Nagsimula noong April 19, 2022 ang streaming ng Netflix sa White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch, ang documentary tungkol sa clothing retailer sa Amerika na sumikat noong late 1990s at early 2000s.
Nasangkot sa malaking kontrobersiya ang Abercrombie & Fitch dahil inakusahan ito ng racial discrimination kaya sinampahan ng kaso ng kanilang mga dating empleyado.
Ang Filipino-American na si Dr. Anthony Ocampo ng Los Angeles, California ang isa sa mga nagtrabaho sa Ambercrombie & Fitch noong kabataan niya.
Kasama siya sa siyam na nagsakdal laban sa naturang kompanya dahil sa mga diskriminasyon na kanilang naranasan.
Idinemanda ni Ocampo at ang mga kasamahan nito ang Abercrombie & Fitch noong 2003.
Ito ang bahagi ng kanyang pahayag sa documentary na mapapanood sa Netflix:
“It seemed super explicit. I went to the store. I just spoke with whoever was working there and she said, 'I’m sorry we can’t rehire you.'
“And I asked, 'Why not?'
“And she said, ‘My manager said we can’t rehire you ‘cause we already have too many Filipinos working at this store.’
“I was, like, 'Are you serious?'
“And she looked pretty uncomfortable and she was, like, ‘Yeah.’
“At no point did I ever say I was Filipino so that was a guess on the part of the person that worked there that I was Filipino.
“I remember telling my parents and I told close friends. They heard it and they very much agreed with me that was fucked up.
“I guess people didn’t know what to do, including my parents. Like, what do you tell your kid when someone says that we can’t hire you ‘cause of who you are?” pagbabalik-tanaw ni Ocampo sa mga pangyayari nang bumalik siya noon sa branch ng Abercrombie & Fitch na kanyang pinaglilingkuran para muling magtrabaho.
Patuloy niya, “I’m one of the people that sued Abercrombie…
"One of my friends who’s Mexican-American was working at MALDEF, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and he was working for Tom Saenz.
"And it turns out that Tom had heard other rumblings of people being discriminated at Abercrombie. I was really pissed off, like I was enraged and it never went away.
"And so when I was invited to be part of the lawsuit, I thought, 'Oh, okay, here’s an opportunity to call Abercrombie on their bullshit of trying to say they’re an all-American brand and yet the way they’re maintaining this image of all-American is to hire a bunch of white folks and fire a bunch of people of color.'"
Pinatotohanan ito ng ibang mga dating empleyado ng Abercrombie & Fitch na nawalan ng trabaho dahil sa kanilang kulay at lahi.
Ang former model ng Abercrombie & Fitch na si Samuel Etienne ang isa sa mga nagpatunay tungkol sa mga diskriminasyong umiral noon sa pamamagitan ng artikulo na kanyang isinulat para sa Bloomberg nitong April 22, 2022.
Bahagi ng rebelasyon ni Etienne: “Netflix’s White Hot documentary chronicling the heady days of Abercrombie & Fitch’s popular and exclusionary marketing strategy of tying oiled abs, gyrating bodies and white-picket fence Americana to brand identity is an accurate portrayal. I should know: I was one of the shirtless models who greeted visitors to its store.
“The London store where I worked was the only store outside of North America for a prolonged period. Shoppers flocked from locations including the United Arab Emirates and Russia to spend thousands on clothing in the dimly-lit, club-like surroundings.
“The cleaners were from South America. The overnight restocking staff were largely South Asian. Minorities were often situated in the fitting rooms, dark hallways or back of the store.
"The closer to the front of the store and entrance, the more White and American in appearance the retail staff became."