Betsy Ross: Racist swine
EDIT: HERE'S THE LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/business/betsy-ross-shoe-kaepernick-nike.html
Note: The first headline for this story appearing on the NYT web site included the word "slavery". The headline has since been edited to its current reading.
What irritates me about this kerfuffle are the steps with which some people reason their way to the latest demon in need of exorcism.
1. A flag was made by Betsy Ross (disputed) in 1776; it was the first American flag. (not disputed)
2. The KKK, American Nazi Party, and other racists used the Betsy Ross flag in their iconography. (not disputed)
3. Other groups not associated with white racism have also used the flag for iconographic (not disputed)
4. Nike decides to decorate a shoe with the Betsy Ross flag image for the 2019 4th of July.
5. Colin Kaepernick put 2+2 together and got 5. He identified the Betsy Ross flag as a symbol associated with slavery and racism.
6. Nike, not wishing to be characterised as a racist tool of the KKK and American Nazi Party, withdraws the shoe.
Anything about the American Revolution, the US Government before 1865, and the flag of the United States could be associated with slavery. Slavery is a fact of our history. Racism (and sexism, heteronormativity, class oppression, ruthless exploitation, and numerous other features) have been part of our history from the get go.
While I have no loyalty or warm fuzzy feelings toward Nike Corporation (liquidate the filthy capitalist corporation!), I do think it is immensely unlikely that their use of Ross's flag on a shoe was in any way, shape, manner, or form a "racist gesture". It was just a plain old shallow patriotic gesture.
Colin Kaepernick was not performing a public service. He was performing a familiar sleight of hand:
We are to believe that because Betsy Ross's flag (a central item of American national iconography) has been used by disreputable groups, the only meaning that flag can now have is a symbol of racism and slavery. No shoes for Betsy Ross.
Nike should go ahead with the shoe bearing the 1776 flag. It isn't a racist symbol.
The US dime used to bear what was a symbol of Italian fascism--the bundle of sticks and an axe called the fasces. It was an ancient Roman symbol.
Using Kaepernick's reasoning, we should conclude that the Romans and Americans are both fascist since we were all using a symbol attached to 20th century fascism. Round up those old dimes and destroy them. Smash Racism!
Note: The first headline for this story appearing on the NYT web site included the word "slavery". The headline has since been edited to its current reading.
Nike planned to celebrate the Fourth of July with a new sneaker, a special edition of the Air Max 1 Quick Strike featuring that most patriotic of symbols: an American flag. ... On Tuesday, Nike canceled the release of the sneaker, again plunging headlong into the nation’s culture wars. ... The abrupt cancellation came after Colin Kaepernick, the former National Football League quarterback and social justice activist, privately criticized the design to Nike ... [Mr. Kaepernick is a Nike 'brand ambassador"]
What irritates me about this kerfuffle are the steps with which some people reason their way to the latest demon in need of exorcism.
1. A flag was made by Betsy Ross (disputed) in 1776; it was the first American flag. (not disputed)
2. The KKK, American Nazi Party, and other racists used the Betsy Ross flag in their iconography. (not disputed)
3. Other groups not associated with white racism have also used the flag for iconographic (not disputed)
4. Nike decides to decorate a shoe with the Betsy Ross flag image for the 2019 4th of July.
5. Colin Kaepernick put 2+2 together and got 5. He identified the Betsy Ross flag as a symbol associated with slavery and racism.
6. Nike, not wishing to be characterised as a racist tool of the KKK and American Nazi Party, withdraws the shoe.
Anything about the American Revolution, the US Government before 1865, and the flag of the United States could be associated with slavery. Slavery is a fact of our history. Racism (and sexism, heteronormativity, class oppression, ruthless exploitation, and numerous other features) have been part of our history from the get go.
While I have no loyalty or warm fuzzy feelings toward Nike Corporation (liquidate the filthy capitalist corporation!), I do think it is immensely unlikely that their use of Ross's flag on a shoe was in any way, shape, manner, or form a "racist gesture". It was just a plain old shallow patriotic gesture.
Colin Kaepernick was not performing a public service. He was performing a familiar sleight of hand:
We are to believe that because Betsy Ross's flag (a central item of American national iconography) has been used by disreputable groups, the only meaning that flag can now have is a symbol of racism and slavery. No shoes for Betsy Ross.
Nike should go ahead with the shoe bearing the 1776 flag. It isn't a racist symbol.
The US dime used to bear what was a symbol of Italian fascism--the bundle of sticks and an axe called the fasces. It was an ancient Roman symbol.
Using Kaepernick's reasoning, we should conclude that the Romans and Americans are both fascist since we were all using a symbol attached to 20th century fascism. Round up those old dimes and destroy them. Smash Racism!
Comments (113)
I think it’s truly fitting that Kaepernick should turn around and bite the hand that feeds him. They deserve each other and hopefully they will neutralise each other. Nike tried to play a very subtle game (not so subtle). What now?
Long live the common sense of the common man!
On the other hand, using your own reasoning, it ought to be perfectly alright for Nike to put zwastikas on their shoes since the zwastika was an ancient Eurasian religious icon before it historically came to be associated with the German Nazi party. This may be a more extreme case, but it illustrates that symbols and icons, just like words (think of the N-word, for instance) can't always be claimed by their users to mean what they want them to mean or what they originally meant when they were first created.
That’s a persuasive point and if it means that words can’t always be claimed by their users to mean what they want them to mean then what next?
It means that sensitivity to salient features of the historial and social context (and not just origins) is required and the display of such sensitivity can't always be blamed on rampant "political correctness".
I wasn’t after what it means, I was after ‘ what next?’.
I wasn't aware that the KKK or the American Nazi Party were using the Ross flag until I read the story in the NYT, and it doesn't altogether ruin the symbol by these birds using it. The KKK and American Nazis put together wouldn't fill up a minor league ball park. These two small bunches of right wing extremism aren't entitled to sole use of a prime America symbol.
Kaepernick and Nike together have ceded an important symbol to the right-wing lunatics. Bad move.
Besides, one could fly a Boeing 747 through the hole in the credibility of the flag-as-symbol caused by grossly promiscuous use of Old Glory to sell everything from cigarettes to Chevrolets.
This is your fault, @Bitter Crank. To anyone who knows you it's clear you set up this provocation to get the biggest boneheads on the forum to pipe up. And PN - the "N-word," by which you mean "nigger" but are too coy to say, has always been a degrading term for black people. And the swastika had no currency in European or American culture before the Nazis commandeered it as a symbol of their evil regime.
Who cares about the Betsy Ross flag? Who cares about Colin Kaepernick? Who cares about Nike? What matters is the denaturing of American history, culture, and language by creepy, lazy, ignorant people.
I think using his reasonsing we should conclude that it's not a great idea to use fascist symbols on our coins, that's the parallel conclusion. I would guess they won't use fasces again and without having to be reminded privately.
That's basically a strawman argument. What you describe above is not what happened with the flag. He privately told them, they decided it might be insensitive given the way the flag had been used. He did not say they were a racist company, in fact he seems to have assumed they would be concerned about how the symbol might be taken and they were. End of story.
The American flag has been used by just about everybody under the sun for one purpose or another. And, don't forget, it has also been used by those dedicated to justice; peace; the true, the good, and the beautiful; motherhood; apple pie--used by the angels, in other words. Betsy Ross's flag. Old Glory--13 stars or 50.
Just because some Americans out on the far right used it is no reason to be embarrassed about it.
Perhaps so, but it still doesn't make it analogous to the situation with the coin. Further shouldn't we patriots dislike someone putting the flag on a sneaker. It's not illegal, but it is parasitic.
Betsy Ross also lived further back in time than the appropriation of her flag by white supremacists, just like the originators of the swastika are much further back in time than Nazi Germany. They're both irrelevant. You are the one trying to make this about Betsy Ross. But the complaint wasn't about Ross, and Kaepernick didn't suggest that Ross was a white supremacist (did he?). The complaint was about Nike's use of a flag that had more recently been appropriated by white supremacists, regardless of Ross' personal politics.
The word I was thinking about isn't 'nigger' but rather 'negro' (or, in French 'nègre'). They weren't originally pejoratives and indeed were routinely used by black people to refer to themselves in a neutral way. Still, complaining about contemporary uses of them (especially by white people) because of recently acquired connotations isn't a case of objectionable political correctness.
Isn’t it possible that by doing this they’re allowing white supremacists to take ownership of the flag. Shouldn’t they resist this by actually using it themselves. If you let them own it then it will, like the swastika, become an emblem of what their beliefs and consequently be avoided as seems to be happening. This seems counter productive to me..
Yes, that may be a better argument to make than the more simplistic argument (seemingly made by BC) that the symbol didn't have its current connotation many centuries in the past and hence can't be held to have it now.
Any S could think about any x as a symbol representing y for any imaginable reason. Of course, the reasons are usually not going to be very arbitrary, but they're also not usually going to be very elaborate or educated or obscure, either. And insofar as any S doesn't think about x as a symbol of y, x is not a symbol of y to that S. Meaning is always to some S.
So a way to determine how many S's are thinking x as a symbol of some particular y is to survey S's, preferably outside of some other S trying to presently persuade them to see x as a symbol of y (because then we might instead only be learning about the influence, or about how S wants to position themselves socially, re alignments and so on, rather than learning whether S was really thinking about x as a symbol of y).
It's not a matter of what people "want" something to mean, but what it does in fact mean to them. And just because you (or whoever else) think(s) about something in a particular way that might be connected to particular historical facts, that in no way suggests that the way you think about it is correct or that it's the way any arbitrary other people do or should think about it. People can't be correct or incorrect in how they think about this sort of stuff (re what something does or doesn't mean/symbolize to them).
Its not just because *I* personally think that a word has a certain connotation that it has this connotation; and neither is it because of my personal beliefs about this words history. Just like anyone else, I may be wrong about such socially instituted facts. If some foreigner lands in the U.S. and starts calling black people the N-word out of ignorance of the connotation, which this word has acquired by dint of contingent history, that can be cleared up. That person might be excused, but they will stand corrected (unless they are willfully racist, or they are philosophically confused Humpty Dumptyists).
Words, symbols mean or do not mean something solely based on how individuals think about them. They mean or don't mean something to each individual. It's not just Pierre-Normand. My "you" was the "generic you."
How individual people come to judge what words mean also is dependent on social facts regarding how they are conventionally used. Else, per impossibile, everyone would have her own private language and communication would be impossible.
Influenced by social facts, in a wide variety of ways, sure. Hence why a couple posts ago I wrote "Of course, the reasons are usually not going to be very arbitrary, but they're also not usually going to be very elaborate or educated or obscure, either."
None of this changes the simple fact that x doesn't connote y to S if S doesn't think about x that way.
People do have their own private language. The notion that communication is impossible if private language is ubiquitous is false. Wittgenstein was wrong (and about many things).
Where's the bit where someone said the flag was racist? Sounds like a regular business decision otherwise
What reasoning? What did he actually say? And where's the link to the full article?
"The abrupt cancellation came after Colin Kaepernick, the former National Football League quarterback and social justice activist, privately criticized the design to Nike, according to a person with knowledge of the interaction.
"Mr. Kaepernick, who signed a lucrative deal to serve as a Nike brand ambassador last year, expressed the concern to the company that the Betsy Ross flag had been co-opted by groups espousing racist ideologies, the person said."
That's from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/business/betsy-ross-shoe-kaepernick-nike.html
Thanks. Puts it in better context.
Political correctness is a rabbit hole from which especially large corporations cannot get out of once they have engaged in the PC discourse and taken a 'political' stance (like Nike) and especially when they have given 'woke people', who typically are somewhat ignorant about history, the authority to decide on these issues. It's a very stupid strategy as basically 'woke' people in general don't like large corporations and consumerism. Trying to appease the PC crowd will simply backfire. It's like the state Church trying to appease socialists and assume they are in 'the same boat' if both are concerned about issues like povetry. A true socialist is an atheist, and atheists simply aren't going to start liking religious organizations, especially those with some formal power.
If this thread would have been started by someone else not known to be a leftist as you Bitter, I would espect the condemnation of the whole thread would have been more straight forward by some. Wouldn't this be something that Fox News reports?
Anyway, with these kind of humbug issues in the New World, I always remember the flags of the Finnish Air Force and smile. This kind of imbecile and utterly counterproductive 'wokeness' hasn't yet taken over my country and doesn't create any fuss as there...at least not yet. :wink:
A happy Finnish government employee posing with the Air Force flag last year.
My wife is Indian (and a Hindu) and gets annoyed at all of the fuss over swastika (from all angles--that it was co-opted, that people are largely ignorant of the Hindu usage, etc.)
Which is ironic in the context of Nike since branding, which is all about such persuasion in its branding and branding of symbols and then branding with symbols. And putting a flag on a sneaker seems kinda tacky and problematic either way. If it's seen as a positive symbol - thus enhancing the sneakers image - that's kinda parasitic and if it's seen as a negative, well, then it's bad marketing and annoying some people. In a sense I am saying (now) that I agree, but in context what you are saying in not really something Nike wants us to understand. They want the symbols to be the thing, period. The Nike swooth means incredible stuff (objectively and universally ((I know that's silly))) and thus their sneakers are great.
Not that I'm saying I'm their target demographic--I'm older than what they're ideally shooting for, but I do buy shoes like Nike, Reebok, Addidas, etc., and I even wear them to events like basketball games. ;-)
It is therefore reasonable for someone who subscribes to the primary definition of these acts to interpret an objection to them as being unpatriotic. That is, I have a more reasonable basis, based upon my understanding of the terms and symbols, to say that objecting to the Betsy Ross flag is unAmerican than does Kaepernik have in saying it a is showing of civil rights activism.
And all of this is a bit more obvious than we're willing to admit. It is no coincidence that Kaepernik only finds racism in patriotic acts. His aim is to irritate his political opponents, and so he is able to sniff out racism only in acts that those to the right of him find sacred. It's all politics for some purpose I can't exactly follow because I was totally aboard the train that leads to racial harmony and greater justice already, but I'm totally not aboard whatever train he's conducting.
It just seems like he's fagging away unnecessarily. I'm, of course, using the 800th meaning of that term, which I now insist is its primary use.
The Nike marketing execs aren't omniscient, and so it's reasonable to question whether their decision to embrace one sector of the shoe buying public while turning their back to another part will ultimately be successful.
"The N Word" is not "negro." Never was, never will be. When I was growing up, "negro" was the respectable, respectful word used to describe black people. It was a more dignified replacement for "colored people" or "coloreds." And even those were not considered disrespectful, although it was condescending. NAACP stands for "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." I don't really like the word and some of the black people I know don't like it either.
Exactly. So S interpreting symbol x as representing y has to do with what their particular goal is. Kapernick's goal is to show that this is a racist country built upon racism. Nike's goal is to sell shoes, not to show that this is a racist country. By adopting Kapernick's interpretation, they are unwittingly adopting Kapernick's goals. Did Nike do a survey to find out if more people would buy their shoes than boycott their company? Or did they simply accept Kapernick's interpretation as the majority interpretation? Essentially, Nike let Kapernick speak for all Americans as if this country is still a racist country built on a history of racism.
Nike are legally obliged to maximize profits for their shareholders. If anyone believes anything matters to them that doesn't ultimately serve that goal then they don't understand how business works. Ergo, criticizing them for having the "wrong" attitude re the flag is silly. Their obligation is to take whatever attitude is more profitable.
Isn't that what I said?
How is it that Kapernick is allowed to speak for all of Nike's potential customers and shareholders? Did Nike do a survey? This is just one of those cases where the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
I presume they ran it through some focus groups and decided they needed him and his fellow travelers more than the opposition. Hardly surprising a youth-oriented company would take the edgier route anyhow. The flag will continue to symbolise what people believe it symbolises, no more and no less. K's chances of winning the wider argument on it are roughly zero. And Nike I expect already have the damage-limitation PR ready for whatever Fox News etc. throw at them (which in any case will probably be only to their advantage—"Help, we're being attacked by some old white guys on media most of our customers hate, what ever shall we do?").
And part of the Darwinian approach is to deal with the fall out and hope their survival is increased by this move. Just like if another business decided to take a homophobic stance (for example) in the hopes it would increase its sales, it should expect boycotts and whatever else, and I seriously doubt it would reduce the clamoring to tell the objectors that they should quiet down because the sales tactic is working and such objections are therefore silly..
No fall for ideological sales tactic, eh? Nike are going to want their bribe back. Fair point, anyhow. I suppose my major objection here would be to the criticism that the kinds of things K does or Nike are doing in following his advice are unAmerican as, apart from the idea that the profit motive is American as Apple Pie sprinkled with grits and baseballs, the freedom to be unpatriotic is too. That's what separates you from those countries where what is done to people who don't bow before the flag is exactly what the unAmerican critics of Kaepernick would like done to him.
Then Nike is marketing their products to a particular group with a particular political ideology. Doesnt sound very profitable to me. Some companies don't need to make a profit in the stores when their profit comes in handouts to limit their tax burden thanks to the politicians they lobby.
Who are known as, by and large, their customers. That's showbiz.
You give far too much credit to marketing departments in knowing what they're doing. Whether this plan will ultimately be successful, I don't know. I worked for corporate America long enough to know how much politics, ego, and arrogance play into decisions.
We'll see. I don't have a dog in the fight. Nike plimsolls are overpriced crap and I wouldn't wear one even for a big wet kiss from a beefy American ballplayer.
No one is suggesting his right to free speech should be curtailed.
In other words they can afford to promote a political ideology as opposed to making a profit in the stores.
Not true. It has been more than suggested by the big orange among others on several occasions.
OK, so maybe you know best or maybe a company that spends multi-millions on knowing best, knows best. We'll see.
It appears to me that Nike wanted this to be a public story just to get their name in the conversation. Its not that Nike is opposed to racism. Its simply that both Nike and Kapernick need to be talked about to remain legitimate. Neither really care about racism. They only care about themselves.
The really rather disgusting thing is that however you see Betsy Ross' flag
what the hell is it doing on a sneaker. Frankly I think those who see the flag as a postive symbol would also be miffed, not because it's a symbol of something bad to them, but because a company is using the symbol to sell its products. It is branding through the symbol, which is different from someone selling flags. And the controversy only helps Nike.
Oh, they didn't get to use a historical symbol as manipulative meaningless branding that probably would have been effective with some people for no reason at all.
Yeah, well, that's not true. The officers and board members are legally obligated to act in accordance with their fiduciary duties. That may or may not include maximizing profits. On the other hand, if they don't maximize profits, they are likely to get their assess kicked.
Did he? Then eh, it's a free country. You're just irritated because your cause doesn't get the press it deserves.
Or wait, do you really feel that way, or did I just make that up?
Sorry, everybody else gets to do blatant and aggressive personal attacks on this website. I just felt like I'm being left in the dust.
Yeah, well, when I said "no one," I think it's clear I didn't mean it literally, as there's always that guy who'll say most anything. I also don't take Trump literally, as if he means to say that he wants to amend the Constitution to allow the prohibition of certain speech and certain speech acts and then to pass legislation that results in banishment of the offenders. He's speaking in a moralistic sense (to the extent one can decipher what his actual intent is) where he means one is not deserving the privilege of living in this great nation if they're not going to afford it the proper respect, damn it.
I sort of agree with him in a 3rd or 4th beer sort of way, but upon more sober reflection, I do see certain difficulties in decreeing such rules and even more in carrying out the punishment, especially in light of the new wall that might make ejection more difficult.
You can't please everyone. I guess Nike did the math and decided that pulling the product was best for the business. That's capitalism.
And they only give a shit about what their target audience thinks so that they can manipulate them into buying their shoes. That was the whole purpose of putting this story out. What reason would Nike have to report the existence of a shoe that they planned to release but then won't thanks to the "wisdom" of Kapernick? Attention America: Nike's conceptual department is unwittingly racist so we have Kapernick to filter out any racist products that we might conceptualize before we put them on the market. :roll:
Correct. Nike and patriotism have no connection. If Nike wanted to prove their patriotic fides, they could start manufacturing their shoes here instead of SE Asia, and pay their American employees a living wage. Nikes aren't expensive because of labor cost. They are expensive because of high profit margins and expensive promotion costs.
Should we be looking to Kapernick to define what is offensive and racist for everyone?
If the answer is "No" to these questions, the what is the real reason Nike put out this story?
"The 'N' word" has never represented 'negro' or 'nègre', to the best of my knowledge. And 'nigger' was definitely a term of disparagement and scorn under slavery. We know it was because documents written by slave-holders use the term disparagingly and with scorn. That isn't to say that was the only attitude that slave holders had toward their chattel.
BTW, I wonder if the French use a circumlocution like "le mot 'n'". It seems unlikely.
"the 13-star model, a design associated with the Revolutionary War, the Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross and, for some people, a painful history of oppression and racism." and so on.
An earlier version of the headline did include the word "slavery". It isn't altogether unusual for headlines to be revised, it seems.
Sigh. I wasn't claiming that Nike was making a racist gesture. The article states that some people think that the Ross flag is racist, because some people (Nazis, for example) have used the flag in their iconography. I'm pretty sure Nike was making a merely shallow patriotic gesture, having nothing to do with patriotism or racism. It's like the plastic Christmas-design bag at Target or Walmart. The bag design has nothing to do with the Incarnation.
That Christmas-design bags or flags on shoes are shallow uses of common symbols doesn't prevent people from freighting the symbols, and then claiming that Walmart is stealing Christmas or that Nike is promoting racism. What I am objecting to is the anachronistic linking of recent usage of the flag to the original (and dominant) usage of the flag.
People could object to the standard design of the flag (alternating red/white stripes and a rectangular arrangement of state-stars). After all, it flew over the state houses of slave states before 1860, as well as over the state houses of non-slave states. The Declaration of Independence was written by a slave owner and (to some people) a slave raper, Thomas Jefferson. The 'Father of the Country' was also a slave owner.
So national, religious, corporate, university, symbols (among others) get this vague aura around them incorporating all the uses to which they have been put. That's life. Get used to it, Colin Kaepernick, et al.
When The Philosophy Forum organizes a house band it should be called "Raging Against the Strawman"
Put out what story? The shoes were announced June 24th. As best as I can tell Kaepernick contacted them after this date to complain, after which they decided to pull them – and then explain to the public why they were doing so.
I don't really know Kaepernick's role with Nike, but I doubt he's kept abreast of all the products they're making prior to their public announcement.
Are you actually suggesting that Kaepernick complained weeks ago and Nike continued with the accouncement - and initial delivery to stores across the country - despite having already chosen to cancel (and so recall) them?
Yes, corporations obviously make money by asking retailers to pull off their new item that have just arrived to stores.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Doesn't the Betsy Ross flag symbolize hate?
Some on the right surely hope so: that the flag will become the next thing that will be portrayed to be the (hidden?) sign of white supremacist ethno-nationalists.
The whole thing has already been made to be an issue in the culture wars as this idiotic topic has already been dragged into the idiotic debate.
Just wait for Trump to show the "Betsy Ross Flag" and you have the perfect storm in the tea cup. (For a couple of days before the social media discourse finds a new issue to fight the outrage / counter-outrage farce, that is.)
And if something is co-opted, the worst thing is to then to decline the use of the symbol because "someone ignorant might misunderstand the use". This just enforces that their misconception was actually totally correct.
It should be obvious to anybody that the extreme right wants to own all national symbols, whatever they are, and are extremely delighted when the left starts promoting the argument that this or that symbol is a symbol of the extreme-right, a symbol of hatred and ethno-nationalism. And those idiots on the left that say this are eagerly quoted (which they themselves appear to be happy about), make things worse.
The kind of views Bitter Crank holds, which I would argue represent the 'silent' majority, are simply sidelined by both vocal fringes.
I think I know @Bitter Crank well enough to say that he is not, never has been, and never will be either silent or in the majority.
BC is clearly a sleeper agent and cackling into his complimentary $800 sweatshop plimsolls as we speak. Yes, he wears them on his face. He's that edgy.
And this actually tells just how ludicrous the whole issue is when you think of it.
I say it's about the dumbing down of the public discourse.
Making money any way they can is as French as pate foie gras, as Irish as boiled potatoes, as Ugandan as matoke, and as at home in Thailand as pad Thai. All sounds very economic to me.
atlasobscura.
Clearly this is a satanic symbol. 13! stars, a bearded man in the crescent moon... obviously satanic. How could anyone interpret it otherwise? Wicked, wicked, wicked.
How can public discourse, involving billions, be anything other than "dumbed down"?
Because, well, even now public discourse doesn't involve billions, just millions. And that is the way to dumb it down. I still see in some newspapers that in the net version response-sections people genuinely try to give informative and poignant yet cordial responses…as if it was like in the old days when people wrote to the newspapers knowing that not all would be published. It's not the trash like in Youtube-responses (who would even read them). And the obvious answer is not only moderation, but the people do value or respect the forum they are participating.
(Just think what this place would be in a matter of weeks if the local admins and mods, would stop and anything would be admitted here as if that would promote "free speech". It would be a gutter and no sane person would write here. We would get the real cranks here and not just one Bitter one.)
Even though, y'know, drawing a line between this and a swastika is hard based on principles. It's a difference of degree really. The most sensible option is not to use any symbol which is affiliated with any scandalous groups unless it is an intentional show of support. Why?
As much as I dislike Rawls, he provides a good rule of thumb here. If you want to minimise the maximum harm done by your branding, you don't use the dodgy symbol.
But using it for free grassroots marketing is a smart play.
And even then, if they did all that, it'd still just be manipulative riding on the achievements of others to use that symbol. It's a sneaker made for money, It's a bit like putting a crucifix on the sneaker. Whether one thinks the crucifix is a symbol with negative or postive associations, Nike earned neither in making that shoe. Nor with Betsy Ross' flag.
Quoting Coben
Might be helpful for the "Hail Mary pass".
Quoting fdrake
The original flag of the USA is not a 'symbol like that'. It is a distinguished symbol, abused or not. The cross has been abused at cross-burnings, yet we continue to use crosses without anyone thinking that it's display represents racism (unless it is on your lawn, burning away). Proctor and Gamble dithered over the "Satan worship" smear, but in the end they kept the symbol.
It's too late in the advertising game to complain about using the flag to sell products. It's far, far too common.
The word "fascism" is actually derived from that Latin bundle word, "fasces", as is "fascine" which is a type of faggot. But the English, "fasten", is supposed to have a completely different, Germanic origin. Isn't that fascinating? The English can fasten up a faggot without being fascist. Well of course, not even if you're the fastest to fasten up a bundle, it doesn't mean you're fascist. None of this could be fastenating though, because "fasten" only sounds similar "fascin", and has a similar meaning, but they're different words. So they must be spelled differently to ensure that separation.
And, there's a reason why the American flag has fifty stars and not some other number. Though it might be history, there is a separation here. What was once an accepted symbol may not be acceptable today, if it reminds us of something we want to separate ourselves from.
Does CK want to separate (somebody, himself, whoever) from the American Revolution? Maybe he feels it was an inadequate revolution? Too bourgeois? Just a bunch of privileged anti-tax whiners? Not a revolution for the slaves? Perhaps his criticism was too timid?
I won't say whether or not Colin Kaepernick is correct his view of the Betty Ross flag, or if Nike is correct in yielding to him, and pulling the product out of market, mostly because I don't care, but also because it is irrelevant to Nike's overarching brand strategy.
Yes, it suggests, for a moment, they were a bit casual about their core market and then pulled themselves into line again. A costly mistake.
Though we’ll never know what might or might not have happened to sales.
Edit: this is a very tricky time for business.
Yep. The statistics do hammer it home. But we all knew that, or should have.
I know you weren't claiming that. The quote was to do with the perceived claims re K. You seemed to be looking for a PC-gone-mad nail to hammer down and instead found a boring corporation doing boring corporate stuff.
There was a civil war (whatever that means), and there were reasons for that war. The flag is a symbol of the political state, and there are many degrees of separation between the political state at the time of the American Revolution and now. As much as we may celebrate our independence with fireworks, military parades, or whatever the hoopla, there is separation between the political state then and the political state now. The name "Rome", carries on, and we think Rome has been around for thousands of years. There could even be a Romulus and Remus day, celebrated by some with great fireworks, but that political state is gone. The flag represents the political state, and the political state exists as the ideology, which is gone because we do not support it. Why ought we support that flag?
Quoting Maw
Nike likes to create the sensational non-issue. It utilizes the oldest trick in the advertising book, free publicity from controversy. And since they're very careful to choose a non-issue, it can't backfire. Ever think it may have all been a setup? How many "discontinued shoes" are there going to be out there in the world, as expensive collectors items?
Though like a dead metaphor, it's still a metaphor. (not that that contradicts anything you wrote) Enjoyed the Hail Mary pass response....
I was thinking about the local papers here, but this of course is quite universal.
It depends just what kind of discourse the paper / media wants, which depends on the focus that the media wants. For me, the 'boring' academic / professional discourse is what is meaningful, even if you have to have some knowledge about the subject in order to follow the debate, not the 'human interest' easy reading type of discourse.
Nike's stock prices fell 0.03% on June 26th when the shoe was pulled from their online site, and exceeded the value prior to the drop less than a week later, so no probably wasn't a costly mistake.
So, a new way of doing business. Stir the country up with issues of racism, then watch the stock market.
If true it’s a dangerous precedent. Well, interesting, anyway, especially if you look at target audiences and their political views based on identity politics.
The example was set by the present day American president, except the polls were being watched rather than the stock market (not much difference there though).
Quite unlikely. The obvious answer is Nike just trying to manage a somewhat surprising situation in the best possible way. The idea that they 'planned' this all along is quite silly. You don't make a shoe that is then planned to be pulled off out of negative feedback from an athlete that is promoting your stuff. That isn't cunning marketing plan.
Quoting Maw
And this actually just shows the absurdity of the whole issue.
Has anybody here actually agreed or defended Colin Kaepernick's view that the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hate and an offensive slave-era emblem?
It's easy enough to understand. All the descendants of those who were here, but not included in the "all men" who were supposed to be created equal would see it as a symbol of slavery (not necessarily hate, though).
Is it? You see it's also easy to 'understand' why people would fall for communism or fascism or whatever. It's a different matter to agree with the ideas.
So are you saying all US national emblems / symbols prior to the abolution of slavery are symbols of slavery?
How about the era before women's emancipation and universal suffrage? Shouldn't then the symbols before 1920 in the US be offensive towards women as women hadn't equal rights to men?
Could be. All it takes is a community that sees it that way.
Quoting ssu
Again, could be. I think women's issues stand apart because a woman's relationship to her oppressors was so intimate: it was her sons, father, brothers, and lovers.
Could be? Seems that all it takes is a hypothetical community for you not to answer what you yourself think about it.
Quoting frank
Was so intimate?
So from your I take it that you believe that women's families oppressed them earlier and this oppression has ended. :roll:
FYI; Women not having the ability to vote in national elections wasn't a family issue, it was indeed a political/legal issue.
(Besides, where on Earth comes this idea of sons oppressing their mothers?I think earlier people respected their mothers more than now)
Like I said, hilarious over-analyzing over what's in actuality a straightforward answer. One of Nike's biggest brand ambassadors criticized the design of a product and Nike pulled it. That's it. This isn't even about "identity politics". Nike's core audience is simply younger and more liberal than the general population.
Quoting ssu
A shoe was pulled from the market. It's not an actual "issue".
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. That's what I think.
I believe that when you are actually in Rome surrounded by Romans. Yet even there it doesn't mean you change totally what you think and become a different person. Being diplomatic doesn't mean you change your beliefs just to appease people you talk to. At least in a democracy you can speak freely. In a totalitarian state you do watch what you say, just not to get your hosts into an awkward situation or in trouble.
Now it's like: Uh, there might be Romans here… better act as if we would be in Rome, even if Rome is very far from here. Above all, better yet not to answer as a Roman might get upset.
Yes, obviously in the category of Maw answers: "I don't care at all about this… but I'll still actively participate in this thread."
I think you’re partly right about the absurdity. But the issue is that the flag has been seen as a ‘racist symbol’. So someone is attempting to rewrite history, as we’ve seen with other issues. If the flag is a symbol of racism, and the flag is representative of the USA, then ergo America is a racist country. I think this idea of racism and symbols, as an example, is definitely about identity politics. It’s part of the whole virtue signalling aspect of segments of society today. Everything, everyone, becomes over sensitised and common sense gets thrown out with it. It’s quite common these days for groups to retroactively describe history according to their political position (and I’m not sure ‘political is even the right word anymore). So it flows into ideas about relativism and the subjectivity of morals.
This is part of my position regarding my post on ‘the common man’, where is the centre to hold things together? How much longer can we function under these existing terms, or is it actually over, for some anyway.
Quoting ssu
I agree with Harry. To create a controversy is one of the oldest publicity tricks in the book. And, since the negative feedback was from an insider, that's more evidence that it was a planned event. What's more, is that there are now limited edition collector item shoes out there, and whoever has a pair is set to make a big profit.
Quoting ssu
I did.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If everything is just a variation on a theme: God exists, God does not exist, then what’s really going on here?
In context this is interesting to me ironically. Here the corporations listen. If something might cost them sales they may back down, change approach. Freedom of speech causing change, rightly or wrongly. But otherwise corporations assume a right to control what is called a democracy via campaign contributions, trade organizations, lobbying and control of media and their own oversight. by the relevant government agencies. They do not mind their power and the application of it meaning that they get vastly more than one vote per issue and then control a mass of things that cannot or need not come to a vote.
So here we had, possibly, a corporation change tack based on people getting upset, about a shoe. While some other corporations are busy trying to get us to go to war with Iran. They may not succeed, but they have before and they will again. And yes, when they succeed again a bunch of people will get to go out and march in the streets.
Taking Colin Kaepernick to be the face of Nike was the 'controversial' trick that you refer to. That was indeed intensional: that made Nike look good, progressive and active to the younger crowd they are after.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's great. At least someone takes a direct position. Not "I don't mind, but someone else..."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Really? I thought the reason was that you simply have more states belonging to the Union. And that it didn't I think become an official flag. And what do you mean that it's not supported? Here's the flag prominently displayed at the Capitol Building during a second inauguration of an US President.
That being President Obama, that is.
So sorry if I'm confused as a foreigner on just when did this flag come to be a symbol of racism.
Well it hasn’t, has it, and this is the idiocy of the whole thing. Why is this idiocy prevailing?
As I said, there is good reason not to support old flags. But I never said that any flag was a symbol of racism.
I may not support it, and you may not support it, but who all is in this WE you are talking about?
Hey some of you should probably call the marketing department over at Nike and tell them how this doesn't make sense
Colin Kaepernick: 1, Conservative Karma: 0.
That may be. And from listening to many years of reports on stocks going up and down (like a hooker's drawers) one can conclude that "investors" are a rather flighty bunch, scattering and flocking together at the slightest hint of negativity or positivity (however interpreted). "Oil stocks are down amid investor fears that Santa Claus may again use reindeer to power his sleigh."