I'll pass your info on to my one traveller pal but you should repost everywhere, preferably with a scan of the ad.

PIKEY doesn't just mean gypsy though! It also means chav or lower class.

You can argue that pikey isn't an exclusively racist term anymore, in the way 'nigger' has been adopted by anti-racist whites since Lenny Bruce, but the common meaning of pikey is a pejorative term for Irish travellers, implying all the old stereotypes of theivery and thuggery. That has spread to mean any poor Irish, to any poor person. The term is definitely offensively racist, at least to any of us who find it offensive when a white calls a black 'nigger'.

Given the real discrimination against the Irish in England 'no Irish or dogs', and the real persecution of travellers both in Eire and England, this smacks of the old genocides.

You could, of course, complain to Nike. After all this is a gross infringement of their intellectual property. Should you happen to leave a lot of comments on the Nike website - with the common misunderstanding that this was a viral marketing campaign

 http://swoosh.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/swoosh.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

as I did:

The "Pikey viral advertising" campaign that ran in the Sport Newspaper was an outrageous racist piece of trash. Advertising under the slogan "Pikey - Just Nick it" is absolutely degrading to Travellers. "Pikey" is abuse associated with the Racist vilification of Travelling people in Britain and Ireland and to use that slogan to sell shoes is beneath contempt. Well this time the viral has not worked: I shall be communicating your support of racism for sales to all of my friends with the opinion I have expressed here.

I appreciate that viral marketing is always a bit different - but to use Racism for Sales is shameful.

If everybody happened to do this on the same day - say next tuesday after lunch - it would make the point fairly clearly.

This may be defined as racism under the Race Relation Act - Gypsies and Irish Travellers are recognised ethnic groups under this act. If you would like to take this further please contact Friends, Families and Travellers (contact details at www.gypsy-traveller.org. )
FFT have trained advisors and links to legal professionals.
01273 234777

Liz,

Unless you or someone else has taken your own admirable advice by Tuesday then I suggest we use Gretchens suggestion. I'll repost this then if Gretchen doesn't. Gretchens plan is underhand, hypocritical and extremely cunning. Let's face it, Nike can afford better lawyers than the UK can and are more likely to care.


Gretchen,

Please never be my enemy, and if you are then please grant me a quick death.