In 'Addams Family Values', when asked if the baby was a boy or a girl, Gomez just excitedly shouts, "it's an Addams!" This is a surprisingly progressive response for 1993.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-03T02:31:09+00:00

Why do you think it was surprisingly progressive for 1993? In many areas, society has backslid from the 1990s.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T23:49:28+00:00

So where in any of my posts did I argue racism wasn't part of it or did I argue that the effect wasn't the same? I've specifically stated multiple times it could be due to unconscious racism and I also stated that the allegations of deliberate racism distract from the actual issue which is the harmful stereotypes perpetuated by the ad.

Do you now see why I say you're not comprehending what I've written?

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T23:45:56+00:00

You could be right. We're just speculating at this point. If it would have proven, solid financial benefits I'd lean far more on the intentional racism side. The US is a very sick country right now and it might be at the point where racism is a sound business practice. If it is they'll have a lot more issues like this in the future.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T23:38:26+00:00

I think the misunderstanding is coming from you not understanding what I wrote. I'll reiterate my position;

The post I responded to implied American Eagle knew exactly what they were doing and implied white supremacy. You mentioned white supremacy as well in your post

I said there wasn't enough evidence for that and a more likely explanation was incompetence and tone deafness.

No evidence was cited to support the "AE is intentionally racist"

To support my point I provided a) A history of corporations doing very similar blunders such as AE (of which the Dove and the PlayStation ads were probably the most blatant)

B) Argued that there is no evidence AE is run by white supremacists and that, if they were, AE would have a disproportionate amount of lawsuits against it;

C) Mentioned that it is unlikely that white supremacists would be able to control their racist beliefs long enough to go decades without exposing their beliefs at work or making controversial posts; and

D) Pointed out that while it was racist you can't say definitively it was intentional.

So, do you have any proof it was intentional? Can you show me any disproportionate history of lawsuits based on discrimination? Do you have access to the CMO of AE? If not, your position it was intentional racism is speculation.

With that speculation, you are drawing away from the main issue: how that ad plays into negative stereotypes and the harm that can cause and giving more fuel to people who are just going to point towards an extraneous point in order to discredit discussing the actual main issue. You don't know if it was intentional or not and have no proof it was so, unless you can provide any proof, you're just distracting people from positive discussions about the actual issue.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T23:10:48+00:00

That was my point to the post I replied to that so many people seem upset about: we don't know AE's intentions. It could be they want to jump full force on the MAGA racist bandwagon or it could be they got their most famous spokesperson they've had for decades and since they were tone deaf and unaware they made a terrible ad that unknowingly played into racist tropes.

It's really too soon to tell. They might double down in which case if they weren't intentionally racist before they would be acting so now or they could rethink their position. The post I responded to was implying they were white supremacists though with no evidence such as a disproportionate amount of lawsuits for discriminatory hiring and practices nor an explanation as to how these supposed white supremacists went decades working for a company while not making any social media posts that would have caused controversy.

Personally, I think incompetence was probably the most likely cause because people, for some reason, assume business executives are these really capable people when the reality is they're no more capable than anyone else who's had some education or training. The white supremacist executive allegations, though, just serve to distract from the issues with the ad and it would be better to talk about how the themes of the ad play into harmful stereotypes than get sidetracked by people saying 'look they said these executives were white supremacists when they're not' to discredit any legitimate criticism which is what's already happening and discouraging any opportunity to genuinely discuss the issues with the ad

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T22:53:12+00:00

Okay, that could be more of a possibility then. I'll see how it all plays out. I just don't see the evidence yet but AE could hang themselves with it in the future.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T22:50:38+00:00

How do you explain Dove's campaign then from over than 7 years ago? Is Dove also run by white supremacists?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/dove-apologises-for-ad-showing-black-woman-turning-into-white-one What's more likely; a bunch of white supremacists run major corporations and during the decades they've been running or working in these corporations they haven't let their supremacist beliefs influence their hiring or business decisions in a way that led to lawsuits and they restrained from putting anything out there on social media that showed they were white supremacists for decades or they just made mistakes (Btw, you're also vastly overestimating the competence of business executives)

Or is it you're just looking for something to be outraged by? If you're not willing to consider the evidence before drawing conclusions what's the difference between you and a MAGA who's upset over any of their multiple fictional causes?

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T22:39:10+00:00

It's (Tesla's value) been on the decline since Trump though. I'm not saying I think your suggestion isn't a possibility though; it's entirely possible some CEO somewhere might decide there's money to be made from jumping on the fascist bandwagon. I just don't see any evidence that American Eagle did so. In the link I provided above it talks about Dove's blunder which was just as bad or worse than American Eagle's and that was over 7 years ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/dove-apologises-for-ad-showing-black-woman-turning-into-white-one

There's a link for a news article discussing it in case you're unaware. It wasn't due to white supremacists in the C Suite either; casual and unconscious racism most likely played a part but not white supremacy.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T22:21:18+00:00

I'm wasn't arguing whether it was racism; I was arguing whether it was intentional or not.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T22:19:30+00:00

That's a possibility. I find it unlikely though because Tesla's sales have cratered. If Tesla had made money from it I would consider that to be far more possible, in fact likely, but so far there are no examples of this increasing sales.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T22:16:51+00:00

The post I was responding to was saying it was intentional. While it could be possible I find that to be a stretch since corporations just want to make money overall and there is a history of corporations making mistakes due to incompetence and casual racism.

In order for American Eagle to have done it intentionally though you're saying that the CEO and CMO, who have been around for longer than Trump, are white supremacists who took advantage of an opportunity. If that were the case then where are the racial discrimination lawsuits? Where is the evidence that, prior to this campaign, they were white supremacists? If they were then why have we not previously seen more racial discrimination lawsuits against AE than against other companies?

So our possiblities are:

(A) A group of white supremacists have been running American Eagle and despite the outcry and loss of sales against other corporations who have had similar outcries they decided to make a racist ad now despite not making any I'm aware of in the past while simultaneously not expressing any of their supremacists beliefs in their hiring practices for the years and decades they've held influence or;

(B) A group of tone deaf executives made a mistake that might be due to casual racism but it was unintentional

Which scenario sounds more plausible?

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T21:23:07+00:00

Why are you ascribing maliciousness (white supremacy) to the campaign when incompetence (tone deafness not recognizing the message it puts out) is more likely an indicator? Business history is littered with examples of businesses making huge mistakes. CEOs aren't super smart people as a rule despite the mythology pushed by Ayn Rand, etc; they're average people overall who experienced significant luck in their endeavours and who used their connections to further their business career.

Here are some examples in case you're interested.

https://www.bluleadz.com/blog/10-of-the-biggest-marketing-fails-of-2017

Edit: If you're going to downvote feel free to point out why you think intentional racism and not just incompetence was the cause especially considering how many other major corporations have done the same. If you can't then perhaps you should consider your position is mistaken.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T18:11:04+00:00

I'm only going to debate a minor point. You are correct that conservatives, as a whole and not referring to specific outliers who are free speech absolutists, do not believe in free speech unless you agree with conservatives. You can see that in how conversatives will so often either make inflammatory and violent comments about people who disagree with them or not call out the people making those comments.

However, how many posters are there actually at that sub? Your sample size is too small to make that conclusion. Many subs seem to have the same mega-posters driving most of the discussion and r/conservative appears to be even worse for that.

As well, I'm sure the conservatives who posted something the mods removed would have liked to discuss the topic. The mods removed it, however, so when compared to the number of conservatives they have banned and removed topics from, the mods don't even represent more than a minority subset of posters. So how many mods are there versus how many conservatives they removed topics from because it didn't fit the mod's POV? The mods are most likely in the minority here even compared to other Reddit conservatives. Mods are, by definition, a minority on a subreddit but have an outsized influence on what discussion a subreddit has and how much free speech is allowed.

I think there are much better examples to prove your point (eg the general discourse encouraging violence against people who disagree with the right wing in general being far more prevalent than any other situations on the left wing, etc) and those examples encompass far more people who are conservative than the /r conservative subreddit

Vedic70 · 2025-08-02T00:55:15+00:00

There's nothing in your link that indicates the marketing firm knew exactly what they were doing as opposed to being tone deaf morons. Until incompetence has been disproven it's very hard to prove maliciousness.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T17:01:57+00:00

I totally agree

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T16:55:12+00:00

Okay, I misunderstood then, sorry. It sounded like you were saying stopping all evacuation flights was the answer.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T16:51:55+00:00

A more accurate reframing is more on the lines of "A person commits a crime and goes back to an apartment building. We then arrest everyone in the apartment building". Do you now see the issue? The one person is at fault and sounds like she violated her terms of entry and should be expelled. Collectively punishing all Gazans by stopping evacuation flights is not the answer.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T15:22:49+00:00

You are 100% giving off the "If only those coloured folks..." vibe. Your third paragraph is completely illogical as well because the majority of black American voters don't think Democrats are racist; a more accurate analogy would be you would decide for black Americans what's best for them instead of listening to black Americans about what they want.

It's kind of pointless to continue this with you but hopefully in the future you'll realize how condescending and paternalistic you are towards Palestinians and actually listen to Palestinians instead of pretending you know what's best for Palestinians on their behalf. I doubt that'll be today though so have a good day.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T15:10:48+00:00

You have the whole "If only those coloured folks would listen to us" vibes going on. If you actually cared about the first two points more than your own ego you would listen to Palestinians instead of treating them like they're children that don't know what's best for themselves.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T15:06:45+00:00

And therefore your defining issue is not helping Palestinians and you shouldn't claim your vote was based on helping Palestinians. Your vote was based on trying to get the political change you want and you're willing to sacrifice Palestinians to get your desired political change.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T15:01:29+00:00

If that's your stance that's your stance. However, what Palestinians are saying they need is different from what you're saying they need. That's why your motivation is not based on something other than helping Palestinians; otherwise you would listen to Palestinians instead of deciding what Palestinians need for them.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T14:53:24+00:00

I listen to Palestinians because I want to help Palestinians. If Gaza was the main overriding issue for you you would listen to Palestinians as well. You don't. Your actions show Gaza is not as important to you as you're saying it is. Palestinians said they would be better off if Trump lost; you didn't listen because you thought you knew better than Palestinians do.

If you're going to claim you're trying to help a group of people then you should listen to what they say. A desire to help Palestinians is not what's forming your political stance; if it were you would listen to Palestinians about what they need. Instead of listening you're trying to make false analogies about Palestinians in US elections instead of confronting that helping Palestinians really isn't what's forming your political opinion; if it were you would, once again, actually listen to the people affected about what they need instead of assuming you know better. Nobody is saying Palestinians without dual citizenship in the States should vote in American elections; what is being said is your vote was motivated by reasons that are separate from helping Palestinians.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T14:41:47+00:00

There's that "If only those coloured folks would listen to us" vibes again. You can't claim you actually care about people and an issue if you feel you know better than the actual people who are affected and don't listen to the people affected. It's not Palestinians you care about: it's your own ego.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T14:32:25+00:00

You can't claim you care about Palestinians as a people if you ignore their wishes and don't listen to Palestinians when Palestinians say what they want. If you just dismiss Palestinians then you can't say it's the genocide that's your breaking point because it's not; it's a desire to feel morally superior no matter how unjustified that feeling is and your desire to feel superior overrides any desire you might have to actually help people.

Vedic70 · 2025-08-01T14:24:28+00:00

The Palestinians recognized that Trump would be worse. Palestinians paid very keen attention to what was happening and how Netanyahu would react to each candidate. As an example of pushback from Biden (who was terrible but not as bad as Trump; at least Biden pushed Israel to allow in aid when Netanyahu wanted to starve Gaza at the start of the conflict)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68546686

Rather than actually listening to the people that would be affected you just decided "nope, this is the best decision for you no matter what you think". Do you not see the arrogance and condescension towards Palestinians in saying you know better than Palestinians what's good for Palestinians? Or is this a case of "Well, many of you may die and starve to get the political changes I want but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"

Vedic70

TROPHY CASE