Hot Topic FYI

[Maewyn]

Hot Topic stores admit to religious discrimination in company policy

http://www.newwitch.com/pressrelease/hottopic.html

This is a press release, but I have no reason not to believe the magazine publishing it. Likewise, I'm not sure if I'm just passing on something sensational, but I've shopped at Hot Topic quite a bit and never seen so much as a pentacle that I can remember.

[Kae]

Discrimination of any kid annoys me. :x But you are right, the closest thing I have seen in Hot Topic lately that is anywhere near pagan related are faeries, and that is stretching it. So I sent and e-mail asking Hot Topic about the article. I will let you know if they respond.
Kae

[emalia]

I know that shannon works at hot topic.. From what I have seen of this company.. They don't carry religious items of any sort.. I have been in there NUMEROUS times in the past 3 months, and I havn't even seen a cross.. So rather than discrimination, I would say that they are practicing religious indiference, by not carrying anything religious..

[Maewyn]

That makes more sense. I knew there was something bugging me about that press release...to state the obvious :roll: , press releases are skewed to make the authoring company look best.

Anyway. I don't know if it's worth a boycott, especially if they carry NO religious items at all. That's not so much discrimination as refusing to get into the subject, like you said.

[Belladonna]

Yeah, um...that article is silly. Even in the quote that they put in there it admits nothing of the sort.

We dont carry ANYTHING religious in order to prevent offending ANY of our customers. Yes, the store used to carry things like that. Hell, we even used to carry shirts that said Pimp and Slut on them. But we dont anymore so as not to offend anyone. Mainly the parents that shop for their children at our stores.

I dont personally think it's because the company doesnt agree with religious freedom. Quite the contrary. It's more a matter of recognizing, again IN MY OPINION, that not everyone who shops at our stores is pagan and therefore we could offend THEM.

I have parents return silly little things that their children have bought simply because they dont like our store. I would only imagine what those same said parents would think if they saw a magazine devoted to witches on our shelves. The only ones we carry right now are music related and tattoo related.

I think that this magazine personally needs to lighten the fuck up. We are a clothing store, not a pagan store. And in all honesty, from what I can tell 90% of our patrons are NOT of an 'alternative' religion. Most are middle class, white, organized religion devoted parents shopping for their rebellious teenagers.

[jmthane]

This has been quite the topic on a couple of Pagan Yahoogroups in the Chicago area that I'm on. I would like to point out the following quote from the press release:


In a phone conversation with [newWitch Editor-In-Chief Anne Newkirk] Niven, Ms. Marissa Mitchell [Papergoods Buyer for Hot Topic] admitted that some of these 'complicated issues' involved pressure from the Religious Right to Hot Topic's management to ban all Wicca and witch-related merchandise from its stores...

This was a few years ago. Since then, it is my understanding that they carry no religious articles of any sort. (This, however, seems to vary from store to store, per e-mails I've received.)

However, the bottom line of the discussions we've had on the 'groups is that Dagonet Dewr, Managing Editor of newWitch Magazine is just pissed off 'cause HT wouldn't carry his magazine. Our opinion only, YMMV.

[emalia]

However, the bottom line of the discussions we've had on the 'groups is that Dagonet Dewr, Managing Editor of newWitch Magazine is just pissed off 'cause HT wouldn't carry his magazine. Our opinion only, YMMV.

I think you are right.. I think that is what it boils down to.. It does not seem that they have included the whole quote.

[Belladonna]

Well, the only thing that is in my store that could even be considered close to 'religious' is a BLACK gothic styled cross belly button ring with a red stone in it.

Otherwise, nada.

I sent the link to my district manager to forward on to whomever might be interested in corporate for it.

[Kae]

Ok, I told you if I received a reply, I would post it. Here it is and it is very informative. I will also send it to the editor of the magazine.

Dear Kari:

Thank you for taking the time to email me. There seems to be some incomplete information circulating so I appreciate the chance to explain our assortment philosophy to you.

As you probably know, we are a mall based business. Our target customer age is 12 to 22 so we are categorized as a "teen retailer". We are "Everything About the Music" and as such, focus our assortment on rock music and it's related trends.

About 5 years ago, we made a company decision not to carry any product that contains a religious symbol. These includes crucifixes, rosaries, pictures of Jesus, stars of David, pentagrams, etc. We felt that unless we could do justice to all religions, it was not appropriate for us to selectively decide which symbols were important. We also changed our employee dress code. This decision was based on input we received from customers, employees and mall developers. The overwhelming feeling was that we market to teenagers and unless we could offer a full selection of products (as a bookstore is able to do), we could possibly give the appearance of favoring one religion over the next. The only exception is music, which we will not censor. So, you will find religious symbols and references on our music licensed products (rock tees, CD's, and music stickers).

I hope this helps you to understand our assortment choices. Most importantly, we are not excluding any one particular religion. We have many Wiccans working for Hot Topic (and Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, etc.) so I can assure you that as an organization, we are supportive of all religious preferences.

Again, thank you for your message.

Sincerely,

Betsy McLaughlin

CEO & President

[Belladonna]

YAY Betsy!

It's so nice to know that I work for a company that the CEO actually answers things like this!

[Isabella]

*nods* I've noticed that also. It's very clean spiritualty. I think I've seen Tarot Cards, and Faery things, but that's about it at ours. The store that gets crazy is Spencers. They've got some really meffed up jewelry. Stuff that makes me think "Who in their right mind...." Then I look around, and realize the majority of folks are 20 and under with acception of us two shopping in there.

The link didn't come through for me, so I couldn't read the article. :P