What **Guinastasia **said. Society is using the cheap and lazy approach by dodging things that have been commandeered by a few racists or trolls. It is just lazy to say, “Well, such-and-such bad guys use this so we’d better not use it.” When it’s gotten to the point that something innocuous like the OK hand sign can’t be used any more despite 4chan having explicitly said that it was their purpose to get society to feel squicky about a non-squicky thing, we’ve taken the bait too much.
At what point will we stop letting these trolls or racists control us?
I’m not convinced that stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that a particular symbol has ambiguous connotations because of (debatable) racist associations is really accomplishing anything against the racists, though.
Going back to Odesio’s comment:
The (reasonable) point here is that people of good will generally don’t want to be misinterpreted as promoting a racist message when they’re actually not. You are not in any meaningful way standing up to the racists by continuing to use a symbol that has some racist associations, if you’re not also making it clear to the people who see your use of that symbol that you’re repudiating those racist associations.
For example: I can see how displaying a “Betsy Ross flag” sticker next to a “Black Lives Matter” sticker and a rainbow Pride sticker would send the message that you don’t want the flag associated with reactionary white-nationalist ideology. But if you’re just displaying that flag sticker on its own, I don’t see how anybody’s supposed to be able to tell for sure whether you mean it in a racist way or not.
It’s still entirely up to you whether and how you want to display that or any other symbol, of course. Nike looked at the issue and decided not to display the “Betsy Ross flag” symbol on their product. They’re not telling anybody else what choice to make about displaying it.
I call “Foul!” You are quoting me out of context, and making it sound like I am setting my hair afire and running about screaming over this issue.
Mine was the quote about being unable to celebrate anything because it occurred during a time of injustice, so I will clarify precisely what I was talking about. The (rather thin) article linked in the OP had this to say: "Kaepernick… reportedly told the company that the flag, with 13 stars, was a symbol for slavery that offended many."DSYoungEsq’s post, to which I was replying, stated that Kaepernik’s reasoning was unrelated to the flag’s use by racists groups, and that in CK’s worldview “to idolize a symbol from that time period in our history is to idolize the institution that continued to oppress his ancestors.”
I don’t particularly care about Nike or whether they make this shoe, but it certainly appears that Kaepernik has a one-issue worldview that, to him anyway, equivocates celebration of any aspect of American history during the time of slavery to some sort of approval of slavery itself. It’s his attitude that I find to be absurdly reductionist and against which I was reacting when I said, “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.”
Getting harassed and shot by cops for no legitimate reason.
Being separated from your parents, imprisoned in detention centers, and suffering for months in inhumane conditions because you’re an undocumented immigrant.
Becoming bankrupt and dying because you don’t have access to affordable healthcare.
Drowning in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of student debt.
Not a real concern:
An athlete kneeling at a football game for the 1 or 2 minutes it takes to get through the national anthem.
What “real concerns and issues”, though? (ETA: ninja’d by you with the face.) Kaepernick was protesting racial injustice. We’re all against racial injustice, right?
His protest didn’t involve violence or hostility, just assuming a traditionally respectful but unconventional posture during the national anthem before football games. We’re all in favor of nonviolent protest, right?
You can certainly disagree with Kaepernick’s opinions or with some interpretations of his actions, but I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to blame him for doing anything “divisive”. His protests were about the most mild, non-disruptive, non-threatening form of demonstration in favor of a completely non-controversial principle that you could ever hope to see.
All the “divisiveness” came from the squalling outrage of a bunch of people who completely overreacted to the situation.
Actually, ISTM that the “cheap and lazy” part is ignoring the behavior of the racists and trolls when they start trying to “commandeer” the symbols that we claim to value, and only getting upset when the association of those symbols with racists and trolls begins to pose the risk that our own use of the symbols might be misinterpreted.
I mean, if droves of angry anti-racists had started online campaigns and counterdemonstrations to protest the use of the “Betsy Ross flag” symbol by white nationalist groups when they began “commandeering” it, then the racist connotations of the symbol would now be counterweighted by at least equally strong anti-racist connotations.
But our natural tendency to be cheap and lazy led us to do nothing about the optics of the situation until racists and trolls had already made significant headway in associating the symbol with their own poisonous ideology. So now we throw tantrums at the people who merely mention the unwelcome fact that the symbol has some racist associations.
“Couldn’t be bothered to shoot the enemy, always ready to shoot the messenger” about sums it up.
Isn’t this a chicken/egg thing here though? I mean, the Betsy Ross Flag’s supposed acquiring of racist connotations is not something I ever heard of until this thread, and I am apparently far from the only one. How do you protest the symbol-jacking before it becomes widespread enough so people agree that it is actually a thing, by which time it seems to be too late?
You don’t have to think it’s racist to not want it on your shoe. Wearing a flag that only celebrates the 13 original colonies, at a minimum, is bound to confuse people who are unfamiliar with it. Such a distraction will impact sales. Even without the perceptions of racism, it’s just not smart marketing.
Do yall really think Nike just blindly took Kaepernick’s word for it that the flag is problematic and didn’t do the math themselves? The obviousness of this is why I believe this whole story is a ruse to get people talking about Nike.
And now that you have heard of it, you’re focusing your criticism on the people who merely mention the existence of its racist connotations instead of the people who sought to give it those racist connotations.
Hey, it’s a free country (except for the trespassing on private property part).
But it’s also a free country for people to interpret your use of ambiguous symbols in a way that seems plausible to them, which may not necessarily be the way you want it to be interpreted. (Unless, of course, you’re deliberately exploiting the ambiguity of the symbols in the hopes of being able to piss people off and then accuse them of overreacting. But I think that might fall under the “trolls and racists” heading, which people in this thread seem to agree is bad.)
Am I? Have I criticized anyone who has mentioned the existence of it?
Kaepernik is the only person I criticized, and CK’s apparent labeling of the flag as a racist symbol was explained as being completely separate from some other groups’ use of it. It was merely dubbed racist because it was “from that time period in our history.”
No, sorry. But I think you’re grossly exaggerating when you describe Kaepernick’s position as “equivocates celebration of any aspect of American history during the time of slavery to some sort of approval of slavery itself”. Hell, Kaepernick played for the 49ers, a team name specifically celebrating an aspect of American history during the time of slavery.
I was a kid in the run-up to the bicentennial celebrations in 1976, and historical flags were everywhere. I recall that one of my favorite breakfast cereals featured historical American flags, perhaps in cut-out form on the back of the box, or stickers (I’m not sure now.)
I loved those stickers–the Continental Colors/Grand Union flag, the Bennington flag with the “76,” the Betsy Ross flag with the circle of stars, the Bunker Hill flag, etc.
Back then they were just symbols of independence. But the meaning of symbols change. If I see a yellow rectangle with a snake on it, that symbol means to me “idiot libertarian” or “despicable tea partier.” Regardless of how I felt about it as a child, there’s no way I’m going to display one as a symbol on my clothing or car or whatever.
This happens. Symbols can change meaning, and in a way that one might not prefer or like. If neo-Nazis are flying the Betsy Ross flag, then it makes perfect sense to stop flying it. You’re not “letting the badguys win.” They’re already winning by thriving in our system. It’s far more important to destroy the neo-Nazi movement than it is to quibble over whether we’re letting them steal a symbol. Destroy the neo-Nazis first, then worry about the Betsy Ross flag.
Fair enough, and I note that I can’t find any direct Kaepernik quotes to substantiate this characterization of his viewpoint. Everything I’ve seen not behind a paywall is just someone else talking about what he said or did.
This article though, says that Kaepernik said the flag “recalls an era when black people were enslaved and that it has been appropriated by white nationalist groups.” It goes on for a while to note that while some racist groups have used the flag on occasion, it’s not widely held to be any sort of racist symbol.
So just where does the boundary lie? At what point do we say enough is enough?
There are T-shirts that read “LGBT: Liberty, Guns, Bible and Trump.” Does this mean that lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people can’t use ‘LGBT’ anymore, since its meaning has been hijacked?
Yeah, 'cause the Manifest Destiny & Monroe Doctrine period* that followed wasn’t any better. It’s like the vicious dog just turned its snarling teeth away from the bunny and toward the kitten.
[I’m agreeing with you, Kimstu]
Well, we are talking about a Republican figurehead. You wouldn’t expect him to stay calm about a matter of nationalistic pride, particularly in a state where the majority of the power-mongers are white and the majority of the population ISN’T. Let’s face it, the last intelligent republican leader in that state died just over a year ago, and he was frequently only republican-in-name-only. He really worked hard to promote positive ethics.
–G!
Remember? “God gave us this land so we could populate it – never mind those extant populations that we’re slaughtering, they’re obstructing our divine rights! After all, we were here second!” [And someone needs to stop those yellow-bellies in their tracks 'cause they’re buying up our stolen land!]