Protesting Her Own Employer

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“As a Black woman who works at Adidas my experiences have never been business as usual.” Julia Bond, an assistant apparel designer at the sportswear giant, says she had resigned herself to experiencing and witnessing racism at work — until she saw the George Floyd video. Today, we speak to Ms. Bond, an assistant apparel designer at Adidas, who has brought the global racial reckoning to the company’s front door. Wanting more than just schemes and targets, she has been protesting in front of the company’s Portland headquarters every day since June, awaiting an apology from leadership and an admission that they have enabled racism and discrimination. Guest: Julia Bond, assistant apparel designer at Adidas, who has been protesting outside the company’s Portland headquarters for the last three months. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Adidas has made a number of pledges to diversify its work force. However, Black employees want more: an admission that the company’s leadership has enabled racism and an apology. From Facebook’s pledge to double the number of Black and Latinx by 2023 to YouTube creating a $100 million fund for Black creators, organizations across the U.S. have committed to redressing racial imbalance.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily.
0:09.2	The racial reckoning that began two months ago in America's streets
0:14.5	is now reaching into many of the country's biggest and best-known companies,
0:20.2	as workers demand greater diversity, empowerment, and accountability.
0:25.1	Today, a conversation with one of those workers, Julia Bond, about her journey from employee
0:34.5	to protester inside her own office.
0:44.0	It's Friday, August 14.
0:46.4	Julia, what is your first memory of Adidas?
0:57.3	So I remember being very young and being like at the community pool as a kid.
1:09.0	I remember being drawn to my uncle's swimming tank. I were like this electric blue,
1:14.5	like really vibrant color. And of course they have three stripes on them.
1:19.2	I remember being like, oh, I really love the color, your shorts, those are awesome.
1:23.4	I remember you looked at me and he was like, hey, maybe one day you might make them.
1:29.9	It gave me a little bit of my first interaction with this brand,
1:35.9	where it was like, wow, maybe one day I could.
1:39.1	Maybe one day I can have that kind of dream.
1:52.8	So how do you fall into fashion? Why that world?
1:58.7	So as a kid, I put a lot of work into some pretty stupid and crazy outfits.
2:09.5	I was always obsessed about the feeling of a fit early in mid-2000s on men high school.
2:17.6	So big belts, boot cut jeans. I mean, I can just tell you a high school Julia, right?
2:24.6	I would dream about those, this is gonna be blastin' us. Those Air Force One.
2:37.6	White, crispy, clean Air Force One.
	...

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