My respect for Gap has just grown exponentially. Not only did the cotton co.'s new ad feature a gorgeous couple—one of whom is Sikh model Waris Ahluwalia—it fought back against racism with aplomb. According to an article in Buzzfeed, a subway billboard with the slogan "Make Love" was vandalized to read: “Make Bombs” and “Please stop driving taxis.”
When Gap got word of the incident via a tweet by the senior editor at The Islamic Monthly, Arsalan Iftikhar, it immediately made the image its new profile picture. Gap also contacted requested details from Iftikhar so it could set about replacing the defaced banner, which was said to be located in the Bronx, N.Y.
For Iftikhar, though, seeing the graffiti served as sad proof that the U.S. still has a long way to go when it comes to racial tolerance.
"I want to live in an America where a fashion model can be a handsome, bearded brown dude in a turban who is considered as beautiful as a busty blonde-haired white girl in see-through lingerie," he wrote in The Daily Beast.
We do too, Iftikhar.
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