Tommy Hilfiger

The topic of this week's sermon is the Ninth Commandment of Moses:
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

I regret to inform you today that a whole lot of nice, earnest folks who surely don't consider themselves liars are using the Internet to spread a false and libelous rumor about fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger.

It comes to them in the form of a forwarded email message. They read it, they either believe it to be true or don't care if it's true, and they send it on to friends, associates, and people they hardly even know with the click of a mouse button.

Knowingly or not, each one of these people thus becomes a link in a growing chain of lies.

Subject: FWD: Tommy Hilfiger hates us... Did you see the recent Oprah Winfrey show on which Tommy Hilfiger was a guest? Oprah asked Hilfiger if his alleged statements about people of color were true - he's been accused of saying things such as "If I had known that African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians would buy my clothes, I would not have made them so nice," and "I wish those people would not buy my clothes - they were made for upper-class whites." What did he say when Oprah asked him if he said these things? He said "Yes." Oprah immediately asked Hilfiger to leave her show.

Now, let's give Hilfiger what he's asked for - let's not buy his clothes. Boycott! Please - pass this message along.

As I say, that's just one version – the sanitized, "politically correct" one, if you will. A more popular and impolite variant goes like this:

Subject: Did you see this show - Nov. 28th. For those who missed the Oprah Winfrey show where she interviewed the fashion designer, he made a VERY RACIST remark regarding the people that purchase his clothing line... Summed up, he basically said that if he had known that so many chinamen and niggers were going to buy his clothes, he never would have made it so nice....... After which, Oprah kindly asked him to leave. Now that we all know that he is a BIG TIME RACIST, my suggestion is that we and all of our friends should boycott the TOMMY HILFIGER line. I don't see any point in supporting someone who has such a narrow mind... What a jerk this guy is! Yeah, if it weren't for us CHINAMEN and NIGGERS, does he think he can be where he is today?????

Please forward this to everyone you know, he really does not deserve anyone's support at all.

I know some members of the congregation must be wondering: "How does he know that?"

Well, the answer is quite simple: I looked it up, friends, just as any one of you could have looked it up before you sent it off in all directions out in cyberspace. It took all of two minutes to find the answers.

Try it youself. Go to Infoseek and do a search on the keywords "hilfiger racist."

Among other interesting results, you'll find a link to the USA Today article entitled " Designer Hilfiger disputes Net rumors of racism." Hilfiger has never appeared on Oprah, the article declares. It goes on to quote a statement from a company representative:

You'll also find Internet World's July '97 item, " Rumors: All the Fashion." It reveals how callously one rumormonger responded when she was told the information she'd posted to a Usenet newsgroup was false. (It's not too late for her to repent!)

It takes a bit more time and digging to locate it, but there's also an informative New York Times article online in which the Hilfiger Company states hopefully, "The circulation of the false information on the Internet appears to be declining."

That was in 1997. Sad to say, Hilfiger is still learning how hard it is to kill Internet rumors.

In closing, friends, let me remind you that there's a point to all this apart from the plain fact that the Hilfiger rumor is false. The point is that a lie is a lie, whether you say it with your mouth or send it in an email. The point is that you needn't bear false witness against your neighbor when the truth is only a few clicks away.

Hilfiger 'Racist' Rumor Is Fashionable Again