News From My World About What’s Changing
Brief and to the point
I just got the following from Outside Online:
Patagonia and REI have now joined The North Face in boycotting Facebook ads (including ads on Facebook-owned properties like Instagram) over the company’s moderation policies around hate speech and misinformation. Patagonia and REI are out for July. The North Face will not advertise on Facebook until it institutes stricter policies. [Ad Age/Business Insider]
Jim Cummins, founder of the Dirty Kanza 200 gravel race, was fired after posting on his personal Facebook account that the shooting of Rayshard Brooks was justified. [CyclingTips]
CrossFit founder Greg Glassman was ousted from his company earlier this month for comments he made about George Floyd. Now former employees are coming forward with stories of sexual harassment. [The New York Times*]
Several days ago, this:
Here’s what I like about this: the world of outdoor adventure has forever been the bastion of white men. When the Force of Nature campaign around women being outside came out, we still only saw mostly skinny white chicks in the video ads for too many companies.
Tone. Fucking. Deaf.
Except for REI:
This is my world. There are key folks in very high places in very big companies who have real money from real CEOs pushing real change. That is what it takes. That and the above. Real companies causing real economic pain where it hurts. Economics speak in this country. Because of their quiet work, we are seeing pregnant women racers reinstated after being dropped because they were preggers. Forcefully pushing the issues around accessibility and clothing that fits people of size and color and disability.
This is my world. This is where I’ve been working the last ten years. This is where I am also seeing real change, and people being called out and their careers cancelled for bad behavior. Plenty of this has been going on for a while, but it’s getting much more publicity. That’s an important difference, because other companies will take notice.
You can say it’s about time. Of course it is. It’s been glacial. But there have been lots of folks working on this for a very long time. What you are seeing is the fruit of that labor.
I, for one, am celebrating.
However, it’s about damned time that Medium gets around to providing photos of Black folks and big folks out doing sports- an issue that others have also pointed out- for when I wrote in Black folks hiking, all I got was White folks in a black and white photo.