Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off.

National Labor Relations Board prosecutors have accused the grocer of stifling worker rights by banning staff from wearing BLM masks or pins on the job. The company countered in a filing that its own rights are being violated if it’s forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.

Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high court’s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case “provides a clear roadmap” to throw out the NLRB’s complaint.

The dispute is one of several in which labor board officials are considering what counts as legally-protected, work-related communication and activism on the job.

33 points

Why does anybody think it’s a good idea to wear political statements into work? Just do your job.

Imagine if you ran a business and one of your customer-facing employees showed up in a MAGA hat. You’d probably want them to leave it at home right?

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-19 points

But if I can’t wear my rainbow onesie to work it’s literally genocide.

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-7 points

Lol apparently people here don’t see sarcasm.

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11 points
*

Everyone knows they’re being sarcastic, but we also live in a world where it’s a crime punishable by death to be LGBTQ+, where mentioning the topic in public is a crime and there are US politicians who have literally called for genocide against LGBTQ+ people, so it’s just a shitty thing to say.

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9 points

We do. We just don’t like you two very much.

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14 points

I think there’s a difference between not seeing sarcasm and not finding it amusing (particularly in certain circumstances).

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8 points

Except BLM and LGBTQ isn’t political. It’s Civil Rights. This isn’t Dem vs GOP, it’s ethical vs unethical treatment of humanity. Unfortunately certain individuals in the US portray this as political, but that’s so they can use it as leverage for their goals. You wouldn’t say “stop beating a slave and set him free” because your political affiliation says so, you say it because you see a human being suffer.

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2 points

Except BLM and LGBTQ isn’t political. It’s Civil Rights.

I’m sorry but you just sound naive. These are not mutually exclusive. Civil rights are part of politics. All you’re arguing is that you think the politics you like should be allowed in the work place, and the politics you don’t like should not. That’s the hottest take in the entire post.

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5 points

is lemmy being brigaded? seriously, what the fuck is this. “just do your job” is never an adequate response to worker complaints

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5 points

Yeah, I’m seeing this kind of trash on a lot of posts when lemmy was not even close to this bad just a month ago. It’s fucking gross.

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0 points

Redditors ruin everything they touch

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-1 points

It is odd. I’m a Wilsonian Neocon with the caveat that I understand not everyone can always get what they want, but Lemmy’s usually “I hate the US so much that I support Russia” not anti-union shit. I suppose the GOP just made the UAW strike into a political talking point so the bot account goons are trying to steer conversations against unions even when the community never wanted it.

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-4 points

Ah the old, “an influx of normal opinions not in my extremist progressive echo chamber is brigading”

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28 points

You think equal rights and fair treatment for all is “politics”?

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0 points

Unfortunately it is.

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-5 points

Being neutral about racism is effectively being racist.

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6 points

So telling someone not to wear a pin is now racist?

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1 point

Summer people think MAGA is patriotic. Personally I wouldn’t want someone wearing that either.

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6 points

They aren’t banning masks that say “equal rights and fair treatment for ALL” , they are banning BLM masks, BLM is a political movement/organization.

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1 point

Ya it’s a political movement that wants cops to stop killing black people.

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2 points

No BLM is a statement that black lives matter. That’s completely different from saying, for instance, blue lives matter. One is a race that people are born into and the other is a job. It’s not political, it’s a cry for help.

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-1 points

I would agree with you, but this is pretty blatant far-right bias and with the genocidal turn that camp has taken, it’s vitally important to take sides.

Otherwise, I agree with you.

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0 points

Lol “genocidal turn”

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-3 points

Why does anyone think whether black people matter or not is political?

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7 points

Because BLM is a political movement

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0 points

And what are the politics of the movement?

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14 points

So, we can ban crosses? I’m obviously going a bit far, but both somewhat touch on the way people believe rights should be secured, and both involve human rights (one to free expression of religion, another to life and fr33dom from unfair treatment in general). Both make statements to others that others may find uncomfortable, depending on their beliefs.

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3 points

so we can ban crosses

When there’s comments here bringing up the first amendment and apparently forgetting that it includes that whole thing about not having a national religion, which is exactly what’s happened/continuing to happen with christianity. It’s just a little bit different than “black lives matter,” which is just…a fact?

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20 points

…yes? Why shouldn’t a business have the right to ban their employees from wearing a cross? Go work somewhere else if wearing a cross is that important to you…

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4 points

The point is the the USA the complaint would never have been made about the cross.

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0 points

I just want to say that restricting someone’s right to wear a cross to work is hella illegal in Canada.

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3 points

I mean, I agree, to an extent. As someone else pointed out, the cross banning would never work out in the US, and that shows the difference in how both things are treated here.

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3 points

Imagine if you ran a business and one of your customer-facing employees showed up in a MAGA hat. You’d probably want them to leave it at home right?

I think it’s good when people support good things and bad when people support bad things. Amorally applying the rules for their own sake is actually not a virtue; the rules should be oriented to promote good outcomes and discourage bad outcomes. Otherwise, what’s the point?

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0 points

I actually had to talk to the boss and tell him that this manager’s motherfucking confederate flag hat made me uncomfortable, like he was a floor manager who wore the stars and bars every day, in a western state that didn’t exist during the civil war… and they didn’t say anything to him until a customer complained. He wore that shit for like a month. The good ol boy’s club is unreal

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3 points

Who decides what’s good or bad?

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1 point

We all do. We already do this throughout society. Individually we make choices on what is good or bad, and collectively those choices add up and are expressed either in law or social contract.

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22 points

Either employees should be allowed to wear personal accessories to express themselves, or they should not. How do you define what is and is not political?

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5 points

Agreed, if I ran a grocery store chain I’d just have the employees wear uniforms with no personal expression.

At the end of the day it’s the business’s right to set whatever policy they want though. If the government decides employees have a constitutionally protected right to wear whatever they want to wear to work, we’re gonna see a lot of crazy bullshit.

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0 points

If the government decides employees have a constitutionally protected right to wear whatever they want to wear to work, we’re gonna see a lot of crazy bullshit

Would it be a bad thing? I think with some sensible exceptions it would be a very good thing to permit free expression as the default.

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5 points

Up to the business. If they don’t want political statements or and statement made at work, I can understand it.

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-2 points

That just means that employers can push their own political agendas and suppress alternatives.

“Employees may not wear pins of a political nature, such as expressing support for Joe Biden. Wearing a pin expressing support for Donald Trump is acceptable because that is not political.”

Like I said, it either has to be all or nothing - allow self expression or do not. Allowing self expression only if the company agrees with the expression is essentially compelled speech.

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13 points

Also, this article’s vague, but “no slogans, logos, or advertising except for Whole Foods branding” is Whole Foods’s official dress code. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/whole-foods-black-lives-matter-mask.aspx

The plaintiffs were told they had to remove their Black Lives Matter face masks because they violated the dress code, but the workers refused and were sent home. After being sent home several times, they were fired for violating the company’s attendance policy.

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4 points

The problem with all of these things is always unequal enforcement. For example if the store allowed an employee to wear a thin blue line mask, and fired another employee for a BLM mask

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2 points
*

That’s where the constant disclaimers to the effect of ‘the views expressed do not nessecarily reflect the position of the company blah blah blah’ whenever someone speaks who isnt the principal executive of the organization. The problem being though it doesn’t go both ways, when one of the high leaders speaks it’s portrayed as ‘our company believes’ which then at least somewhat implies the employees of said company are in agreement. Individual expression is just leveling the field by letting the employees say 'the views of the company do not reflect my own.

It’s less common for any smart business to make highly charged statements unless they happen to be sure the majority will support them for it, but not unknown. I’ve seen a couple small ones around here that went as far as to plaster Q slogans all over their signs. From a business perspective they just alienated a major portion of their potential customers without anyone setting foot in the door.

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4 points

Because workers are more important than the businesses they work for, obviously.

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34 points

Holy shit. So Amazon and Whole Foods are just openly racist now. Not even trying to hide it anymore.

Conservatives will be celebrating as soon as they have someone read this article to them.

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-5 points

Jesus y’all. Let me spell this out plainly.

  • BLM is a political organization.

  • Wearing BLM gear is a political statement.

  • Whole Foods doesn’t want employee uniforms to make a political statement.

Bet every single person here would be pleased if this was about banning Trump masks. I’ll give you a crisp $20 bill if those are allowed. Or any other sort of political speech.

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8 points

The statement Black Lives Matter is not political, you absolute ham sandwich…

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0 points
*

Then neither is “Make America Great Again”

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3 points

So you deny that BLM is a political org?

They sure seem to be calling for political action.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/

Having a just cause does not make a movement apolitical. Agreeing with that cause does not make the statement apolitical.

You seem to have your emotions mixed up with facts. And here I thought that was a conservative trait.

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4 points
Removed by mod
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5 points

The statement itself shouldn’t be political in its sentiment, but obviously the organization exists and it has its own policy positions, events, advocacy, and I can go to their website to donate. I think it’s fairly obvious which one Whole Foods would be concerned with.

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7 points

On its own it’s not, but it definitely is in the current political and cultural context. There’s no getting away from that. It’s going to provoke a political reaction in any conservative and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

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0 points

Let me spell it out plainly:

  • BLM is a movement concerned with police brutality against minorities
  • There is a political organization called BLM, but nobody but right wing whack jobs gives a shit about that organization
  • There is also the Bureau of Land Management that is also refereed to with the acronym BLM,
  • Somehow you know BLM on a mask doesn’t refer to the Bureau of Land Management but you’re being deliberately stupid it referring to a political organization and not the movement.
  • Jeff Bezos isn’t going to give you any money no matter how wide you spread your asshole for him.
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0 points

You are really jumping through some hoops to prove that the saying, “Black Lives Matter” has nothing to do with politics. Say it out loud for us. Say it’s not a slogan and has no ties to political views.

Not accepting facts contrary to your position? How very conservative of you.

No matter how far left I am, there’s always assholes like you pushing people back to the right. I’m not going right because a bunch a angry teenagers are… angry. But you’re not doing the liberal cause any justice here. In fact, you’re actively hurting it.

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1 point

BLM is a political organization.

This is like saying “Trump has Little Hands” is a political organization because some guy wants to copyright “Trump has Little Hands” to sell on merch. Absolutely ridiculous take and it clearly show where you stand on these sorts of issues.

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21 points

The fact that there is an organization of the same name does not mean they own the slogan. People using the slogan almost never do so in reference to this organization nor are necessarily even aware that such an organization exists.

BLM is more of a human rights statement. Anything is “political” if the right choses to whine about it. An example is putting pronouns on name tags. It’s a great idea to ensure employees are addressed correctly and frankly shouldn’t be any more political than a name tag containing your name, but the right choses to view them as political because they need a constant culture war.

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10 points

This might mean something if “BLM” was owned by an organization.

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1 point

So Black Lives Matter is not a political slogan, let alone an organization? Saying Black Lives Matter means nothing to anyone except by taking it literally? Nothing to do with politics whatsoever?

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-3 points
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5 points

If this thing was a fight to wear “Make America Great Again!” masks, these people would sing a different tune. And some ass will be along to explain how that’s totally different…

The whole notion of BLM is political. In the same sense that no one denies making America great is a bad thing, no one denies black lives matter. Yet they are political slogans, end of story. Whole Foods does not want employees wearing controversial political slogans.

I’ve supported the idea of BLM from day 1. Even dumped a right-wing buddy I was slowly turning around. I have zero patience for the haters. Zero. But if I owned a business, employees would not be wearing anything that even smelled of politics.

These children can’t get their emotions untied from facts.

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-4 points
Deleted by creator
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9 points

Amazon bought Whole Foods, they’re the same company now.

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13 points

I’m with Amazon on this, seems a reasonable ask for employees to not wear any political/cultural/social things at work with their official uniform.

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23 points

Guys is it Political to not want to get killed by the police or just get seen at the hospital when you’re having chest pains?

Interesting take you have there.

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-7 points

BLM is a brand though. The lady who founded it just bought a £1.25M house in LA’s exclusive Topanga neighbourhood for all cash.

That doesn’t sound like some sort of grass roots, help lift people up, Mother Teresa sort of organisation to me.

Hence yeah, people don’t like BLM. Some don’t like what it stands for, while others, like me, don’t like it because the founders used it as a massive vehicle for grifting and lining their own pockets.

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0 points

There’s a bunch of different autonomous groups, with no one “founder.” This has always been the single talking point that the fox news crowd loves to parrot to sound like a “gotcha” when they want to be racist but are too cowardly to show who they really are. If that’s not obvious by now, then idk what to tell you, except that arguing against human rights and for police brutality is not going to endear you to people.

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8 points

The idea behind Black Lives Matter is not a brand, though. People who support the cause are simply supporting equity and progress. These fundamentals don’t change just because one person affiliated with the marketing of the idea may be questionable.

There are multiple segments to BLM, since the fight for progress takes multiple fronts. And indeed, the head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, which is not affiliated with Khan-Cullors’ Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, called for “an independent investigation” to find out how the global network spends its money.

And it turns out that the reason Patrice, the woman buying homes you’re referencing in bad faith, acquired some personal wealth from having a best selling book from back in 2018, and a television deal to produce content with Warner Bros.

I’m sure her earning wealth through program advocacy and people reading stuff won’t change anything about how you feel about them, though.

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-24 points
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1 point

Oh cool dig!

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-3 points

It’s political to insist that getting shot in response for attacking the police is just “because you’re black”.

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-3 points
Deleted by creator
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15 points

So if they’re banning BLM as political, do they have to be even handed and ban all political iconography?

Is a rainbow political? Obviously anything with an American flag is political, so those need to be banned. Anything like a cross obviously would be forbidden - necklaces would have to be tucked in and invisible. Christianity is far more of a political thing in the US than BLM, as it’s being used to specifically and actively drive legislation. Would they then have to ban employees from other religious dress, like wearing a hijab or yarmulke? I don’t recall Muslims or Jews passing legislation in the name of their religion at the national level, but do activities in Dearborn or Williamsburg count?

Are wedding rings heteronormative? They’re certainly both a cultural and a social thing. Makeup is also both cultural and social, and additionally potentially has gendered implications. If we ban rainbows, do we ban anyone wearing makeup or require everyone to do so, since they’re potentially signaling gender identity?

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14 points

I’m going to start using GOP rhetoric and replace rainbow flag with wedding rings.

Wedding rings is woke propaganda.

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9 points

Makes sense to me. If it’s political for me to be able to get married because I’m gay, I don’t see why straight couples shouldn’t be up on the chopping block. So no employee better be wearing a ring.

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-4 points

I think you’re way into the weeds here and forget the most important thing to remember about “freedom”: things like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are a compact between you and the government, not you and private companies. Private companies don’t owe you anything besides whatever the government has expressly legislated, such as explicit protection for religious clothing and icons like crosses, Sikh turbans, etc.

However, beyond that, individual companies have the right to request their employees look and dress in certain ways. The flip side there is, if you don’t like those rules, you are free to not work there anymore.

Of course, legislators can always choose to pass laws forcing companies to allow more exemptions, but that hasn’t happened yet for displays of a political organisation.

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2 points

No, I am very well aware of that. But they’re not saying “You can’t wear a BLM button because we do not think black lives matter, but you can wear a proud boys one if you want.”

They may or may not have that right - that’s going to depend on both the currently existing corporate rules and any state/local legislation.

I was thinking in particular about a case in the past 5 or so years where a company was sued for forbidding one employee from wearing a hijab while allowing others to wear crosses. It was a case of religious discrimination.

My point is that for this to be non-discriminatory it has to be a policy that’s handled in an even handed fashion. Of course it has nothing to do with the constitution - I’m not even sure why you’d introduce that unless you’re staying to strawman. But I know that I can’t fire someone for saying in the workplace that they agree with Trump unless I have a wholesale policy banning talking about politics. I’d be in trouble if I said people could talk about politics, but they could only say nice things about Biden and bad things about Trump. You might be able to get away with that at a locally owned auto body shop, but not at a major corporation.

My further point is that saying that black lives matter isn’t political, unless there’s a major political party that thinks black lives don’t matter. Rainbows aren’t political, unless there’s a major political party that thinks the LGBT community shouldn’t be visible. Books on gay parents aren’t political unless there’s a political party that thinks gay people shouldn’t be allowed to be parents. But that same party would allow a flag pin, or a yellow ribbon, or a book about a hetero couple with a kid. It’s only political when they disagree with it. Otherwise it’s just “normal.”

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6 points

@trias10

I get that. It makes logical sense. It’s just that corporations have so much power to impose their will and it feels weird to me that we let them do that even when it comes to how a human presents themself.

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8 points

So if they’re banning BLM as political, do they have to be even handed and ban all political iconography?

Yes… because the policy is

no slogans, logos, or advertising except for Whole Foods branding

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/whole-foods-black-lives-matter-mask.aspx

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0 points

Yeah, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Agree or not (and I agree with what BLM stands for), it is sadly controversial. And I get why a business would not want employees overtly supporting or opposing something some customers could find controversial.

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8 points

I agree, but then I started thinking “why the hell do I think it’s so reasonable for a corporation to strip away the humanity of its employees” and I’m not sure where I’ve landed now.

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7 points

They’re not doing anything if the sort, that’s hyperbolic nonsense. When you’re paid to represent a company, you shouldn’t be displaying items that link them to a course they’re not corporately linked to. Once you leave at the end of the shift you can put all the political regalia you like back on.

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0 points

If no one is allowed to wear any flair then that’s fair. But everyone is allowed (and possibly encouraged?) to wear pride stuff in June as part of the anyway corporate rainbow-washing. So I have to ask why it’s OK to wear “LGBTQ+ folks deserve life and civil rights” stuff but it’s not OK to wear “Black folks deserve life and civil rights” stuff? Why is stating that Black lives have value so offensive that it’s worth fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to ban it?

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1 point

It’s not just a corporate thing, police, military, and fire brigade aren’t allowed to wear overt political badging either.

There’s a general rule that if you work for an organisation which asks you to wear a work related uniform of some kind, you don’t get to add anything to it, political or otherwise. You don’t see bobbies with a Pink Floyd sticker on their chest.

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3 points

“strip away the humanity”

I’m dead. That’s got to be the greatest use of hyperbole I’ve seen in a long time. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

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7 points

Yeah, it just seems like common sense to me that you don’t wear political regalia to work, and that’s coming from the UK where our workers rights are a big stronger.

Like it or not, while you’re on the clock, you’re on the companies time and the only political stuff you should be promoting, if any, if causes they’ve aligned themselves too corporately.

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2 points
*

Honesty, imo, shame on Amazon for not barring anything but solid-colored, patterned, or Bezos-Empire-Branded masks, explicitly, in their dress code.

I’m a (mostly) vegan, liberal AF, solidly middle-class, homeowner married millenial parent (i.e the portrait of a Whole Foods customer), and I agree with BLM, but I would be put off by any political or politicalized messaging in a supplier/customer relationship. I’m here for your general tao seitan and a TTLA…not for your influence.

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21 points

Saying that black people exist and should remain alive is not a political statement. Do you want to ban hats that say “veteran” too? Or maybe charity and cancer awareness logos?

Being a live black person is not a political act. Think about that when ordering some seitan and being “liberal AF”, whatever that means.

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-2 points

Saying that black people exist and should remain alive is not a political statement

It’s absolutely political because it sits on the false premise that others argue otherwise. Nobody does, it’s a false premise used to create racial divide and lower the moral of the black community

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2 points

This feels very similar to me to businesses freaking out and trying to prevent their employees from wearing rainbow flag or pronoun pins. Or rainbow masks, for that matter.

I think employee uniform requirements should be just enough to make employees identifiable so they can do their jobs (e.g. answer customer questions about where the lettuce is or whatever). Just a mandatory hat or shirt is enough to do that. Beyond that, they’re humans. Let them be fucking humans.

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1 point

Political - adj - Of, relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state.

I don’t know if you really don’t know the difference between being black and supporting the BLM movement, but there is a definite difference. A good quick measure is would a politician hold an opinion on it? For a specific example do you think Tim Scott (one of the black Republican Presidential Candidates) would wear a BLM face mask?

I will assume that you are arguing and good faith and genuinely don’t see the difference, so here are a few contrasting examples:

Wearing a hat that says Veteran is a statement of fact, like wearing a hat with your college’s logo. It is not inherently political or supporting any particular political ideal.

Wearing a VFW hat on the other hand, would be political. The VFW seeks to educated and change the opinions of legislators regarding veterans.

If a black person was wearing a hat that said I am Black. That would be a statement of fact and not inherently political or supporting any particular political ideal.

Wearing a BLM hat on the other hand would be political. The BLM organization and supporters of the BLM ideals seek to educate and change the opinions of legislators and the public regarding black people.

Without typing out the same comparisons again, cancer awareness and most charities would fall under political ideals also. They almost always seek to influence government legislation or funding.

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28 points

So you don’t agree with BLM then

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1 point

Believe it or not it is possible to fully support a political ideal while still thinking corporations should stay out of politics.

For example, I think that cops taking money from people (Civil Asset Forfeiture) without charging them with a crime is amoral, unconstitutional (4th amendment), and un-American.

If, however, I saw a sign about it in my local McDonald’s I would definitely be like WTF?!?

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0 points
*

It’s not “Black Lives Matter After Business Hours”

If you don’t believe black lives matter all the time, then you don’t believe black lives matter at all

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bro you’re absolutely right bro the status quo isn’t political

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“ Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.”

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6 points

Just consume product, get excited for next product, and assure yourself that you are smarter than both sides.

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22 points

politics? in my treats?

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13 points

Politics are everywhere. You cannot (and don’t deserve to) escape them, brunch gremlin. Ooga-booga-booga.

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2 points

That idea has no bearing on reality, you likely support many businesses owned by right wing assholes indirectly just by living somewhere that doesn’t use 100% renewable energy for all of its power needs, for example, and so do I, you can’t really help it. Corporations are people under US law and they have been doing political speech under that regime in the form of unlimited spending for over a decade. If Amazon actually believes that black lives matter they should indeed say it. False neutrality and saying that black lives matter is too political a stance for them to want to take is a stance in itself.

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5 points
  1. Politicize the idea the that an ethnicity shouldn’t be arbitrarily beaten by police.
  2. Ban that idea because it’s “politicized”
  3. Everyone is ok with it because despite politicize is a verb we’re supposed to pretend this isn’t being done by someone that thinks it’s ok for police arbitrarily beat the shit out of minorities.

It’s almost like this a system of some kind. And maybe racist? A racist system? So not only aren’t we doing enough to take on systemic racism, corporations like Amazon are creating new forms of systemic racism.

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6 points

😤

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17 points

I’m a (mostly) vegan, liberal AF, solidly middle-class, homeowner married millenial parent (i.e the portrait of a Whole Foods customer

you could have left this description out and we would still know this about you from this bootlicker take

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2 points
*

How Cool And Liberal and definitely not two faced. So while black people begin to avoid Whole Foods, you’ll still be shopping there because its not a problem for you. And as a good liberal of course, you agree there’s no reason people can state “black lives matter to me” on their clothes. Sure, in the privacy of your own property but not in Massa’s house. Bezo’s free speech quashes the protections of the speech of his lessers and… that is simply the law. You’re relieved of guilt.

You know, I’m not a tankie, but the self deluding, boot licking, and casual racist assumptions about whose lives are “political statements” based on their lamenting of being constantly murdered and stepped on by society, do give me a sympathetic window into their specific disgust of neoliberals. People like you go along to get along and nothing more.

You’re quite fine with racism because Whole Foods is cheap.

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0 points
*

But this is specifically about workers wearing a BLM mask. Not the general public.

Amazon/Wholefoods are totally within their rights as employers to enforce a dress code. That’s it. That’s the end of the line.

Now, if they had previously let workers wear “FJB” masks without enforcing the dress code, that’s obviously a bias and something that should be dealt with.

This is, quite obviously, a worker violating a dress code and seeking publicity by riding the coattails of a heated issue with their own persecution complex.

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1 point

If Amazon has a dress code, either it allows for a degree of self expression or it does not. The move to ban political messaging in the workplace doesn’t apply to the mere statement “black lives matter”. Black Lives Matter was a social movement and its name was informal and de-facto. There is an activist organization Black Lives Matter that claims (to my knowledge) a limited ownership of white-on-black “#Black Lives Matter” but the phrase itself doesn’t have a PO box, it doesn’t make political contributions. It is a value statement that one believes black human beings have inherent value. So to cede that the English phrase “black lives matter” is political assumes that the default LEGAL and POLITICAL viewpoint is that they do not, which is the terrifying, unspoken, yet not codified by law, truth underlying half of the America justice system. When you make the argument that Amazon has the right to ban such a phrase from clothing on political grounds you and Amazon are both admitting that you believe black lives in a general sense have no value and you’re willing to take it to court, because that is where this is probably going.

Are we really thinking that anyone at Amazon who matters actually believes that? Believes that this fundamental values conflict of American access to protected speech would actually resolve in a way that decidedly points to black lives having no worth as a legally upheld opinion in America? Really that is neither here nor there, we’re watching a version of this fascist semantics argument about free speech play out with minor or medium consequences all over the internet. This sort of move will curry some favor with racist culture warrior consumers and businesses, but it is about clamping down on employee rights to communicate symbolically at all. If the color chartreuse was a meme amongst unionists and union proponents, Amazon would do the same thing. On one side of the coin they are making a concession toward a racist status quo and on the other they are saying that the SCOTUS ruling they cite allows them to ban symbols in the workplace.

It isn’t good to shop at Whole Foods with this knowledge in the back of your brain. We will now, if you want, employ the thought terminating cliche that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and this is almost always true. However Amazon should not be allowed to target symbolic expression like this without a dress code saying “our employees wear an apron with the Amazon smile on it and a grey, breathable jumpsuit underneath”. There are workplaces like this with dress codes where this isn’t an issue. You are seeing Amazon casually admit it controls the symbolic language of the workplace entirely if it suits their agendas. Legality is not universal truth, especially when the Supreme Court has been arranged to flagrantly serve the interests of the business class. So there’s one argument for why people should get to wear chartreuse colored shirts that say whatever the fuck they want but hate speech.

I lost this typing it the first time and my second try wasn’t as good. I don’t care if you have a bunch of holes and flaws in my arguments to point out, I will quietly read them and appreciate them, but I will maintain you’re arguing for something racist and unethical either way unless it’s a really good argument. IE you’re not going to get me to say “gee you are right” by drawing similarities to Twitter cancellations over bad words and deplatforming of conservatives for speech that would get them punched in the nose in a public venue. In life, it is impossible to avoid political ideas, and even more impossible to avoid the techniques for propagating memetic formatted ideas like ads for conflict diamonds or unwell street preachers screaming the good word. You should buy your seitan somewhere that isn’t trafficking with fascist pseudolegal interpretations of free speech so they can control their employees by betting that a spineless lower court will uphold a directly evil SCOTUS ruling.

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5 points

stunning satire

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I agree with BLM, but

liberalism.txt

Death to America

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-35 points

Obviously, no business wants to be associated with BLM any more than they want to be associated with the KKK. Every company I’ve ever worked for has had dress codes that prohibited divisive political slogans and offensive language.

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4 points

Uniform is uniform, no politics in work is how every job I’ve had was. Can I wear a Spanish flag pin cuz it’s my heritage? No it violates dress code

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4 points

False equivalence fallacy.

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1 point

The BLM/KKK thing is a false equivilance, but his right to say that companies have the right to decide if employees can display political iconography on their uniform and most of them won’t want it due to the hassle it will bring and also that it may indicate a corporate connection that isn’t there.

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3 points

I agree with you, but at most places, one will probably get you fired, where the other would be a conversation.

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5 points
*

Sorry you live in a shitty town where a BLM sticker triggers snowflakes.

Go to any city in America and you’ll see all sorts of BLM, rainbow flags, signage on storefronts. This isn’t just mom & pop shops, but major companies too.

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-11 points

The left has no leg to stand on when bitching about ideological symbols when kids are getting kicked out of school for having a Gadsden flag patch on their backpack.

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3 points
*

Yeah this one in particular pisses me off… A kid lost out on school time because of a flag that had nothing to do with “the south”… and was never co-opted by “racists”… yet the only people I saw freaking out about that was conservatives… And yet here we are…

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0 points

Great, and each company is entitled to its own rules on those things. Whole foods have decided on theirs and their employees can lump it or go and get a job with the more progressive companies that do allow it.

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6 points
*

How is the statement Black Lives Matter a divisive political slogan? Take all the time you need.

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33 points

That’s quite the false equivalence you’ve made there

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-18 points

They’re both reprehensible political extremist movements. BLM has the added stank of being a fraudulent money-laundering scam on top of it, too.
I guess the Summer of Love didn’t happen.

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5 points

I believe black people’s lives matter. I hold that view so strongly that I’m willing to shout it in the streets. Does that make part of a political extremist movement?

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10 points

Yes, both are extremist movements. One (BLM) doesn’t want black people to be murdered in the streets, while the other (KKK) want to murder black people in the streets. What is wrong with you?

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17 points
*

Ahhh yes the BLM movement, famously known for lynching thousands of people just like the KKK!

Also, the KKK were only fighting to uphold their racist ideals. This is exactly the same as the BLM movement trying to fight against racism.

No false equivalence here!

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-4 points

Nah, it’s spot on

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0 points

Really stupid. I mean REALLY stupid.

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-1 points

Are you seriously equating BLM to the KKK?

BLM’s message is “Please stop murdering us”

How the fuck is that divisive, political, or offensive?

What’s divisive is morons like you saying “No, ALL LIVES MATTER”.

You’re either completely missing the point, in which case you’re dumber than I thought possible, or you’re willfully ignoring it, in which case you’re just a racist.

Which is it?

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-3 points

I never said, and I never say, “All Lives Matter.” That’s what stupid conservatives say because they don’t understand that’s exactly the rhetorical trap BLM has set for them in order to call them racists. Please notice I didn’t step in that trap, so don’t shove me into it.
When it comes to “What belongs on people’s clothes while representing their employer,” BLM and KKK are the same.
BLM’s message isn’t really “Please stop murduring us.” It’s “You white people are all a bunch of racists.”
It’s slanderous (which is why it’s offensive), it’s obviously political at a glance, so inherently so that I don’t know how to explain it, and a lot of people don’t go for that shit and a lot of other people do (which makes it divisive).

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-1 points

All lives matter is an anti racist way to say that black lives matter.

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2 points

6 day old account with -900 karma… I think it’s a troll, guys!

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