Reply to Are you avoiding certain brands while school shopping? What’s deemed controversial at the moment?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Neo-Nazi blogger Andrew Anglin has declared New Balance the “Official Shoes of White People.”

“I’m a Nike guy. Or rather, I was,” Anglin wrote on his popular website the Daily Stormer, which promotes an anti-Semitic, white supremacist agenda. “It’s time to get on-board with New Balance now. Their brave act has just made them the official brand of the Trump Revolution.”[/quote]

I think this was just him trying to punish Nike for supporting Kaepernick. New Balance had made a public statement supporting a trade policy out of the Trump administration which they viewed as favorable, and Trump's fascist supporters ran with it. New Balance later came out explicitly rejecting their endorsement.

All of this happened like 8 years ago, by the way, before a lot of people (or companies) understood exactly what kind of problem Trump and his Nazi supporters were going to be, before he praised white supremacist rallies, before J6, etc. New Balance probably could have handled the situation better (they should have been more cautious endorsing anything associated with Trump, even if they viewed it as a politically neutral trade position, and they should have responded faster to condemn the neo-Nazi statements in support of them). But the idea that someone wearing NBs is supporting fascist ideas instead of just, you know, wearing shoes, is ridiculous.

Which is actually part of the problem with OP's whole question. It's one thing to suggest that wealthy people not buy luxury goods from companies known to have bad politics. It's something else to expect middle class people to avoid companies like NB or the Gap (which also owns Old Navy) when buying back-to-school supplies for their kids. Regarding slave labor practices, that is not something you can expect an individual to solve with their limited shopping choices -- it has to be addressed via collective action, whether via organized boycotts or through government policy.

Don't police how people with limited budgets and time and energy shop for their kids. If you are in a position of privilege, use it to organize or lobby. If you just want to sit around judging people for ordering from Amazon or buying the "wrong" shoes, that's not activism. You're just an a$$hole.[/quote]

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