Deep Anthropological Thought

theonion:

Obama Supporter Has Perfectly Improbable Explanation Absolving President From Blame For Scandals | Full Report

vicemag:

Please Don’t #FitchTheHomeless

I’m sure by now you’ve seen that video that Los Angeles-based writer Greg Karber made where he hands out a buch of Abercrombie gear to homeless people. It’s embedded above if you haven’t.

Karber made the video in response to that stuff that Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries said about their “no women’s clothing above a size 10” policy. Essentially, Jefferies only wants “thin and beautiful people” shopping at his stores, because he doesn’t want the “cool kids” to have to endure the horror of seeing a fat person wearing the same outfit as them. I think we can all agree that the most shocking part of Mike’s statements is that they reveal there’s a person out there who thinks that the cool kids are wearing Abercrombie.

Photo via

Karber handed out A&F clothing to, as far as I can tell from the video, a fairly bewildered homeless population on Los Angeles’s Skid Row. His goal was to “rebrand” Abercrombie & Fitch by putting their clothing not on the cool kids that Mike Jeffries so loves, but on the homeless, who, I guess, are the opposite of cool.

Now, if you only think about it for a few seconds, it would appear that this is a great campaign. Karber wanted to make a point about Abercrombie & Fitch and to “clothe the homeless,” in his words, while doing it. Unfortunately, “Fitch the Homeless,” as Karber dubbed his campaign, is fucking stupid. For one thing, Karber doesn’t appear to ask these people if they want Abercrombie & Fitch clothing, or if he did ask them, he cut those parts from the video for some reason. He just sort of dumps polo shirts and A&F brand tees onto the residents of Skid Row, as if they were pack mules and he were a sherpa venturing into the mountains to deliver striped rugby shirts to a monastery.

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I disagree. Why?

I think part of why this project works is that A&F burns their damaged and misprinted clothes to control who wear it (ie. not homeless or poor people). I agree that homeless people are a key part of this idea and in some ways, have no voice in their participation, but I don’t see this as exploitation.

At the end of the video this guy asked the viewers to find AF clothes and donate them to shelters, which is very different than him asking viewers to go out and make their own videos of handing items of clothing to individuals who look homeless (I’ve done a lot of homeless street counts in my day, and I can vouch for never wanting to assume a person is homeless or that they are unhappy about being homeless). I think this aspect differentiates this project from whatever ‘exploitative’ category it could otherwise fall into. 

In addition, I feel relatively confident that few-to-no people who have expressed outrage about this video around the interwebs today will take it upon themselves to go out and donate non-AF clothes to shelters and non-profits who serve this population, much less think about ways to enact real change regarding the issue of ‘homelessness’ in general (if anybody’s interested in talking about this, I study it, let’s think together!). Instead, I fear that the next time these outraged people see a homeless person on the street, they’ll walk by him or her and think to themselves, “Gee, I sure am happy I didn’t participate in exploiting this person,” and then, just keep on walking. To me, that’s the scariest, and most anger-inducing, thing of all.

hookersorcake:

While waiting in the park

we uncovered something dark

A hole that had no end

Where did it start

in the light

or in the dark

Perhaps it depends on where you began

but we couldn’t find that either. So we just plopped down where we were. Opened another bottle of wine. Listened to the birds sing to the wind, such ridiculous creatures all of us. We don’t know if the sun is setting or rising, but here we are, none the less, still singing.

motherjones:

Pima County, Arizona, is the only county in the United States that tracks migrant deaths. Here’s every one since 2001.

wadddupppp, pima county.

shortformblog:

briancolligan:

brooklynmutt:

The Cleveland man credited with helping free female captives from a house of horrors is a convicted felon whose rap sheet includes three separate domestic violence convictions that resulted in prison terms, court records show.

Cleveland Hero Was A Repeat Domestic Abuser | The Smoking Gun

Of course. This is America. We don’t get to have nice things. 

Check out the comments. Nearly everyone has criticized The Smoking Gun for digging up dirt on the guy. One person put it best: “Once in awhile, people on the internet make me proud. I’m so thrilled that virtually all of the comments on this post point out that this was totally unnecessary.”

There is SO MUCH here.

Hum is one of those bands I’m really glad I know.

(via frickyeah1990s)