Quips

Selling Out

You can read the full text of Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight's statement about his alma mater, the University of Oregon, along with many other fun items, at nikebiz.com--but the following excerpts are just too funny to resist sharing. (For more information on the Movement in general, if you find any of the following confusing, pray do visit to The New Rambler Student Action Central).

"I was shocked on Friday morning, April 14 at 9 a.m. to find out that the University of Oregon had joined the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC). With this move the University inserted itself into the new global economy where I make my living. And inserted itself on the wrong side, fumbling a teachable moment.

"Nike has a lot of pride and has been my life. It is the source of any dollars I am able to give. To accept the University of Oregon's endorsement of the WRC [the Worker Rights Consortium, the only viable sweatshop watchdog group around these days] would be to place my company, our employees, our university-related manufacturers and their employees in unknown hands under undefined monitoring that has no protocols, no credibility, no role for the companies whose businesses are being monitored, and no independence. It would be a sell out of my company, my fellow employees and the progress we have worked so hard to make in our factories both here and abroad. I am simply not able to do that."

Phil Knight has some odd ideas about just what constitutes a "teachable moment"--but my personal favorite statement here is when he says that accepting the UO's endorsement of the WRC would be a "sell out of my company." Somehow, human rights have replaced money in the sell-out equation. From now on, if you decide to go work for a nonprofit organization or do volunteer work or give money to charitable institutions, or, God forbid, go to school instead of making more money, I just want you all to know that you will be SELLING OUT. (27 April 2000)

Peer Pressure

I really think that the America Online commercials, in which people offer testimonials such as "All my friends are on it!" and "It's the best way to stay in touch!" and "It brings the whole world right into your home!" would be much cooler if they were about mind-altering drugs. Then we'd all be able to spot the peer pressure for what it really is. . . I mean, c'mon--everyone else is doing it. It's good to know that drug abuse resistance education is making money for someone. (3 September 1999)

Exercise

A short time ago I was watching a TV newscast in Chicago, which took a short break from politics, sports, and mayhem, to report on a breathtaking new phenomenon: there is actually a place in Chicago now where you can work out outdoors! My God! What a concept! The place in question is some outdoor gym by Lake Michigan, doubtless founded by a bunch of yuppies who wanted to flash their perfectly toned midriffs at a wider audience. But what I want to know is when did exercise become an activity that could only be pursued indoors? I'm so confused. Haven't these people ever heard of going for a walk? It's a surprisingly effective mode of transportation, I think they'd find. For all our talk about multi-tasking and parallel processing, the world is actually becoming more and more compartmental. Eat only at the Food Court. Exercise only at the gym. Next thing you know they'll be telling me I can't read while waiting for the bus. (8 July 1999)

Being A Girl--or is that Grrl?

There's a show on VH1 (MTV, but without the edge, you know), called something like "Before They Were Stars," whose purpose is to dig up embarassing footage of people who are now rock stars, so we can see what they looked like when they were just starring in their high school musicals or performing in local talent shows. Okay, blah blah, nice concept--celebrity humilation (especially of strong women--I'm trying hard to avoid a digression on Katharine Hepburn here) goes over pretty well. What fascinated me most, though, was an early clip of Paula Cole (of Lilith Fair and Dawson's Creek theme music fame) singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl" in a high school production. The show then cuts to a modern interview of Paula Cole, saying "Oh my God, that awful song!" and discussing how sickening she thought it was that she was helping reinforce all these negative gender stereotypes. I was literally stunned. She thought "I Enjoy Being a Girl" (a song favored by drag queens and given a rocking remake by combat boot clad folksinger Phranc) reinforced negative ideas about femininity? Somehow, this strikes me as awfully strange, coming from a woman whose first album contained a song about a hopelessly unrequited love, in which the girl sings to the guy, "And she is your Holy Mary, and I am so ordinary, and you can use me if you want to," without a touch of irony. I like that song, actually, but when it comes to positive messages for young women about their femininity, I'll take "When men say I'm cute and funny/As round and around we whirl/It goes to my head like brandy/I enjoy being a girl!" any day. (8 May 1999)

An Interesting Series of Commercials

In 1969, African-American students at Vassar College took over several administrative offices, demanding a department of Africana Studies, more black professors, and a special advisor to black students. Most of these requests were duly granted. But that's not all the students were asking for--they also wanted separate housing, off-campus. Desegregation of schools and buses and restaurants in the South had happened less than a decade before (and was probably still going on, since "all deliberate speed" was a rather loosely interpreted phrase), and yet these students wanted to resegregate themselves. The administration, needless to say, was less than psyched about this plan, though the students did get their request for a short time.

It would seem that this trend towards resegregation is taking place again, thirty years later, but this time it's the segregation of music videos, television networks, and, of all things, fast food restaurants. Yes, really--Burger King's recent advertising campaign has really convinced me that they are trying to be The Black Burger Joint. These ads rarely show humans. They don't tell little stories, like McDonald's ads, or provide testimonials to Dave, like Wendy's. Rather, they just push the product--showing you pictures fries and burgers, steaming and dripping onions or cheese. But is that all they're pushing? Listen to the music in the background. One commercial featured Motown-type vocals singing a song--which I have since been informed is the theme from The Jeffersons, a '70s TV show about a black family moving into an upscale white neighborhood--that goes, "We're movin' on up/to the East side, to a big [something] apartment in the sky . . . we finally got our piece of the pie." The text that flashed underneath the food was "Now that's an uptown deal--at a downtown price." In another commercial, the ambience is provided by a big-band recording of "When the Saints Go Marching In." And the once commercial in this series which did have people, from several months ago, showed three black women singing and dancing a la the Supremes, complete with a flashback in black and white. And of course there is Burger King's current slogan: "When You Have it Your Way, It Just Tastes Better." I think all of this is a concentrated and targeted effort by Burger King to appeal to the downtrodden, and particularly historically down-trodden African-Americans, by offering them their "piece of the pie," an opportunity to "have it [their] way," and to move on up and be part of the number when the saints go marching in. Empowerment through TV advertising--you've just got to wonder what Malcolm X must be thinking right now. (4 March 1999)

To read more about the student takeover at Vassar, check out the entries from 30 April-2 November 1969 in this chronology of Vassar History (partially compiled by my old housemate, David Ley).

A Series of Commercials I Would Like to Kill

"Easy Mac--no brain required!" No brain required?!? This is supposed to be a good thing? You know the country's in trouble when advertising is being that blatant about not wanting you to think. Granted, the general idea behind advertising is to prevent individual and original thought, but they usually try to be a little more subtle about it. (4 March 1999)

Irony

Apparently the Italian government is quite upset with the not-guilty decision of the court martial of the Captain William Ashby (accused of involuntary manslaughter--the plane he was flying cut through some gondola cables and killed 20 people). I haven't reviewed the evidence myself, so I can't give an opinion as to the correctness of the decision. But indignation about the findings of other people's courts seems a little out of place for a country whose own courts just ruled that it is impossible for a woman wearing jeans to be raped. (4 March 1999)