Burlington City Council Passes Resolution Asking Burton To Meet With Protesters
mike lewis
- November 19 2008
- 820 views
- 5 comments
The controversy over Burton’s Love and Primo graphics seems to take on a new facet daily. In the most recent step to curb Burton’s freedom to create boards with graphics that community members have taken offense to, the Burlington, Vermont City Council passed a resolution Monday by a vote of 12 to 1 asking the company to meet with the leader’s of the citizen groups protesting the boards that feature PG-13 Playboy centerfolds with no naughty bits, and drawings of hands being mutilated.
According to the Burlington Free Press:
The resolution, a softer version of the one originally proposed, doesn’t force Burton to take any action, but rather encourages the Burlington-based company to listen to the concerns of community organizations that say that the boards promote self-harm and misogyny.
The original resolution, sponsored by councilors Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4; Joan Shannon, D-Ward 5; Clarence Davis, P-Ward 3; and Jane Knodell, P-Ward 2, asked that Burton withdraw the boards from the market, a request that city councilor Ed Adrian, D-Ward 1, thought was unnecessary.
“My personal opinion is that people should be allowed to make choices, whatever they are,” Adrian said.
Russ Ellis, D-Ward 4 said he wasn’t interested in having the council censor any business and likened the Burton issue to Burlington Telecom’s decision to carry the Al-Jazeera network.
“I don’t think we want to get into the issue of being a censoring board. It’s really not appropriate for the City Council to be dealing with,” Ellis said.
“They don’t have to answer to us, to me, to anyone. But again, my response to that is I hope they would take the high road,” Wright said.
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November 19th, 2008 at 9:58 am
How can this thing get any lamer? Vermont has one of the worst job markets in the country, an aging population, and a brain drain of youth leaving the state to find work elsewhere.
It’s amazing that the city council would even consider this, let alone pass it. Way to alienate one of the few employers who could actually be used to lure younger people into the state.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
The thing is that Burton already heard the concerns and replied to the matter:
“As a result of the opinions of an isolated group of individuals, we want to clarify where Burton stands on our board graphic artwork. We respect everyone?s right to his or her own opinion, and we also respect the right to protest. That said, here is our position: Burton supports freedom of artistic expression. Board graphics are artwork, and art can be offensive to some and inspiring to others. Snowboarding is a sport and a lifestyle where boundaries are pushed in terms of artwork, similar to the world of music, video games and movies. From Lange ski boot ads since the 1970?s featuring barely clothed women, to the Burton Love series, winter sports have a long history of tongue-in-cheek graphics and advertising. Our product development process is driven by riders, and when some of our pro riders asked for these graphics, we backed them. Burton is a global company, and these boards have been embraced and are a success around the world. We are not breaking any laws by creating these boards, and it is our sincere belief that these graphics do not condone or encourage violence towards women in any way. Burton?s support of women, from entry level employees here in Burlington to our team riders on Olympic podiums, is unparalleled. We, as a company, are immensely proud of our record here. We will keep these boards in the market and have no intention of recalling them.”
These folks don’t want to discuss anything, they want the boards banned period… nothing to discuss.
I hope Burton refuses. What are they going to do? Arrest the entire company? Arrest the snowboards?
November 20th, 2008 at 8:26 am
The city of Burlington, in the state of Vermont, is advocating censorship. How dismal. For those who are personally offended and pedagogically indignant, this is an exquisite opportunity to deepen your views: To embrace the right of freedom of expression - artistic and otherwise - even or especially while not supporting the views expressed. Only those who do not grasp the unsanitized nature of freedom, who have a fundamentalist intolerance of ambivalence, who are historically alienated from youth culture, and who are so arrogant as to think that their personal tastes haven’t already been considered - and that using their public platform to proliferate those narrow tastes is acceptable - would attempt such a stunt. Perhaps they haven’t understood that to “censor” is to cut off - and that this is a much more dangerous use of cutting off than that illustrated on the Primo boards.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:21 am
This is what Vermont has become; a collection of uptight, trust funded, lesbian hot house flowers who have no idea what humor is.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:51 am
simply put - these protesters need to find something more productive to do with their time.