Trump ‘Cancels’ Goodyear Tires For Not Pledging Allegiance To MAGA
An employee at a Goodyear plant in Topeka, Kansas, blew the whistle this week on what his fragile self considers a discriminatory policy at his workplace. During the plant's diversity training — the sort of thing Tucker Carlson opposes because he's racist — employees were shown a slide depicting “acceptable" and “unacceptable" workplace attire. Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ pride apparel got the thumb's up, but "Blue Lives Matter," "All Lives Matter," and other political attire did not. This includes MAGA hats and their matching Klan robes.
The employee was offended because he can't tell the difference between supporting Donald Trump and simply existing as a LGBTQ and/or Black person. Conservatives might want to ascribe a lot of negative meaning to Black Lives Matter — just like they've done to Black people for centuries — but that doesn't change the reality that Black Lives Matter is an expression of racial justice and equality.
ANONYMOUS EMPLOYEE: If someone wants to wear a BLM shirt in here, then cool. I'm not going to get offended about it.
Sure.
ANONYMOUS EMPLOYEE: But at the same time, if someone's not going to be able to wear something that is politically based, even in the farthest stretch of the imagination, that's discriminatory.
Conservatives want to make Black and queer identity “political" so that it's fair game to criticize and even deride. Being a cop is a (well-compensated) job and despite law enforcement's paranoid victim mentality, the police aren't a marginalized group in American society. Also, “Blue Lives Matter" and “All Lives Matter" were obvious and shameless political responses to Black Lives Matter. The “All Lives Matter" crowd aren't the same hippies who wore peace symbols and buttons stating “All You Need Is Love." They are expressing contempt for Black lives and the concern we have for our continued non-police-murdered existence.
Goodyear spokesperson Melissa Monaco released this statement:
Goodyear is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful workplace where all of our associates can do their best in a spirit of teamwork. As part of this commitment, we do allow our associates to express their support on racial injustice and other equity issues but ask that they refrain from workplace expressions, verbal or otherwise, in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party as well as other similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of equity issues.
Whiny conservative babies weren't going to let this end here, and their king, Donald Trump, tweeted in rage Wednesday morning.
This is as dubiously legal as everything else the president does. He's decried so-called “cancel culture" and has posed with Goya products in the Oval Office after people starting boycotting the company when its CEO kissed Trump's ass in public. Now, Trump is on the “cancel culture" bandwagon because “two can play the same game" (unless it's solitaire). We're officially in a “cancel culture" cold war.
Other Republicans such as House representatives Doug Collins and Lance Gooden claimed that this was another example of “political discrimination," which is not a thing. If Goodyear permitted MAGA hats, they'd have to in theory permit Nation of Islam beanies or Karl Marx T-shirts.
Corporate wokeness has turned into full political discrimination at @goodyear. https://t.co/Xdiq8DayNB— Lance Gooden (@Lance Gooden) 1597843115.0
Collins argued that the people who almost "beat a man in Portland to death" weren't wearing "Blue Lives Matter" or MAGA hats. However, Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd, probably was someone who'd say “Blue Lives Matter." The same goes for former police officer Gregory McMichael and his son Travis, who hunted down and murdered Ahmaud Arbery. I suspect the police officers who murdered Breonna Tayler while she slept were also cops. Call it a hunch. Those are just police murders from this year. Do these assholes think we're protesting because of parking tickets?
And there's a long list of hate crimes committed by the MAGA-inclined. Just this summer, two men in MAGA hats pulled a gun on a Black woman and her 15-year-old daughter.
Collins claimed that the "Left is ruining this country." It's hilarious that he thinks “the Left" owns Goodyear, an Ohio-based company the president just attacked two and half months before the election.
Goodyear's official corporate response was that the company didn't create the slide in question. It loves the stuffings out of law enforcement but "ask[s] that associates refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party." (Sorry, MAGA.) Goodyear reiterated its support for racial justice and believes that's not "mutually exclusive" with supporting law enforcement. The police would disagree. You must support them in exclusion of everyone else. That's why they get along so well with Donald Trump.
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
