Burton protest

By Marina Knight

I just came down to Speeder and Earl's coffee shop to post an update after checking out the Burton protest rally.

It wasn't much of a protest, though it was peaceful. There were members of the media and about 100 protesters with signs with slogans like "Now I ride Rossignol" and "Is that what you want me to do?" - referring to the Primo boards which feature self cutting. About a third of the crowd was under the age of 10.

The group organized themselves, then marched along the road (Industrial Parkway) in front of Burton's flagship store and offices in Burlington. A few police officers stood watch.

The crowd stopped just in front, but didn't enter the parking lot and some Burton employees headed to lunch filed out of the building to their cars. They looked at the crowd nonchalantly, then went on their way. A small crowd stood outside on a balcony of the Burton building and some of Burton's "media" team shot video and stills of the protest, which they will likely use to fuel the fire.

The protesters called for Jake himself to come out and explain himself, but he did not come out because, I later learned, Jake is in New Zealand.

After a short while the crowd of people made their way back to their cars.

I headed inside the Burton store to see what the word among employees was. A group sat eating lunch in the lobby. The store was crowded with shoppers and one employee said it was busier than normal, probably due to the rally. Another lamented that people are putting so much energy into protesting naked girls on boards, when there are far worse things happening in the world. Like the Iraq war, he said.

The whole experience has cast into light the power of the media and the power of the individual to rally a crowd. In Burton's most recent statement to the press, Burton's CEO Laurent Potdevin, said he was forced to make the statement "as a result of the opinions of an isolated group of individuals."

Having covered the story for about three weeks, I would have to agree with him. The group leading the charge against Burton is relatively small and very persistent. Does that group represent a large cross-section of people? That is hard to know.

Given the amount of media attention given to the protesters (the story has been covered by CNN and several large newspapers) one would think the Burton controversy is a huge deal - and it certainly is to those who oppose the boards.

It also highlights the media's tendency to cover what lands in their lap. Really, at the effort of one person, through emails directed at various media outlets, a storm of controversy was created. The coverage has been slanted heavily toward those who are against the snowboards. We haven't heard much from Burton, from people who are unfeathered by their graphics or from anyone who has bought one of the Love or Primo Boards. Stay tuned on that front though.

Burton says they support freedom of artistic expression. Couch it like that and it's hard to find fault with them. I mean, who is for censorship?

It's a fascinatingly complex issue which is very difficult to take a stand on. I'm not for debasing women, but I'm for freedom of expression. I'm not sure that snowboards can be called art, but artists made the graphics. If the self-cutting images were on a canvas would that make it better? Where does that leave people? Political ideas, social values, freedom of expression, and a wide cross section of individual opinions are intersecting here.

There's no black or white here, just a big sea of grey.