October 14, 2005
WTF: White Power at the Apple Store?
We're not sure how we missed this, but a few days ago the boys at Low Culture caught a couple of pictures of what is possibly the most inexplicable window display we've ever seen in New York City (and that's really saying something!) We all know that the Apple brand has long been strong on white power; they've released white laptops, iPods, and computer towers for years now. What we did not suspect was how seriously they took this commitment... or how horrifyingly deep it ran! Sadly, our muckraking excitement was deflated when we tracked down the book on Amazon and read the description:
Grade 9-12-A horrifying account of the Ku Klux Klan and other racist hate groups (such as skinheads) in the U.S. It is a powerful, clearly written, well-organized book that details historical foundations for racism, as well as current hate-trends and white power movements. Students will gain useful insights and information from this title, particularly when they use it in conjunction with Susan Lang's Extremist Groups in America (Watts, 1990) and Fred Cook's The Ku Klux Klan (Messner, 1989).
Even so, the Apple store might be better taking the book out of the display, just so no one gets the wrong idea! We're betting that's going to happen pretty quickly as soon as someone points it out to the store management, which we plan to do today on our way to lunch.
Purchase the book at Amazon: "The White Power Movement"
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uh, don't judge a book by its cover?
Ok, that is an Odd one...
I wonder if the Apple store simply put someone's unsold stock in the window?
To be fair, it looks like they're putting up a civil rights display with a bent toward tolerance, and understanding the white power movement is just as worthy as understanding the civil rights movement when it comes to analyzing the racial divide in America. The inclusion of a white power book (wait..white Powerbook?) in a display is no endorsement one way or another, just a matter of historical record.
You tell 'em Jake! That title is going to hurt a lot of people so you better push for censorship now before somebody picks up the book and reads about the place of white power in American history. The world will be a nicer place due to your PC police actions.
If the display is anything like displays at other Apple Stores, it's a photograph of books on bookshelves, not real books on bookshelves.
Here is some more detail on the books.
I, for one, am rarely in favor of changing things just because of what other people might think of them.
don't worry, the Gothamist Thought Police are on the case!
I think the book is fine. What is annoying about the display is the idea that the iBook would be the only book you'll need and that we should forget about libraries :P
Nicely said Daniel. And this is a CHILDREN'S book - not a piece of white power propaganda. If you're that easily offended, I hope you never step foot in a library - you're our worst nightmare.
p.s. notice the little white stickers at the bottom of the books? Yeah, those are call numbers - the display is clearly trying to emulate library book shelves, hence the 'odd' collection of books. So please, by all means, go to Apple Management and complain! We just missed Banned Books Week but the irony is still there: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm
you know we're just the usual liberal hypocrites-- free speech for all until it might offend one of our precious politically correct stances!
but to be fair, the apple store isn't a library-- it's a store that sells computers. they have a right to free speech, but often corporations monitor themselves a little more closely b/c they want to get people to buy stuff. and sometimes people can be sensitive about stuff like this-- for good reasons or not.
that's true, but by the same token, once they've put it up they're stuck. Let's say you go in and and complain about some titles and they remove them. Then I come in and say I've noticed X titles are gone - why? When they tell me, I accuse them of supporting censorship (which they would be). Either way they lose. There's always a way to offend someone I suppose.
This argument--that "someone might get the wrong idea so Apple should remove those books"--is the height of ignorance. It's akin to forcing someone to resign over using the word "niggardly."
Jake, why do you even care what Apple does? Why not take those five minutes of your lunch break to be outraged about something that's legitimately racist?
i am! didn't you guys see the table i set up on the corner of greene and prince with the "apple is racist for not selling a yellow (Asian) ipod" sign and pamphlets?
IMO, I think people are reading Waaaay too much into Jake's original post.
This is what Jake wrote: Even so, the Apple store might be better taking the book out of the display, just so no one gets the wrong idea! We're betting that's going to happen pretty quickly as soon as someone points it out to the store management, which we plan to do today on our way to lunch.
How am I reading too much into the post? Did I miss the <facetious> tags or something?
i disagree, s.d.. jake said he was going to complain to management over a window display because he thinks someone might be offended by it. that has a negative effect on corporate behavior that encourages them to grant less decision-making power to individual locations out of fear of offending their customers. it happens all the time. we end up with lowest common denominator homogenization. any way you look at it, cheerleading censorship is not good.
"jake hates our freedom."
(kidding!!)
Ok, Let's play a little substitution here: Suppose it was the latest issue of Hustler - Sex and S&M Edition with the cover showing?
Would it be a matter of "Freedom of Speech" or appropriateness in that venue? I could be wrong, but I bet the store just put them there as Props without actually looking at the titles. Can anyone actually reach them to read? Anyway you look at it, I just don't think this close to "cheerleading censorship".
And before it's said: Noooo, I'm not for Censorship, I just don't think this is it.
Last point I'll make: Corporation's have lately focused on a concept called "Risk to Reputation". The short of it is: Employees are told "Don't engage in activity that would potentially damage the companies reputation". I bet the store Manager would be more than happy to remove that book.
SD, if you'll read the link that w posted above, Apple purposely picked these specific to reflect "the company's social roots....The books they selected cover the environment, communes, sexuality, race relations, philosophy, science, law, education, art and other subjects."
These books were selected for a reason.
And I don't get your Hustler analogy--how are porn and sociology texts similar?
I'm thinking this may be part of their push on the new video iPod which comes in both black and white... a sort of "Ebony and Ivory" sales campaign, the black iPod and the white iPod living in harmony together, that sort of thing... Or is that just crazy?
What the fuck? fuck you jake! Asian's aren't all Yellow. Trying to be sarcastic with a misguided joke but it's more racist than what you originally wrote.
Didn't they teach you in school? The title of a book refers to its subject matter, not to stuff the author thinks is cool. This post (added to the persistent illiteracy and the cupcakes and kitties updates) confirms my suspicion that Gothamist is written by eight-year-olds.
Or pandas!
so what did they say when you went in there at lunch?
"i am! didn't you guys see the table i set up on the corner of greene and prince with the "apple is racist for not selling a yellow (Asian) ipod" sign and pamphlets?"
Jake, first up this quote from you above is really stupid in a borderline racist way. It's a tad pathetic. Even if jokey.
Second, this post is based on "Low Culture"'s ridiculous post. So it's like a game of feigned outrage telephone. And let's face facts about "Low Culture" in general: They tend to try to stoke the flames of contention at the most inane things. Like a broken clock it's right at least 2 times a day, but most of it is wonk-like contention-mongering that wreaks of someone who's dream in life it is to write for Page Six. Seriously, "Low Culture" leans heavilly toward the sensational.
well, i should hope they laughed at him.
oh lay off the guys at low culture-- their only crime is that they don't post often enough! if i have to wait another week for a post i'm going to lose it.
and i swear to god, guys-- do i have to start using the [sarcasm] [just playin'] and [psyche, kid!] tags again? unclench for a few minutes-- it's good for your colon.
my opinion: apple shouldn't censor itself, but it should put up a note explaining the display if there are titles that could be misconstrued-- and that's not me being PC- that's just common sense.
and of course all asians aren't yellow! why, my friend jen chung is a delicate shade of egg-shell- and tien is sort of a burnt-umber, i think.
and if you want to see some stuff that really offends you, check out the two latest pix of streetart i just put up at streetsy-- they will blow your mind!
Jake,
I find your comments about Apple selling a yellow Asian Ipod to be inappropriate and ignorant. It makes you look like an uneducated fool.
Shingo, welcome to my world!
Why should Apple put up a "note explaining the display if there are titles that could be misconstrued" when all anybody has to do to discover that it's not white supremacist propaganda is *open the book*?
Pretending the KKK and its ilk don't exist is no way to combat racism. Nor, for that matter, is catering to people who find it too difficult to open a book before passing judgment on its contents.
Didn't you notice that one of the books is titled "Discrimination"? You'd better tell them to remove it before someone accuses them of promoting discrimination. Or maybe they should just hire the Gothamist Un-American Activities Commission to approve all display materials for pc hysterics.
guys, the point is that they can't open the book, b/c they are not actually books- it's a poster in the window-- and since people can get the wrong idea by judging the books just by the cover, there should be a note-- it could be on the back of the poster, inside the store, or it could be a small thing at the corner of the poster. that would really add something to the display, b/c people might actually understand it.
Is it just me or are people getting stupider on the internet?
i'm burnt umber? that's news to me. i better go hit the tanning bed.
the note should read something like: "the apple store doesn't condone white power movements, even though we have a few screwdriver tracks on our ipod, 'cause they're like, really good, but we don't listen to the lyrics."
Whether the book is depicted on a poster or drawn in crayon by a three-year-old child, it's still a book. With words inside. Words, presumably, that would go a long way toward illuminating the title.
but wait, seriously, where is my yellow iPod?
Jake, you're creating a straw-man argument out of grass growing out of the cracks of a SoHo sidewalk. There are tons of real and more skin-crawling forms of media-racism out there. Why you--and 'Low Culture'--are this obsessed over a poster in a store on a street that most people won't read is beyond understanding.
Sure, you cannot open the book if it's a picture. But to expand on what Maud is saying, let's say some incendiary loons--like Fox News or the New York Post--were to latch onto this it would take all of 5 seconds for anyone to research and find the book to be not a racist tract, but a book looking at the inside of racist groups. And in the end, guess who wins?
What you're basically saying Jake is the same ass-backward logic that banned books like 'Huckleberry Finn' based on the fact that some passages--when taken out of context--appeared to be racist. When any 6th grader can explain that if you read the whole book, it ain't.
If you're going to get all pissy about the Apple store and this poster, then you need to get equally upset at Dov Charney's 'Bar Mitzvah a Go-Go' photo-essay in the windows of American Apparel.
oh snap-- i am totally getting to work on my dov charney post-- does anyone have pictures? i am too lazy to go outside, walk the 1.5 blocks to the nearest american apparel (has anyone else noticed they are becoming the new starbucks downtown?) and photograph the display.
Here you are Jake. Post away:
http://gawker.com/news/american-apparel/dov-charney-always-bad-for-the-jews-130531.php
Is it just me or is there a weird irony that people are arguing on the internet about a picture of a book in a computer store window?
"Is it just me or is there a weird irony that people are arguing on the internet about a picture of a book in a computer store window?"
Our generation is defined by a constant quest for authenticity punctuated by lives that are increasingly disconnected and sedentary in nature. We will buy preworn objects, but we will not wear out these objects ourselves.
We're essentially one generation from being lazy gelatinous blobs with WiFi in our heads dreaming comments directly into blogs.
Now shut up and get me an Enormous Egg Omlets from Burger King. And load my damned iPod. Do you think I have the time to load Fischerspooner and Sigur Ros on my own?
Apple's brand is the core of their identity; if you for one second think that each and every title on that display wasn't put there ON PURPOSE with a clear reason, you'd be mistaken. Everything about Apple's retail stores is as meticulously planned as their recent string of "special media events."
Jake is a moron.
Who cares? Fuck all you bitches. If it were Black Power Movement nobody would've even noticed. I'm all about it! White Power!
If it were a book depicting Martin Luther King or any of the Black Panther Movement would that be alright? Or, are you only biased on the Whitepower movement?