is not universally embraced by the Muslim community itself, though it defends the show on principle.
Dawud Walid, Michigan director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said many Muslims fault the portrayals on the show because it is limited to five families, all Lebanese Shias.
“Muslims complain to me that these five families are not diverse enough, and also that they have scenes of nightclubs which sell liquor, which is counter to normal Islamic teachings,” said Walid.
The outpouring of support for the show, he said, “is not to be construed as an endorsement of these families on the show, but rather the bigger principle that to capitulate to the extremist arguments of the FFA is just wrong-headed.”