Controversy
On February 3, 2011, Kenneth Cole posted an update on microblogging website Twitter that referenced the 2011 Egyptian protests. The tweet, which indicated that Cole himself wrote the entry, said: "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at (website address) -KC". After outrage and much parody on the microblogging site and on the web in general, Cole deleted the entry and posted a personal apology on Facebook.
In April 2012, the designer started a campaign that included an attack on public schoolteachers and their unions portraying the national debate over education as one that pits “Teachers’ Rights vs. Students’ Rights.” On the West Side Highway southbound entering New York City, a billboard punned to southbound commuters, ”Shouldn’t Everyone Be Well Red?” In Salon, David Sirota wrote:
- "Cole’s campaign is thinly veiled ideological propaganda, and it comes with myriad problems, not the least of which is the simple fact that almost nobody believes “underperforming teachers” should be protected. That includes the nation’s biggest teachers’ unions, which have been outspoken in backing “accountability” reforms for teacher tenure. So right off the bat, Cole is constructing a straw man, one that has served over the years to pretend that public employee unions in general and teachers’ unions specifically are about nothing more than making sure bad employees get to keep their jobs."
In response to the negative outcry, his company announced on Twitter, "We misrepresented the issue – one too complex for a billboard – and are taking it down."
Read more about this topic: Kenneth Cole (designer)
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
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