Posted on 11/17/2017 11:26:10 AM PST by Altura Ct.
Activists are asking why Dr. Martens chose an image that resembles a classic white supremacist skinhead symbol for a holiday billboard in inner Southeast Portland.
The billboard, which is visible at Southeast Madison and Seventh Avenue, displays black boots with red plaid laces and the phrase, "Rock the holidays." On Twitter, anti-hate group activist Sam Sachs pointed out that black Dr. Martens -- colloquially called "Doc Martens" -- with red laces are a white supremacist symbol that implies the wearer has committed an act of violence.
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Dr. Martens with red or white laces in the "Racist Skinhead Glossary."
According to Randy Blazak, chair of Oregon's Coalition Against Hate Crime and a criminologist who specializes in hate groups, Dr. Martens have been connected to racist skinheads since the 1970s.
Black Dr. Martens with white shoelaces are a symbol of "general white power," Blazak said over the phone Thursday.
"The idea," he continued, "is that you graduate from white laces to red laces once you've spilled somebody's blood."
Blazak said he knows Dr. Martens has been working to distance itself from the racist skinhead image and he is surprised it would allow an ad like this to be displayed, especially in Portland.
"In Portland, where we're tagged as 'Skinhead City,'" he said, "it's triggering."
It's been 29 years since Mulugeta Seraw was murdered in Portland by three racist skinheads, he pointed out.
"If I was an Ethiopian person or a person of color," Blazak said, "I would say, 'that's racist Portland right there.'"
The symbol has known to activists in Portland. It drew an angry response outside of Jeremy Christian's first hearing when a man who said he was Christian's friend stopped to lace up his red laces with black boots.
The crowd called him a "Nazi" and "Facist Neo-Nazi" but the man said, "I'm not going to get into a debate with people. I know I'm a good person."
Christian is accused of stabbing three men, leaving two of them dead and one wounded, on the MAX train in May during what witnesses said was a racist rant against two teenage black girls, one who was wearing a hijab.
In this case the red is a Christmas color and this is a Christmas ad.
The kid who made this ad was probably not born in the eighties.
They come with black laces. The red laces are supposed to be festive. The company is from UK.
These people are idiots who see racism in everything.
White pages are already gone. When was the last time you saw a new phone book?
Maybe pink shoelaces are the order of the day.
But then the boots have to be tan, not black.
Lurkinanloomin wrote ~
>>>White pages are already gone. When was the last time you saw a new phone book?<<<
U R pulling my leg, right?
We used to get a white pages and a yellow pages.
Now we get a Yellow Pages and a Yellow Book, but no residential directory, haven’t for a few years.
Yep, just as surely as SPLC is an unbiased, objective organization.
#27 >>>Now we get a Yellow Pages and a Yellow Book, but no residential directory, haven’t for a few years.<<<
YELLOW Pages? Asianphobic!
And everyone with a mustache symbolizes Hitler?
And everyone with big ears symoblizes Obama?
Hey, I am not attacking anyone here. I am merely letting people know that wearing red-laced Docs was something that might get you beat up or at least IDed as a Neo-Nazi/skinhead back in the 80/90s. I am not saying that the ad man knew that, but it is not a fabrication.
That's what they call a "mulatto" Smart Car.
:-)
Ok, I’ll play the racist game. Black boots. Red laces. Sounds more like Blood’s boots.
Another absurdity by the left.
I came across an article about an upscale bar in Des Moines that instituted a dress code: no baggy jeans, no T-shirts, no construction boots. Yes, this was called racist even though it was applied to everybody. From what I could understand from the muddled comments is that the reason it is racist is that minorities like to wear those clothes, no matter that many non-minorities do likewise.
I myself never equated work boots with minorites. I always thought they were more the Nike types.
Dazzling urbanites with work boots? Must be a very small regional thing, as I suspect the "red shoelaces" thing started out. SPLC has a talent for sniffing out "hate groups" that have around five members.
And three of them are federal agents.
The fourth is a reporter doing a expose.
The fifth shows up for the free beer.
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