A company - especially a bank–has political influence by virtue of its very existance. You can’t depoliticise something inherent
Whether TSB puts a picture of Tom Moore on its Facebook, or accidently locks people out of their accounts resulting in potential regulatory scorn…it has a political resonance
Same goes for Monzo if it does a BLM logo or if it receives continued and escalated complains about account freezings…
Every time you buy something you are making a socio-political choice and impact (albeit of an incredibly small and limited influence)
You cannot pigeon hole politics from this unless you want to pretend to live in a world where PMQs and the footsteps of Whitehall are the only thing of any political relevance
But this is the thing. I do not particularly like TSB plastering Tom Moore over their social media as I oppose all efforts to try and draw comparisons between a war and an epidemic. Does it stop me using an account with them for the odd thing, no it doesn’t. If it makes the odd old dear who goes into a branch happy, then that’s fine by me.
I don’t think it does enough harm to actively oppose it and I certainly wouldn’t oppose it on the grounds that ‘they should keep out of politics’ because by that logic they should give up their banking license.
The precedent has already been set with the Pride icon. Adding the BLM variant would be no different to this, no more nor less groundbreaking. It’s really not a big deal, it’s an OPT IN personal app colour choice.
Also, I’m just curious but does Pride and it’s corresponding app icon fall under this “politics” you despise?
Out of curiosity, what social rights issues do you think monzo hasn’t supported in the past that are on the same scale as LGBTQ+ rights and BLM?
I personally can’t think of any major specific things off the top of my head, or any related possible logo design related to them, or any requests from customers on this forum to make them.
Absolutely, and this is something I’d like to see improved. But people with disabilities aren’t being discriminated against to the extent that black people are, they’re not being killed by the police to the extent that black people are (even with the eyes of the world on them, the US police are still killing black people even now), and they’re not dying of COVID-19 as a result of systemtic discrimination like black people are.
I was watching TV the other day and saw someone make the point that people who complain are reading the issue as “(Only) Black Lives Matter”, when what everyone is actually saying is that “Black Lives Matter (too)”.
From my own point of view, the idea that you can only visibly care about X if you also visibly care about A, B and C is bullshit. This isn’t a zero sum game here. That at this specific point in time the focus is on one issue doesn’t mean that any other issues are worthless. Black people are under attack. We have to recognise that, move forward, and make things better.
I’m disgusted that apparently no progress has been made since Michael Brown in Ferguson. People older than me are no doubt disgusted that no progress has been made since Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968. It’s been too long. We need to do better.
You can play “but what about…” forever. This isn’t point scoring for something that affects you or that you find more important.
Pride and BLM are by far the biggest two. And maybe down the line Monzo will add more and more and then they can have 25 variations of their logo for people to choose from.
Thanks for letting me know “what is necessary”, however in future please refrain from hijacking the discussion and somehow becoming the god of who is and is not allowed to express themselves.
I am still extremely disappointed with Monzo for not doing this, but still providing the pride icon.
It just always happens to be race issues that people decide to draw the line at, and call unnecessary.
Monzo can call it politics all they want, but at the end of the day it’s just a phrase, and a gesture, that a bank profiting from a society that were still paying slave owners back for their “loss of property” until a few years ago could have easily made.
I agree with having a BLM flag icon. But can we please stop with the ‘who can be the most aggrieved minority group’ competition? It doesn’t help anyone to compare hypothetical “they’re treated better than us” discrimination.
There was nothing of the sort and you know that. You are gaslighting.
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tbutz
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A “moderator” cannot just make decisions about such things, generally (because they have lives and aren’t here 24/7), they expect people to report content that is against the rules. If you feel a comment falls into that category, report it and let the process happen.
See now I find that offensive, as a member of the LGBTQ community.
Can anyone who doesn’t wish to show their support for BLM just refrain from commenting?
This is about a feature for those who wish to show support and solidarity for BLM by changing their Icon. Not virtue signaling, which arguably the tweet Monzo sent out was, since no action followed.
If you don’t support the idea simply don’t vote and go on about your day.
I would absolutely love to see Monzo supporting the campaign for justice for Black people, and for an awareness of white privilege and its effects.
I don’t know how active Monzo is in these areas, but without doing that hard ground work that lasts long beyond Blackout Tuesday, a new app logo would be just virtue signalling.
I’ve seen so many brands changing their logo while treating Black staff in awful ways. To them, Black lives only matter when it comes to branding. I think Monzo is better than that, which may explain why there’s no BLM logo.
Interesting to see how many people will argue details in this chat about what progress, virtue signalling, tokenism etc all looks like, and yet repeatedly dismiss a black man giving his support for a BLM logo.
I’m not saying anyone or anything is immune to critique but surely if you’re such an ally to BLM that you’re in the comments on here, then should you not be upholding black voices above your own on a subject like this?
As much as I love F1 i think that is a really poor example in my opinion, as somebody who’s watched every FP, Qualifying and Race so far. The only reason they are at the point they are at is purely because of Lewis Hamilton. If he wasn’t in the sport there would be none of it. Up until the last 3 races it had been a complete farce, hell in the 2nd race in Austria they completely cut away from the live footage of the kneel(which only 13/20 drivers do). This sparked outrage and a lot of action from LH which is why we now have a prerecorded video and and a few second slot for the kneel.
Until there’s more action behind the scenes from F1 and Liberty Media, it’s nothing but just for show unfortunately.
