Dunkin’ Donuts caves to the right’s fear of scarves

May 28, 2008

Good news — as far as a few unhinged conservative activists are concerned, you can now go back to enjoying Dunkin’ Donuts without inadvertently supporting a terrorist-sympathizing ad campaign.

For those of you who don’t read reactionary right-wing blogs, Dunkin’ Donuts recently unveiled an ad featuring television personality Rachael Ray, holding a latte, standing in front of blooming trees. Ray, however, is wearing a scarf, and for conservatives, a scarf is never just a scarf.

Michelle Malkin noted that the scarf is black and white, which she insisted meant that it looked too similar to an Arabic keffiyeh. From Malkin’s column:

The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons. […]

It’s just a scarf, the clueless keffiyeh-wearers scoff. Would they say the same of fashion designers who marketed modified Klan-style hoods in Burberry plaid as the next big thing?

Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence — unintentionally or not — they matter. Ignorance is no longer an excuse. In post-9/11 America, vigilance must never go out of style.

Malkin’s cohorts quickly embraced her concerns, and there was talk of launching a boycott against Dunkin’ Donuts over the ad.

This week, unwilling to take any chances against the coordinated efforts of unhinged Fox News commentators, Dunkin’ Donuts backed down and gave in.

The Boston Globe reported:

The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin’ Donuts decided it’d be easier just to yank the ad.

Said the suits in a statement: ”In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.”

(In case you’re wondering, the stylist who selected the offending scarf was not Gretta Enterprises boss Gretchen Monahan, who appears on Ray’s TV show as a style consultant.)

For her part, Malkin was pleased with Dunkin’s response: ”It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists.”

I can certainly understand Dunkin’ Donuts’ reluctance to fight on this one, but by backing down, the company is only going to encourage this crowd to launch similar crusades in the future.

How about in consideration for Dunkin Donuts dropping the scarf, Michele Malkin dresses in a Burqua?

That’s a fair trade off. I think.

  • Considering how Islamic men force women to hide their faces, never act up and never do anything that might embarrass them, I think Michelle Malkin should have to lick my ass in public for all to see.

    If you’ve seen that shrill little monster some call a woman, you know my sacrifice is greater than hers.

  • Apparently, there is footage out there of Jenna Bush wearing the same thing. I think I saw it on Olbermann.

    But as long as it’s silly season, perhaps Cindy McCain needs to denounce, reject, repudiate the recipe she stole from Rachael Ray. In fact maybe she should spit out a mouthful.

  • Is it just me, or is there a nearly-straight line between the “Far-right GOP base balks at a possible McCain running mate” and “Dunkin’ Donuts caves to the right’s fear of scarves” dots?

    What next? The color of Cindy’s nail polish?

    Little wonder these idiots can’t govern.

  • Thats it exactly. This tells them that if you cry about non-issues, they will eventually succumb to your pressure. Unreal.

  • I see a pattern developing, and I think I like it:

    They went ballistic when Obama named the wrong death camp.
    They swore off donuts when Rachel Ray wore the wrong scarf.

    With any luck at all, the remaining minds still functioning in the center-right will see this lunacy and make a jump to the left…but not a step to the right…put their hands on their hips…and bend their knees in time…

    This campaign will most certainly cost me my (already tenuous) grip on sanity…

    “Wave bye-bye to all the nice people, ‘fiend…time for your nap…”

  • “I can certainly understand Dunkin’ Donuts’ reluctance to fight on this one, but by backing down, the company is only going to encourage this crowd to launch similar crusades in the future.”

    Thats it exactly. This tells them that if you cry about non-issues, they will eventually succumb to your pressure. Unreal.

  • I will never allow my children to watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ever again—because Snoopy dares to put on his scarf before going to do battle with the red Baron. Clearly, this intelligently-sinister dog who rejected authority and had a penchant for flying dog houses, his round-headed master who never managed the American prerequisites of kicking footballs and flying kites, and all the other members of the Islamofascist Peanuts gang were, in fact, a juvenile sleeper cell for those nasty terrorists.

    With apologies in advance to Mr. Shultz

  • “On May 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm, Elvis Elvisberg said:

    Your last line is dead one, Steve– appeasement doesn’t work.”

    Of course it does… DD caves in and the wingnuts win.

  • Aren’t these the same people who are always complaining that “political correctness” stifles their free speech?

  • W. T. F? It’s a scarf people. But I can can see Dunkin Donuts picking their battles and decided that this just wasn’t worth it. There’s no arguing with people who let facts get in the way.

    Isn’t a keffiyeh a headdress and not actually a scarf? Would it have made a difference if Rachel Ray’s scarf was any other color as opposed to black and white?

    So are all black and white scarves a sign of Islamic terrorists? Is the scarf my friend’s mother knitted for me as a Christmas present a few years ago now part of a plot to encourage terrorism?

    Or is this starting to sound like McCarthy era thinking about the red menace?

  • For all to see:

    Michelle Malkin needs to publish a list of banned and acceptable clothing.

    We Americans need to know what we are free to wear and what is forbidden by the republican dress code.

  • Charles, this ain’t Political Correctness, it’s the War on Terror. There’s a big, big difference.

    See, “political correctness” is when uppity liberals decide that you can’t mention God in school or say things to lady employees that might make them want to sleep with you or hide a gun in your glove box. It’s also the reason that married gay people will destroy your family.

    But, the “war on terror” is a righteous battle against purveyors of evil, that can only be won by shopping as often as you can, driving an SUV, listening to Toby Keith, wearing a flag pin, praying to Jesus, and making sure the Rachael Ray Jihad doesn’t get a toe hold in America. Oh…and getting all the oil away from tan people.

  • Jeebus, but Malkin is a nutjob. Seriously unhinged. A donut short of a baker’s dozen.

    Is there some other reason these whackos have to be against Dunkin’ Donuts and this was the best excuse they could come up with to launch?

  • I’m just waiting for the November election results to roll in so I can watch Malkin’s head explode. Nobody’s going to care what she says after that, poor dear.

  • “So are all black and white scarves a sign of Islamic terrorists?”

    Yes and so are short sleeved Banlon shirts and polyester sansabelt pants. Whenever I turn on the news and see some sort of mayhem going on in the middle east I see far many more men in the banlon shirt/polysester pants combo than wearing the offensive white and black scarf. So we need to place these garments on the forbidden list as well.

    Did anyone stop to consider the unspeakable possibility that Rachel Ray is, in fact, an Islamic terrorist?

  • It’s suddenly become clear to me that I will never eat at another Dunkin Donuts again. Anyone that capitulates to the likes of Malkin is clearly not interested in my money.

  • Curmudgeon said:Nobody’s going to care what she says after that, poor dear.

    I don’t care what she says now. What’s incredible is that anybody else does.

  • You know, I think that its high time we as Americans decide on the best way to show our patriotism. Lapel pins are so passe`. I think that we must now start wearing American flag armbands. But you have to prove you are a citizen before getting your G.I. armband. If you can’t prove your American credentials, then you will be issued an armband that will distinguish you as a non-American. Maybe a star or something.

  • The replacement campaign will simply show Ray biting into a jelly donut and saying “Mmm, jihad-o-licious!” as the jelly, symbolizing the blood of the infidels, explodes everywhere.

  • a keffiyeh is checked, not paisley –except among a subset of terrorists who are true fashionistas (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).

    btw, not to show my abject cultural ignorance, but who is rachael ray? is she another creation of oprah, a la dr. phil?

  • After reading this, I just bought a pound of Dunkin’ Donuts decaf and am sending it to Malkin. I was gonna buy the fully caffeinated stuff, but that lunatic needs stimulation about as much as a rabid Chihuahua needs it.

  • I smell a business opportunity if anyone interested… how about a new line of fashion scarves featuring the international symbol for No Donuts, in fashionable black and white, of course.

  • mellowjohn: She had a cooking show on the Food Network for years. Now she has a talk show in the morning. I haven’t watched it, but I think it’s like Tyra Banks’ or Rosie O’Donnell’s old show. The thing that defines her is her ultra bubbly personality. She’s quite obnoxious, though not in the same way as Michelle Malkin, who wrote a book on how well the Japanese were treated in interrment camps during WWII.

  • Did anyone see today’s View? Whoopi Goldberg addressed this issue. I’m curious what she had to say — anyone?

  • How pathetic. Malkin is living in the wrong century. She missed the Inquisition.

    Why the scarf in the first place hmmm? Whom were you planning to strangle. Admit it, you’re a strangler. Under torture you’d admit it. What a seriously deranged woman …er…I mean person.

  • I must point out that the “D” in Dunkin’ and the “D” in Donuts both have a similar shape to the Muslim Crescent. Obviously we need to threaten to boycott Dunkin’ Donuts until they change their name to something without letters that mirror a muslimy crescent shape! Who’s in?!

  • Dunkin’ Donuts’ in my area has Fox news on all the TV’s. I guess they didn’t like listening to all the complaining at work.

  • I was at the drug store today, and they had these shirts for innocent little children on sale. One said “I’d rather be naked”, the other said “Chicks dig me”.

    I’d like to start an outraged furor over this. My initial thought was to send this information to Dr. Laura and let her rile her base, but do you all think Malkin would be a better messenger for this? She does seem to be in need of things to write about. I’d appreciate your input.

  • colin…

    having seen the pictures on the intertubes, dr. laura might not be against the “i’d rather be naked” shirts.

  • I can’t believe the time these sick, sick people wasted over this titanic issue, but I’m glad they wasted time.

  • Maybe Dunkin’ Donuts rememberd who their customers are. I wouldn’t go to a Dunkin’ Donuts anyway – it’s the kind of place people stupid enough to pass the entry exam for being Republicans go to – i.e., those with no taste, mouth-breathing food-shovellers.

  • For those who say Michelle Malkin is a nutjob, you’re wrong. She is a terribly cunning opportunist. Go over to Orcinus and search on her name, to find out her history. She’s a “journalist” who was being fired in Seattle for incompetence, who realized she could market anything to wingnuts if it was sufficiently outlandish – starting with her book that claimed the internment of the Japanese-Americans in WW2 was justified and right and should be emulated today. You can think of her as the same type as Dennis Miller – talentless but conniving and willing to do anything to get the fame she’s always known was her birthright.

  • Sheesh, Ray wasn’t even wearing it over her hair! From the description, I thought it must have been draped like a hijab. We all remember how, when Nancy Pelosi visited Syria, she wore a scarf over her head, as a gesture of respect for her hosts when she visited a mosque, and Malkin immediately denounced her for “wearing the uniform of the enemy.” Malkin is seriously unhinged.

  • Can anyone identify the peculiar substance into which the Dunkin Donut executives must have been dunking their doughnuts before reaching this ridiculous decision?

  • a keffiyeh is checked, not paisley –except among a subset of terrorists who are true fashionistas (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). — mellowjohn, @26

    True, but don’t you see how paisleys are even worse? While both are of Eastern origin, checks are at least relatively straightforward. Paisleys, OTOH… Straight out of the convoluted, unbalanced, multi-layered and diseased terrorist mindset…

    Poor Malkin; she’s the only one who knows that there’s a terrorist under every bed… er…scarf and nobody treats her warnings seriously.

  • Can anyone identify the peculiar substance into which the Dunkin Donut executives must have been dunking their doughnuts before reaching this ridiculous decision?

    Koolaid?

  • Malkin is not unhinged – we are! Normally she would have been laughed off the planet, but in this post 9/11 fantasy world created by the ever successful GOP, we cannot even debatre if the scarff was appropriate or not. Dunkin folds and does away with the offending scarff; big deal. The frightened populace will find something – anything – to be afraid of, because Bush says so. Stay scared – always! That is the mindset of the average American. We have surely lost our way and this example is another in a long line that maybe we are not clever enough to elect our own representatives. Maybe the right siders who long for a monarchy are on to something. Does anyone have any courage out there? /crickets chirping….

  • C’mon, folks! I understand this, it’s obvious!
    The wingnuts live and die by dog-whistles, primarily about race, Jeebus & his infallable book (remember Condi’s “birth pangs” and how about the old school “states rights”?)
    So, being master projectors (the Left is so full of hate!!!), they think that they have intercepted a secret code of us jihad-loving lefties, and they pounce!
    Yes, they are people different than us.

  • There’s a saying we have here in my neck of the woods: You can’t argue crazy. And this, my friends, is one crazy story. Then again, these folks are the very same folks who carried Bush/Cheney signs during the 2000 and 2004 elections, so who’s surprised? Go to the house of any one of the people who actually boycotted Dunkin Donuts for this scarf nonsense, and I’ll bet you an Obama t-shirt you’ll find a stockpile of plastic sheeting and duct tape.

    Cattle…useless, self-righteous cattle, every one.

  • “You can’t argue crazy.”

    Here, here.

    But the sad, disgusting, unbelievable thing about it is that these guys are winning. They are winning right now and have been for years. If only the Dems and their political machine where this organized. Granted, I don’t think I want them to be – that’s kind of the point. But If only the machinations for progress were as strong and as influential for these Guardians of Ignorance and Intolerance.

    Sadder still, is that we live in a culture where Business Interests far exceed any other concern. The Republicans are masters at smear, disinformation, and the other vile languages of The Free Market, so they know how to control this tempest.

    And worse yet, is that the overwhelming majority of this country is too fucking stupid to see what is going on, while those that do see it are too busy trying to pay their mortgage and put food on the table for their children to do anything about it.

  • “Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence — unintentionally or not — they matter.”

    Therefore camo must go.

  • Ohmigawd, I just went on the DD site to contact them ( to explain that that I’m boycotting them because they’re idiots to encourage other idiots), and there’s a new ad up. We must stop them, there’s a person in it with dark skin, and we all know what *that* means.

  • *And* don’t forget that DD uses Arabica coffee, which makes it obvious that they’re in league with the terrrrrists.

    I’m going to go have an Irish non-DD coffee, this makes my head hurt.

  • Surely there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise located in the Green Zone in Baghdad. I think an ad campaign focused on happy American troops fighting “terrorism,” that is Muslims, overseas (as opposed to the kind of bully terrorism exemplified by Malkin and her ilk) . . .

    . . . anyway, anybody at DD see a great pushback opportunity here?

  • Gawker has picture of Meghan McCain, daughter of the Republican presidential candidate, wearing the keffiyeh. I suppose that explains the Far Rights disapproval of Johnn McCain.

  • If you’ve seen that shrill little monster some call a woman, you know my sacrifice is greater than hers.

    This is not just inappropriate, but shamefully inappropriate. I yield to no one in my contempt for Michelle Malkin’s politics, but they are just that — her politics. Her gender has absolutely nothing to do with anything related to this discussion, and I think it’s very crappy of you to make a statement like that that is so filled with hatred of and anger toward women, when the problem is Malkin’s political views, and her personal paranoia, but not her appearance or the fact she’s a woman.

    Not that it’s relevant, but Michelle Malkin is actually a very attractive woman, physically. The ugliness is inside her, and that’s the place that matters.

  • People like Malkin should be imprisoned for inciting such a situation that is TOTALLY absurd. People have been wearing black and white for YEARS…anyone remember the 80’s? I have had it with people stirring the pot with baseless reasoning and for the pure hell of causing grief.

  • She should do a patriotic ad now wearing the traditional head garb of an American airforce pilot !

  • Lots of people seem to know nothing about the issues, but that unfortunately doesn’t stop them from desperately seeking attention.
    While all of the useless bloviating about “protecting” Middle Eastern culture has been wasting bandwith, Dunkin’ Donuts has actually been DOING SOMETHING to invest in the lives of actual Middle Eastern people. Let us not forget that 100% of Dunkin’ Donuts shops are owned by independent franchisees, not a giant corporation. Many of these family franchises are owned by people of Middle Eastern descent. Gee—I wonder how they feel about your boycotting their business and taking food from their childrens mouths to “protect” them?
    Dunkin’ has invested BIG TIME in Arab and other eastern countries to create wealth and jobs for people there. What have you done, aside from try to take away the livelihood of thousands of Middle Eastern families and that of North Americans of Middle Eastern descent with a mindless boycott?

    Well, well, now. Here is just ONE example (and it was very easy to find, there are LOTS more):
    Dunkin’ Donuts opens biggest kitchen complex in Sharjah
    Sharjah: Tue, 3 Jun 2008

    Dunkin’ Donuts has opened the company’s largest commercial kitchen and warehouse complex in the Middle East region in Sharjah. The complex, built on an area of 30,000 sq ft, is the company’s biggest facility of its kind outside the US.
    Sheikh Mohammed Saud Sultan Al Qasimi, chairman of the government of Sharjah Finance Department and proprietor of Continental Foods, owners of the Dunkin’ Donuts Franchise in the UAE, inaugurated the new facility.
    Addressing a large gathering present at the opening ceremony, Sheikh Mohammed said Sharjah’s new Dh19 million ($5.17 million) Dunkin Donuts kitchen and warehouse complex will produce the full range of donuts in 50 different varieties and currently has the capacity to produce 50 million donuts per year.
    He said that twice daily deliveries are made to the outlets around the country to ensure that customers receive their donuts absolutely fresh.
    David Rodgers, Dunkin’ Donuts general manager noted that Dunkin’ Donuts had grown from one outlet in 1997 to 45 now covering the entire UAE. “This stupendous growth has necessitated the need for a much larger commercial kitchen facility,” he said.
    “We have risen to be the most popular coffee & baked goods chain in the UAE serving high quality hot and cold beverages and fresh donuts,” remarked Rodgers.
    Citing a recent customer survey, Rodgers stated that nearly half (47 per cent) of its clientele in the UAE comprised UAE nationals and Arab expatriates while Asians accounted for around 23 per cent of its customer base.
    “Suitable for breakfast or as a snack at mid-morning or afternoon, our donuts are popular even among the Western expatriate population in the UAE as also the Filipino community,” he observed.
    Today, Dunkin’ Donuts is the world’s largest coffee and baked goods chain, serving more than three million customers per day. Dunkin’ Donuts sells 52 varieties of donuts and more than a dozen coffee beverages as well as other baked goods.
    “Dunkin’ Donuts outlets are conveniently situated in all the major Shopping Malls. Outlining the popularity of the food chain worldwide,” Rodgers added.
    “We plan to expand extensively throughout the UAE to ensure that our stores are conveniently located and within reach of everyone in the country,” he stressed.-TradeArabia News Service

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