Seems like the Streisand Effect is at play here. I never would have noticed a watermelon as a political symbol if they hadn’t reacted this, i would just think it’s a bit of whimsy. Now tons of people are reading about it
Can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not but banning politics broadly from an event and then being selective regarding what is or is not considered political is a way of stifling dissent. Would they have kicked someone out for wearing a US flag pin? How about an Israeli flag? The watermelon pin is not a flag, but it’s meant to represent the Palestinian flag because of the matching colors, so what if someone wore a blue and white pin representing the Israeli flag?
Because anything could be considered political one way or another there is no way to ban politics from an event without imposing one’s own political perspective on the attendees by selectively enforcing the ban.
Seems like the Streisand Effect is at play here. I never would have noticed a watermelon as a political symbol if they hadn’t reacted this, i would just think it’s a bit of whimsy. Now tons of people are reading about it
Except the organization wasn’t trying to stifle dissent. They were trying to avoid any poltics. How dare they. Politics is life.
I wasn’t aware that “people have the right to exist” was political.
Can’t tell if you’re being facetious or not but banning politics broadly from an event and then being selective regarding what is or is not considered political is a way of stifling dissent. Would they have kicked someone out for wearing a US flag pin? How about an Israeli flag? The watermelon pin is not a flag, but it’s meant to represent the Palestinian flag because of the matching colors, so what if someone wore a blue and white pin representing the Israeli flag?
Because anything could be considered political one way or another there is no way to ban politics from an event without imposing one’s own political perspective on the attendees by selectively enforcing the ban.