In re: Trump boycott - New Balance, a company that makes its shoes here in the US.
In re: Trump boycott - New Balance, a company that makes its shoes here in the US. It is listed on that spreadsheet of companies to boycott. Here're my concerns with this:
Firstly, it seems like this got set off by one exec (ironically the communications person) carelessly assuming that talking about the TPP being bad and connecting that to Trump's policies post-election was a run of the mill sort of comment, particularly since both Sanders and Clinton had decided no on the TPP, as well. Plus I'm guessing that somewhere in his tiny executive brain there was some sort of it's ok, everything will be ok attempt at soothing the post election stress idea. He's not even the owner or president of the company or anything! Unfortunately, he said something positive about Trump and that's pretty much all that has to happen to explode part of the internet, now.
Secondly, the other part of the internet that has been given carte blanche to be its ugly self immediately inserted itself into the fray that would maybe not have been a fray but the internet, so. Now New Balance, which seems never to have associated with White Supremacists, has been adopted as the current cause celebre of some White Supremacists. Well now you really have to boycott New Balance. Except they aren't associated with White Supremacists, White Supremacists decided to associate themselves. New Balance has publicly said, aw come on, guys, no, this is not our deal. The internet feels otherwise.
Lastly, they used to make most of their stuff in the US. Now, depending on where a cursory look sends you, it's maybe 25% of their stuff. It's still got 5 factories in the US, though, in Maine and Massachusetts. Not much, but those are American workers and you can sort of look up which specific models are mostly made in the US if you're buying. So it might not be a great idea to drive them to just stop bothering to produce anything in the US because US consumers aren't buying their stuff. Ymmv.
So yes, a boycott can be an effective protest tool, but use it wisely and thoughtfully, not like a thoughtless bully. Not like some people we could name.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/statement-on-trump-puts-new-balance-shoe-company-in-cross-hairs.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/statement-on-trump-puts-new-balance-shoe-company-in-cross-hairs.html?_r=0
Firstly, it seems like this got set off by one exec (ironically the communications person) carelessly assuming that talking about the TPP being bad and connecting that to Trump's policies post-election was a run of the mill sort of comment, particularly since both Sanders and Clinton had decided no on the TPP, as well. Plus I'm guessing that somewhere in his tiny executive brain there was some sort of it's ok, everything will be ok attempt at soothing the post election stress idea. He's not even the owner or president of the company or anything! Unfortunately, he said something positive about Trump and that's pretty much all that has to happen to explode part of the internet, now.
Secondly, the other part of the internet that has been given carte blanche to be its ugly self immediately inserted itself into the fray that would maybe not have been a fray but the internet, so. Now New Balance, which seems never to have associated with White Supremacists, has been adopted as the current cause celebre of some White Supremacists. Well now you really have to boycott New Balance. Except they aren't associated with White Supremacists, White Supremacists decided to associate themselves. New Balance has publicly said, aw come on, guys, no, this is not our deal. The internet feels otherwise.
Lastly, they used to make most of their stuff in the US. Now, depending on where a cursory look sends you, it's maybe 25% of their stuff. It's still got 5 factories in the US, though, in Maine and Massachusetts. Not much, but those are American workers and you can sort of look up which specific models are mostly made in the US if you're buying. So it might not be a great idea to drive them to just stop bothering to produce anything in the US because US consumers aren't buying their stuff. Ymmv.
So yes, a boycott can be an effective protest tool, but use it wisely and thoughtfully, not like a thoughtless bully. Not like some people we could name.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/statement-on-trump-puts-new-balance-shoe-company-in-cross-hairs.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/statement-on-trump-puts-new-balance-shoe-company-in-cross-hairs.html?_r=0
One more thought on this:
ReplyDeleteIf this is your standard for boycotting is that one person is supportive of Trump out of an entire organization, I hope you're all ready to boycott pretty much all of organized major and minor league sports in this country. Because if there's a football or baseball team owner who didn't support Trump, please point them out to me. Not to mention idiots like Rex Ryan, who spoke at a Trump rally.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the players on the Buffalo Bills were not Trump supporters, for many reasons, not least because racism. If you go to a game, are you supporting the owners, the coaches, or the players? So nobody's going to any more football or baseball games, right? That's what I thought.
I would be more het up about this if I thought boycotts actually worked against multibillion-dollar concerns like, uh, organized sports. As it is, meh.
ReplyDeleteIt's not like I was ever going to buy any of their stuff, anyway. I mean, if I ever had that kind of money I'd totally be all relais & chateaux-ing it and Trump stuff is not high quality enough to make that list. Insert gratuitous snaps here.
ReplyDelete