BD / Joe Kinder / ???

John Wilder wrote:

I can guarantee you that they didn't end their relationship with Joe based on consumer feedback. 

If anything like this occurred at my company, that person would immediately lose their job. As they should. As they likely would at your work place. No employer is going to tolerate any employee publicly bullying someone- especially not one whose job it is to be the face of the brand out in the world.

We don't even know if he was actually bullying anyone. Where's the context? We need a play by play of the facts to get the facts straight.

Harumpfster Boondoggle wrote:

TC Pro = Tommy Caldwell's signature shoe.

If you climb trad granite then what those guys are using for the same is very relevant to most. If you are thinking about DL WI then you probably would be interested in what shoes work great there for example. If someone walked up and sent the hardest thing there you probably would notice the shoes on their feet...

Bad example.

Ted Pinson wrote:

Bad example.

That's (one of) the hardest thing @ DL?

Does anyone in this thread even climb, braj?

Haha no, but it isn’t trivial either.  I don’t believe there have been any barefoot ascents of Bagatelle or Blood Alcohol.

Reading through the Black Diamond and La Sportiva posts regarding the loss of sponsorship made me sick. I knew that our "community" was far from being the perfect, Utopian, loving bullshit that some make it out to be. But I was completely blind to just how infected we are with the same vile ilk as the rest of society. 

"So this really isn’t about him. His behavior simply acts as a portal to examine something that is usually hidden away in the dark underbelly of this community."

I recommend reading this with an open mind regardless of where you stand on one privileged climber losing his sponsors.

https://medium.com/@georgieabel/sasha-digulian-joe-kinder-and-the-reframing-of-normal-b0e70d933642 

Oh shet.

Looks like we need to figure out everyone that smiled when they read those memes, and string them up.

I've got the rope, who's with me?!??!?!?!

John Wilder wrote:

He's publicly admitted to doing so to Sasha and Courtney. 

More to the point, "we" don't need to do anything here other than take a moment to examine our own actions and behavior around others and recognize that our actions can negatively impact someone even if it's unintentional.

He was obviously threatened by his sponsors to do so.

Garrett Genereux wrote
https://medium.com/@georgieabel/sasha-digulian-joe-kinder-and-the-reframing-of-normal-b0e70d933642 

I really thought this was going to be a good article until the race blaming started happening. 

Also I would like to see some actual evidence of my evil before you just drop something like the following quote I have copied below. "This community" who she states is mostly white males like myself are apparently responsible for all of the following:

"This community actively promotes misogyny, white supremacy, ableism, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, and the erasure of native narratives."

Garrett Genereux wrote: I recommend reading this with an open mind regardless of where you stand on one privileged climber losing his sponsors.

https://medium.com/@georgieabel/sasha-digulian-joe-kinder-and-the-reframing-of-normal-b0e70d933642 

Wow.  There are some pretty enormous generalizations here.  

BD has 'core values' ??

Grog and Eric,

Those are for sure generalizations, but it doesn't say, "everyone in this community community actively promotes misogyny, white supremacy, ableism, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, and the erasure of native narratives." Obviously not everyone embodies any or all of those values. But the problem is that there are those of us who call themselves "climbers" that for sure do. Just go through the comments on either of the two posts I mentioned and you will find them.

So doesn't that mean that all of us can be actively ridding the community of those descriptors? Just because you aren't a perpetrator doesn't mean you can't be a part of the solution.  

John Wilder wrote:

Also, knowing Joe casually, I would wager that his apology and admission was of his own volition. 

Well I know Alex honoll and also the other guy that climbed the dawn wall top that

Garrett Genereux wrote:Those are for sure generalizations, but it doesn't say, "everyone in this community community actively promotes misogyny, white supremacy, ableism, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, and the erasure of native narratives." Obviously not everyone embodies any or all of those values.

You can try to dance around the interpretation of the words all you want to, but the common interpretation is at least a significant portion of the climbing population (and possibly more so than the general population) do one or more of those things, and that's an unsubstantiated claim.

Not the first article by Georgie l find troublesome (and I don't even disagree w/ BD/Sportiva in this instance). Too bad, she used to be much more reasonable.

Garrett Genereux wrote: But I was completely blind to just how infected we are with the same vile ilk as the rest of society.

I've heard this generalization about climbers repeated ad nauseam - this notion that we as a group are somehow a cut above other groups or even the "rest of society".  Fact is, people are people regardless of whether they climb or not and across any reasonably-sized cross section of people you will find the same "infections".

Locals Only wrote:

Well I know Alex honoll and also the other guy that climbed the dawn wall top that

bro, the list goes on. I know Engleburt Humpledink casually . Actually I just follow him like a stalker on social media, deep shit I tell you.

grog m aka Greg McKee wrote:

I really thought this was going to be a good article until the race blaming started happening. 

Also I would like to see some actual evidence of my evil before you just drop something like the following quote I have copied below. "This community" who she states is mostly white males like myself are apparently responsible for all of the following:

"This community actively promotes misogyny, white supremacy, ableism, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, and the erasure of native narratives."

Agreed.  Most of the people questioning the story/defending Joe were in disbelief that he would act this way, because it conflicted with their image of him as a person, NOT because they thought it was acceptable to create a fake account to body shame women.  I wasn’t surprised at all when BD and LS dropped him (this is perfectly NORMAL when a sponsored athlete does something to hurt the brand), but I guess my opinion doesn’t matter as a white male colonialist.

Chris treggE wrote: Honest question: do any average climbers care who these companies sponsor, and does it really influence what brand gear they buy?  

This question deserves it's own thread.  I 100% don't care who sponsors whom, don't pay attention to it, and so certainly it does not influence what brand I buy.

caughtinside wrote:

Clearly a ton of people care. Lots of posters on instagram called for Joe to be immediately fired, and another few hundred said they were upset when he got canned. 

What I thought was interesting was that everyone went straight to BD -- they seem to be the acknowledged 800 lb gorilla.  I thought it would have made much more sense to raise it with La Sportiva first -- both climbers were sponsored by them  

Yes but what I don't have a sense of is if there is a vast silent majority who don't care. The ones who care are the ones who will be vocal.   I'm not saying I believe one thing or the other, I just have no idea of the answer.

phylp wrote:

Yes but what I don't have a sense of is if there is a vast silent majority who don't care. The ones who care are the ones who will be vocal.   I'm not saying I believe one thing or the other, I just have no idea of the answer.

I guess I’m one of the silent. I just looked on the BD website and was surprised to see 84 ambassadors listed. At $50k a pop (is that reasonable? $25k? $?????k) that’s a fair amount of money for any company. It just doesn’t seem like the payoff for BD would outweigh the payout. But i freely admit I’m basically ignorant and probably dead wrong about this. Again sorry for the thread drift.