Trey’s response to libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara was especially interesting. – Ray
LaFerrara: Nike’s pulling of its Independence Day sneaker line is an act of corporate ignorance and cowardice.
This is, literally, how corporations in Mr. LaFerrara’s corporate, capitalist utopia are supposed to act. They don’t need regulation, the marketplace dictates their decisions. In this case Nike listened to the pressure that Mr. LaFerrara would typically praise. Somehow, though, since it’s a decision he doesn’t like this is corporate ignorance and cowardice. Consistently inconsistent.
LaFerrara: Really? The Abolitionist movement is also connected to the slavery era. Should we repudiate all of the brave people who fought–ultimately successfully–to end slavery, including Abolitionist leaders like Frederick Douglass?
Literally has nothing to do with the subject of the blog post. Whataboutisming abolitionism is intellectual laziness. Furthermore, the Betsy Ross flag wasn’t even the current flag of the US when Frederick Douglass was born. Even just a cursory rememberance of our Anthem and the flag that inspired it would inform Grandpa Screams at Clouds at the lack of association the Betsy Ross flag has with abolitionism and one of its staunchest supporters.
LaFerrara: The Ross Flag symbolizes the new American nation after their successful fight for Independence and the formation of a governing Constitution.
As does our current flag. Nike could have used our current flag to symbolize and celebrate 243 years of independence and the formation of a governing Constitution.
LaFerrara: In declaring that every individual has the inalienable right to live free for his own sake, with her own happiness as the primary purpose of her own life, The Declaration of Independence is the greatest anti-slavery, anti-oppression political document ever written.
Except, of course, the Declaration of Independence didn’t do this. It asserted every Man has inalienable rights, and even when taken in context of the time and the people writing the document, you can infer they didn’t mean to include every male slave in that statement. But, this is a tangent Mr. LaFerrara is going in to avoid having to address the actual grievance that caused Nike to pull the shoe in the first place.
LaFerrara: Betsy Ross flag symbolizes the individualist core of Americanism, the exact antipode to slavery and oppression.
Since slavery wasn’t immediately abolished after our declaration of independence and the adoption of this apparently anti-slavery flag, this statement is objectively false. But we’re still driving along this tangent, aren’t we? Gotta get as farrrrrr away from the original point of the blog post as we can, right?
LaFerrara: I like to think that this episode is a result of misinformed people.
Like how the Betsy Ross flag was a symbol of anti-slavery for abolitionists and Frederick Douglas. Or something.
LaFerrara: …there likely is a more sinister purpose to the reaction against this symbol of Americanism.
The freaking article Mr. LaFerrara references in his own beleaguered blog post explains the reaction. He even quotes it at the beginning. His own ramblings have uncoupled his grip on reality.
From Bloomberg: The design recently has taken another meaning for some Americans as far-right groups have claimed it as a symbol of their cause. It has also been criticized as evocative of an era when slavery was still predominant in the U.S.
But we’re just going to focus on the Slave-Era part of the problem, aren’t we Mr. LaFerrara? Not going to discuss how we, the Nation, can’t enjoy symbols of our past because the Alt-Right Movement is usurping them? How I can’t even make an OKAY symbol with my hand because it’s a white power sign now? How I can’t enjoy certain memes online because of the Alt-Right subverting them? That everytime I see a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ bumper sticker, license plate or flag, I can’t feel pride for my country because a bunch of reactionary proto-alt-right “conservatives” claimed it as symbol because a Democrat was elected to President. I can’t even have the flipping Betsy Ross flag, something that was displayed prominantly at Obama’s inauguration, because a bunch of authoritarian blowhards have decided to pull a Trump and hold it close to their hearts and add it to their identity.
Oh wait…
LaFerrara: As to the objection that “far-right groups have claimed it as a symbol of their cause,” that is not even worth commenting on.
I see. Why is that? What’s the Declaration of Independence have to say about subversion of symbols by hate groups? Or how symbols can change meaning? How everything can change meaning given time and new information? We’ll go on a rambling tirade about misinformed people and black people (of whom is symbolized in Colin Caepernick naturally) forcing a corporation to pull a product off the shelves using the very economic forces Mr. LaFerrara would normally praise. A product that Grandpa Shouts at Rain Puddles one- wouldn’t know existed if not for this “controversy” and two- wouldn’t purchase anyway.
LaFerrara: As an American, I am deeply offended by Nike’s cowardice.
Than I’m sure New Balance and Sketchers would love your business. We can all assume you wear those, anyways. Maximum comfort for the those long laps of “reason” you take around the crux of an argument.
I think Nike overreacted to Kaepernick’s protest.
I see the flag of that era as I do our flag of today: as representing promises not yet met. I believe that is how most Americans view the flag and the founding documents written during that time. In fact, the Lincoln-Douglass debates largely focused on whether the conscience of the nation should be informed by the Declaration, or the flawed Constitution. Abraham Lincoln argued for the Declaration, favoring the unmet promise of freedom.
Some conservatives went far into the stratosphere in their own overreaction. I find especially touching Mr. LaFerrara’s prominent inclusion of Frederick Douglass in his polemic. In a famous speech very near where I grew up, Mr. Douglass questioned whether slaves should hold any regard at all for our founding documents or for the July 4 celebration of the nation’s founding:
What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
He went on to suggest that America’s annual celebration of freedom was a sham:
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
He encouraged his audience to search the world for oppression and abuse:
…and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
The reasoning of Frederick Douglass then was very near the reasoning of Colin Kaepernick now.
If Mr. Douglass is indeed being attacked, as Mr. Laferrara suggests, he should indeed be vigorously defended. But, judging by Mr. Laferrara’s current indignation, I suspect that, had he been a contemporary of Frederick Douglass, he would have been among his strongest attackers.
“If Mr. Douglass is indeed being attacked, as Mr. Laferrara suggests, he should indeed be vigorously defended. But, judging by Mr. Laferrara’s current indignation, I suspect that, had he been a contemporary of Frederick Douglass, he would have been among his strongest attackers.” – Burr
You and I both know that Mr. Laferrara invocation of Frederick Douglass and the Anti-Slavery movement is nothing but a prop. It’s weird that the man is advocating against Nike acting on their own rational self interest. I think Mr. Laferrara should be more indignant that he’s dragging true sacrifices of true american heroes down to whine about a shoe company making a decision for themselves that have no consequence at all on anyone. I’m sure Mr. Douglass would have thoroughly accepted the human travesty he fought against was relegated to being a defense against patriotic themed apparel no longer being offered for sale.
I’m starting to think his adherance to mindsets that characters depicted in a novel’s fictional world may just be a prop to deflect from, and hide, the fact he’s just a maladjusted reactionary asshole. Where’s his sense of Americanism? This is America. People deflect and hide their maladjustedness and reactionary tendancies behind Bible verses. At least in the Bible there’s, I don’t know, calls for empathy