That kind of objection could be applied to basically all of human history though, and views all of human activity through a very narrow, one-dimensional lens. I personally find the idea that you cannot celebrate anything if it occurred during a time of injustice to be so ridiculous that it genuinely distracts from legitimate criticisms.
No, no it is not. Nor is the Ok sign. Nor is the * Dont tread on me flag. *
A timely article from Threads magazine about Ross and the flag:
May well be: the Wall Street Journal article apparently discussing the issue in detail, which I can’t read because paywall, is briefly described here:
Update: Republican governor Doug Ducey of Arizona is apparently canceling an offered financial incentive package for Nike to build a factory in Goodyear, AZ, on account of miffed feelings about the withdrawal of the “Betsy Ross flag” sneaker. I’m not sure it makes a whole lot of sense economically to cut off Arizona workers’ noses to spite Nike’s face, especially since the whole foofaraw is probably providing tons of valuable free publicity for Nike.
ETA: ninja’d by Darren Garrison, with one caveat:
Well, more like “Arizona tells Nike to go give other people the jobs they were being invited to give Arizonans”.
I also don’t really get how people are justifying spinning this in the online outrage uproar as Nike being “unpatriotic”. ISTM that there’s nothing unpatriotic about saying that racist associations disqualify a particular symbol from being an acceptable signifier of patriotism, even if there’s room for disagreement about whether the “Betsy Ross flag” symbol actually does have racist associations.
“Ban”? Who is suggesting any form of “ban” on the “Betsy Ross flag” symbol? AFAICT, this is about one company deciding to stop their use of the symbol as a marketing device for their brand because they feel it has racist associations that are bad for their image.
Personally, I never saw anything particularly patriotic in the symbolism of slapping an American flag on a grimy old sneaker anyway. It’s not as outright mystifying to me as the mindset of the people who think it’s patriotic to literally use American flag iconography on a doormat, but it’s still a bit bizarre.
This is stupid. Is every US symbol pre 1865 racist? I have some coins that are pre 1865 should I throw them away?
Well, what did the pre-1865 US stand for, ideologically? Many different things, including legal chattel slavery of black people. I think it’s a bit oversensitive to get all indignant when somebody not unreasonably points out that the history of American slavery tends to associate pre-Civil War America with racism. (Not that the history of post-Reconstruction American racial segregation and oppression did a whole lot to fix that association, mind you.)
Um, this seems to be taking snowflakey overreaction to a fairly extreme level. I am not seeing anybody saying that every instance of any symbol associated with the US prior to 1865 needs to be “thrown away”. Just that maybe such a symbol isn’t the best marketing choice for a sales campaign built around themes of racial justice and equality.
Jeez, people, maybe just calm down a bit? Neither Nike nor Colin Kaepernick is telling you that you have to “throw away” every instance of American iconography dating from the days of legalized slavery. But they are also not exactly wrong when they acknowledge that the existence of legalized slavery in those days somewhat tarnishes our self-congratulatory image of early America as the good old days of freedom and equality.
It’s like prayer at football games. What version of the flag wouldn’t be disrespectful on a shoe?
Yes, that is a good description of Kaepernick!
The US flag code law probably would not allow a flag on a shoe but that may only apply to the current flag. Also there are many cases where this law is ignored when people make shirts , etc with the flag .
:dubious: Who actually fits the description of “overreacting snowflake” here? The activist who allegedly said to a major corporation something along the lines of “Um, this slavery-era US flag frequently used as an emblem by modern right-wing ‘patriot’ groups is maybe not a good look for a sneaker-sales ad campaign based on my protests against racial injustice”?
Or the Republican governor who threw a public tantrum about the corporation’s marketing decision, to the extent of rescinding a financial-incentive package to encourage the corporation to build a factory in his state to provide jobs to his constituents, while whining “We don’t need to suck up to companies that consciously denigrate our nation’s history”?
We may disagree with Kaepernick and Nike about how salient the racist associations of the “Betsy Ross flag” symbol really are, but the honest-to-gosh overreacting snowflakes here are the folks losing their shit at them for allegedly “unpatriotic” transgressions when all they did was to make a marketing decision about their own products. Chill out, people.
[quote=“Kimstu, post:31, topic:836376”]
:dubious: Who actually fits the description of “overreacting snowflake” here? /QUOTE]
Kaepernick. He has graduated from “principled objector” to “pathetic clown.”
Of course she didn’t. It’s made of nylon.
That just seems like a really weird and melodramatic assessment of the mere act of (allegedly) telling the company that he has a sponsorship contract with that a patriotic symbol from the era of slavery is widely perceived as having racist connotations, and therefore isn’t the best marketing choice for the company’s product.
(And it’s not like Kaepernick is just making up that assessment out of his own head, either: the “Betsy Ross flag” has been described as problematic for a while now, as noted in this article from September 2016: )
And you think that merely pointing that out is somehow more “pathetic” and “overreacting” than the response of the governor who went to the lengths of nixing a tax-break package for the company (or, in your own somewhat overheated rhetoric, telling the company to “go fuck itself”) to provide jobs to the citizens of his own state, just because he was so outraged at the company’s internal marketing decision?
:dubious: Somebody’s being pathetic clowns and oversensitive snowflakes here, but I don’t think it’s Kaepernick.
Lil thinskinned aintcha? Back in the day, we didn’t get offended every time someone said something we didn’t like.
Where is it “widely perceived” as having “racist connotations”? This is the first time I’ve ever heard of it.
I truly and sincerely hope that Nike looses a shit-ton of business over this idiocy.
“widely perceived” meaning "I think so, thereby…":rolleyes:
Are you seriously suggesting that something can’t be “widely” familiar even though you’ve never heard of it before? Because that seems like a rather unrealistic benchmark.
As I quoted from a September 2016 article in my previous post:
Here’s a January 2019 comment from someone on r/vexillology about “Controversial flags”:
Your inexplicable fury over what is just an internal marketing decision by Nike about sneaker decoration, based on a potentially sensitive PR issue about which reasonable people can disagree, is coming across as more and more baffling. I mean, who tf cares if Nike might be erring a bit on the side of over-caution about the symbolic connotations of their shoe design? You are fuming as though Nike just launched a billboard campaign declaring “Darren Garrison Can Suck Our Big Nylon-Mesh Dick” or something.
Anyway, not to make you even madder, but I kind of doubt that this particular marketing decision is going to cause Nike to “loose” any business. Their PR people are probably not stupid and have likely figured out the relative pros and cons of making this call. (Including the fact that any business they might have lost from people outraged over their discontinuation of the “Betsy Ross flag” symbol was probably already lost when Nike hired Kaepernick as brand ambassador in the first place. And that seems to have worked out quite well for them as of six months ago or so: )
So yeah, Nike is probably going to make a lot more than it loses off this latest wave of controversy-sparked free publicity, especially if their critics go on frothing at the mouth in this belligerent but weirdly entertaining way.
Heck, not even all Arizonans are on board with their governor’s outraged decision to tell Nike, as you put it, “to go fuck itself”:
You sure are good at projecting strong emotions on to short text messages that you read on a screen.
Possibly. I was expressing a hope, not an expectation. I’m well aware that idiocy is often rewarded, though.