Well, we’ve received the official statement from American Apparel’s Media Relations Director, Cynthia Semon objecting to our coverage of American Apparel and its founder, Dov Charney. In it she attempts to bait us into a he-said-she-said battle. We’re going to pass on that invite.

The boss says the business isn’t anti-union. The boss also says that sexual harassment isn’t a problem in his workplace. The boss said the AA building was built in 1920s, not the 1940s.* Okay. Read the articles in our section. Then read some more articles (here on our blog and elsewhere), and decide for yourself.

Clamor is an independent media outlet that works with everyday people to tell the stories that are important to our communities. We stand by the articles in this special section because they are accurate and resonate with what a lot of people are feeling. We and many of our readers feel duped by a company that has made a lot of money appealing to our progressive ideals.

American Apparel is attempting to do to Clamor what it has done fairly successfully to independent (and corporate) media outlets — squash criticism through threats of legal action, intimidation, or discrediting of the source or the journalist. We’ve been gathering stories from blogs, radio programs, magazines, filmmakers, and TV shows big and small of just how American Apparel has worked to prevent critical stories from being published. It’s a solid model that works well to eliminate dissenting voices and create a chilling effect on future coverage. You’ll be hearing more from us on this when we finish our research. In the meantime, you might want to have a conversation with Weronika Cwir — one of AA’s Media Relations staffers whose current job description seems to have been rewritten to include “trolling the internet to talk trash about Clamor on various blogs.” Tell her we said “Hello!”

We take Semon’s letter as an indication that we have achieved our goal of accurately and passionately critiquing a fashionable sacred cow of liberal style. An apology will not be forthcoming. American Apparel is welcome to make the case to concerned consumers of its products that it can conduct its business without sexism or anti-union tactics. However, to do that will presumably take more substance than PR.

And that is precisely what has American Apparel’s 100% Baby Rib cotton briefs ($30 for a 3-pack) in a bunch.

*Jim Straub’s article actually said, “The company possesses a downtown textile factory straight out of the ’40s, a sexploitation ad campaign from the ’70s, and a marketing strategy so sophisticated it almost seems to come from the future.”

Oh man. We’ve really done it now. Ya see, about six months or so ago, we decided that we were really sick of American Apparel getting a free pass from so many news media outlets for being the long-awaited savior in an industry that is built on the backs of sweatshop workers. We smelled a rat between the sexy ads and sexual harassment claims, and editors Mariana Ruiz and Jessica Hoffmann put together a 10-page investigative look into international hipsters’ favorite sexy shirt source. The issue is already stirring up a whole mess of shit, and most people haven’t even seen it yet.

You should definitely subscribe to Clamor to have the issue delivered to your door and support vital indpendent media. While you’re waiting for your subscription to kick in, take a moment to sneak preview the special section as a PDF here.

Oops: Case Still Pending.
In this Fall 2006 issue, we incorrectly reported that Mary Nelson, a store manager at American Apparel, had withdrawn her sexual harassment suit against CEO Dov Charney. It has come to our attention that the suit by Mary Nelson, a sales manager, is still pending, and that an unnamed store manager withdrew her suit against the company.

For the past year, New Orleans poet/writer/educator/organizer Kalamu Ya Salaam has been sending out post-Katrina dispatches on his e-drum list-serve. He has graciously given us permission to reprint yesterday’s powerful missive here:

I Am Ashamed of Myself
By Kalamu ya Salaam
Post-Katrina New Orleans

I woke up this morning. I was ashamed.

I couldn’t remember what I was doing in 1994. In April. The rainy season. Even if my life depended on it, I could not recall any specifics. I just couldn’t remember.

Over 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered then. I don’t remember what I did but not having anything that I remember tells me that I did nothing memorable.

I don’t even have a poem specifically about the genocide. Did I write a letter, a petition, an article? Did I do anything? It is depressingly banal how often the reality registers: when the good do nothing, the bad do everything.

Why is goodness always cast as a coward? The truth is, if we do nothing, we can not be good. Doing nothing is a collaboration with the worst of ourselves.

Less than four hours earlier at three-something in the morning when I should have been sleeping I had just finished watching “Sometimes In April,” Raoul Peck’s movie about genocide in Rwanda a dozen years ago. I stagger to bed emotionally drained.

I assume while I was asleep my subconscious was taking inventory. When I awoke, a terrible truth appeared: if I did nothing during Rwanda, I had no high ground from which to expect others to do something for New Orleans.

All of the tasks I should be doing but for whatever reasons I have not done, each of them stood at my bedside and took turns whacking at my conscience.

My discomfort was not just Rwanda. Kysha, Robin and I are working on a poetry anthology appropriately entitled “The End of Forever.” Over the last couple of weeks I have come up missing in action. I am mired in a swamp of inaction, emotionally overwhelmed at times. The book is in the last stages, just a little more effort and it would be finished, but I lay in bed, dilly-dallying for no good reason-I don’t know what I’m waiting for and I’m not sleepy, it’s just…

But the book is not the only thing. More and more people are calling me about Listen to the People. If I push harder I could make more happen, faster. We should have been up and online by now. There are specifics I can not do, technical matters others have to address, but I could put my shoulder to the wheel and make things turn faster. I could, but…

My wife is patient with me, never once complaining as I leave the house every evening and don’t come back until round midnight, going to spend hours with Doug who is battling cancer and dueling with the after-affects of chemotherapy. Nia and I have not gone to the movies at all this year, and it has been some months since we have gone out to dinner together.

There have been days when I freely gave my full attention to visitors needing assistance with this, that or the other. On more than one occasion I have spent more time with someone I may never see again than I have with my wife whom I see almost every day-you see, I can not even say I see my wife everyday because some days…

Do you understand why I am ashamed? Yes, I know that I do so many good things for the cause, but I do not remember what I did in April of that killing season occurring in a ten-thousand-square-mile country of around eight million souls. Count off eight people you know, if they had been Rwandan, most likely at least one of them would be dead-and not just dead, but smashed like an insect. Thus the marauders crowed, explaining why they used machetes: we do not waste bullets on cockroaches.

I have not completed the book we planned to have ready by the end of August. Our Listen to the People website is not fully operational yet. My wife and I eat separately. Do you understand how it feels to see yourself like that?

I tell myself to get up. Get moving. It is another day. We’re alive. There’s so much we can do. But… it’s raining outside, just like April in that breathtakingly beautiful land of a thousand hills.

Most of us never know when our end will arrive. I stared at my computer screen as actors under Peck’s direction portrayed people who knew they were about to die. At one point I hit the space bar to pause the action. I reached up, wiped my eyes, and then continued watching. If I had been there, what would I have done?

Lying on my side, face to the wall, a hard answer severs my sense of self half-in-two: Had I been in Kigali, I may have done nothing but watch, that is, if I were lucky enough not to be a Hutu hacking a Tutsi, or a Tutsi being hacked, I probably would have been a so-called innocent onlooker… after all that is what I was as I sat in Houston in my brother-in-law’s living room watching on CNN as the Tutsis of my city were abandoned at the Ernest Morial Convention Center.

When we evacuated, our car was full but I left a working automobile behind. I can say: I did not expect the levees to break, I thought I would be back in a few days. I can say if I had stayed I would have been one of the locals, like Malik and Jerome, rescuing people before outside help arrived. But regardless of what I say or want to believe I might have done, the hard question remains. What did I do? When the deal went down, there I sat, just watching.

Now, I realize: every day is April. Whether it’s Rwanda or New Orleans, the same question wakes me: what am I doing about it today?

A dozen years from now will I have done anything worth remembering?

A tiny film with enormous implications is making its way to movie theaters across the country right now. The War Tapes chronicles 16 months of active duty in Iraq as filmed by three National Guardsmen from New Hampshire. They each agreed to carry digital video cameras with them during their tour and allow the “viewers at home” to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in the thick. The film, like the “war on terrorism,” is messy and unwatchable at times and full of contradicting messages as you hear and see the thoughts of these volunteer soldiers change (or stay rooted in their beliefs) over the course of 16 months.

The War Tapes is full of moments that will leave you breathless, but I found a particular scene with SGT Zaher (Zack) Bazzi incredibly moving. Born and raised in Lebanon for the first ten years of his life, Bazzi and his family eventually moved to the US. He joined the National Guard and was eventually deployed with the rest of his company to Iraq. Upon returning from his tour, Bazzi joins hundreds of other immigrants (dressed in his Army fatigues) in an mass ceremony to be sworn-in as an American citizen. While everyone cheers at the end of the ceremony, we watch Bazzi’s face — blank and distant, almost resigned — and bask in the irony.

Because of its earnest (and successful, in my opinion) attempts to provide an unfiltered look at the war from the perspective of reluctant and gung-ho soldiers alike, The War Tapes may very well do for the war in Iraq what Robert Greenwald’s Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices accomplished in mobilizing thousands to challenge the ubiquity of the big box giant. Find a screening near you and mark your calendar.

Environmental activist Rod Coronado will be sentenced on Monday August 7 after being convicted in a federal case for disabling a mountain lion trap in Sabino Canyon in Tucson, Arizona. Coronado will likely face 4-10 months in federal prison for his “crime,” and supporters are hoping that he’ll be allowed to report to the prison on a date following the hearing instead of being taken directly to prison from the courthouse. Coronado is also facing trial for “allegedly teaching, demonstrating or distributing information regarding destructive devices” according to an Arizona Indymedia report .

Coronado, a dedicated lifelong environmental activist, and his friends and family could really use your support. Read more about how you can show your support at the courthouse or with your donation to his legal fund on his website.

90% of workers lack health care benefits.
33% of workers subjected to abuse
67% of workers never receive overtime pay even though …
43% work more than 50 hours per week AND
35% work more than 60 hours per week.

Whose that employer? Wal-Mart you may wonder. The subcontracted workers rebuilding New Orleans?

Nope. This is the workplace reality of the Haitian, Ecuadorian, Bhutanese and other immigrant women pushing strollers, buying groceries, scrubbing toilets, changing diapers, preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner and otherwise keepin homes functional and raising children.

Such are some of the working conditions employed in the apartments, condos and private homes of metropolitan New York according to landmark research conducted by Domestic Workers United and the Datacenter.

For more info about DWU, see this summary in the Social Justice Wiki. (Note: that may be another resource that merits another look. and a whole new blog … seems to be an online resource created by students of Robin ‘yo Mama Dysfnktional’ DG Kelley.)

Home isn’t just where the heart is.
Home is where labor is and begins.