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news
thebrewdogchaingang-new.pngBrewdog criticised for calling its new cycling club a "chain gang"
Where do you stand on the use of the term ‘chain gang’ in cycling? It’s pretty common, but beyond the sport it of course carries a very different meaning.
The London Evening Standard reports that Brewdog has been defending itself from criticism after last week announcing The Brewdog Chain Gang, a series of social cycling clubs operating out of its various bars.
The beer brand’s social media followers obviously aren’t all cyclists and a number of them got in touch to express their displeasure at the name.
Emily Jane tweeted: “Is it just me or is Chain Gang a pretty gross name for @BrewDog’s bicycle club? It’s a slavery humiliation and forced labour slang word right?”
Another Twitter user – William Shatner’s TekWar – added: “Apparently 'chain gang' is a term used in cycling circles, HOWEVER, you'd think a multinational corporation (with previous problems of causing offense) would think a bit harder about this sort of shit. Its not hard, just dont be a dickhead.”
(William Shatner’s TekWar was presumably referring to Brewdog’s pink ‘beer for girls’ earlier this year, which the firm said was a “parody on the failed, tone-deaf campaigns that some brands have attempted in order to attract women.”)
Commenting on the Brewdog Chaingang, a spokesman said: "We named our cycling club Chain Gang as a nod to the well-known and often used term in the cycling community referring to a group of cyclists riding in lines behind a leader, allowing for a slipstream effect.
"It’s a commonly used turn of phrase in cycling and thousands of cycling clubs, races and organisations around the world use it within their names.
"The launch has been really well received with over 1,600 people signing up to create over 150 new cycling chapters in more than 20 different countries, achieving our goal of bringing together like minded beer and cycling enthusiasts.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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67 comments
"Just because you have poo in your pants doesn't mean you have poo 'd yourself"
I googled Chain Gang came up with Lyrics to a song, Scarves from a New Zealand shop, Chandeliers an article "slavery by another name" the actual article dosent mention slavery. The Urban dictionary is rather enlightening. Jewelry/Piercing, patches from DC, A group of convicts chained together, A chain Lube, Male strippers! Chain Gang Cycling Club. Not a lot about cycling or slavery.
Your google results are wierd - is your search history messing them up?
I googled chain gang and the first article was from Wikipedia. In the history section:
" Various claims as to the purpose of chain gangs have been offered. These include: .... a way of perpetuating African-American servitude after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ended slavery outside of the context of punishment for a crime.[7]"
Odd that you didn't manage to find that bit.
The Guardian also mentioned this fact, of course.
As far as I know, here in the US, "chain gang" is a group of prisoners chained together, and forced to do manual labor, like breaking rocks, cutting grass along roadsides, etc. If you've ever seen the movie "Cool Hand Luke", you've seen men on a chain gang.
This term has nothing to do with slavery, and those who say it does don't know what they are talking about.
As someone in these comments pointed out, it was hard work to be on the gang, and the cycling club wants to have that image, that you're going to work hard if you join thier club.
I support their use of the term 100%, despite what dumbfuck conservatives(sorry for the redundancy) say about "liberals."
Classic ... These must be the same people that said it was offensive to call Nuts and Bolts Nuts ''nuts'' ...
It's also a Chain Gang because there is suffering. Every chain gang I've ever been in, has been a punishment fest ... none of this 'ride leader' and 'no drop' softness.
I saw the BrewDog thing, and ignored it, but will now look for a local chapter to ride with.
They could've gone for daisy chain, which would probably gotten more press coverage.
Booze train
Seems to me like you're all reacting in the very same knee-jerk, hysterical way that you're criticising. It's like an echo. Someone farts loudly in a canyon and the sound reverberates off all sides, predictably and automatically.
Chain gangs are seen by many people as essentially a continuation of slavery, nationalised. For people who are not interested in cycling this may be the first time they've heard the phrase out of its original context; people who are into cycling may be so used to it that they have completely lost sight of it as a (fairly witty) metaphor, just like people in the 70s and later who were so inured to racist and sexist and other bigoted language that they were entirely unaware of the harm they were causing.
People here are very quick to pick up on casual use of language, such as press reports about cars rather than people hitting cyclists, when you're on the wrong end of it. Maybe you should consider it from the other side, and think about whether or not the term 'chain gang' applied to a group ride trivialises something that is still a live, sensitive issue in the US.
At least do something different, rather than trotting out yet again the unthinking 'political correctness gone mad' cliché.
The more I read your comment, the more I like. Nice summary.
Our little group has named our new shirts chaingang
OMG a Twitterstorm in a teacup!!!
Emily Jane - fuck off!
You can offend some morons saying good morning in which case the old saying "Empty Vessels make the most noise" deals with them and their shrieking.
But I think this is the seminal comment "just because you're offended doesn't mean it's offensive" thank you Mr Nada you summed it up perfectly.
I just wish I were a good enough rider to become an "inmate" on this ChanGang
Im not sure whats worse that they dont realise its just common parlance in cycling circles, which fair enough if you arent that bike nerdy you might not have come across in the context before though still lack of knowledge shouldnt explain away their flouncing, or that they think its part of Brewdogs brand of edgy marketing,that Brewdog deliberately chose chain gang because they knew it would offend them !? their view on the cycling cap design has to be read to be believed too.
It must be exhausting being a Social Justice Warrior. All these innocuous comments that have to be mined at the forensic level for anything that could possibly construed as offensive if one is careful to ignore context. Twats.
"just because you're offended doesn't mean it's offensive"
Yes, it literally does. Linguistically and logically.
"Just because you're not offended does not mean it is not offensive." Is a logically true statement.
Are you offended by it?
No. But, but the definition of offensive is something that causes offence to someone. This has - thats what the article is about. Therefore it it's offensive, albeit not very, and probably not to many.
Or, just because you are offended doesn't mean I have to effing care; to paraphrase Stephen Fry.
I wasn’t aware the term had slavery connotations, I was under the impression that it related to prison labour gangs.
People do love to be offended by anything brew dog does these days.
Quite, that's the only thing I knew it for , I did some studies into the slave trading BITD (seeing as I come from Hull it was a thing) and I'd not come across the phrase though of course slaves were chained up.
You could pretty much have a loose association with almost any phrase or saying and turn it into something that is unpleasant, people have just gone totally insane the last 20 years or so with what can/can't be said.
I always thought that too, so thinking I might have been wrong I just looked it up and sure enough it refers to prison work gangs, nothing to do with slavery. Having ridden on chain gangs and used the term for years I'd forgotten about even it's prison associations. Some people are just so keen to be right on they'll jump on anything with a remote possibility of a link to something offensive.
grr.
I know, someone is wrong on the internet and I should really let it go... but seriously dude are you just reading the first paragraph of Wikipedia without reding the rest of the article??
Just to recap, there is evidence that the chaingang was used to perpetuate the conditions of slavery in the Southern states after the abolition of slavery I the US.
Yes, almost everyone was unaware of this fact in the UK
Yes, I was too until I researched it
I’m sue BrewDog were unaware too.
But that doesn’t affect the fact that historically the chain gang was used as a means of enforcing slavery after the official abolition.
If your cognitive dissonance does not allow you to handle this fact, that is your problem.
I think you're overstating the case Wikipedia makes for it being slavery-related.
The Wikipedia article actually says, "Various claims as to the purpose of chain gangs have been offered. These include:" and then goes on to list seven different claims, only one of which is slavery related. The support for the slavery claim is a 20 year old article written by an Assistant US Attorney for the California Law Review.
Then look at all the examples "In popular media" which illustrate that the practice is much more closely linked with punishment for a crime than with slavery.
Plus, of course, a click on "disambiguation" at the top would show there are also many other uses of "chain gang", including of course the cycling one.
I'm not saying there aren't any racist overtones of the punishment-related chain gangs - I suspect that a black person in the southern US states would have been much more likely to be in a chain gang 100 years ago than a white person. But the link seems a bit weaker than some of the comments are suggesting.
Not being American I'm not entirely up-to-speed, but my impression is the 'chain gang' is an emotive topic in it's own right, irrespective of any link to slavery. Becuase it's symbolic of the whole nature of the US penal system and their approach to the problem of crime. Their prisons are generally way tougher than ours (leaving aside differences between state and federal systems) and their prison population is second only to China's.
And it appears the profit-motive is hugely involved as well, to the point of a conflict of interest. Prison labour (with or without chains and gangs) makes a large amount of cash for both the state and private interests. Makes one wonder what they would do if people stopped committing crimes such that the supply of cheap labour dried up.
Plus of course it's very entangled with the issue of race, again, regardless of whether it's connected to slavery or not.
Pathetic
Non-event.
It's purely due to ignorance of the term - Emily Jane presumably has had her 'oh, didn't realise' moment.
One of the main failings of social media is that stuff that would have been laughed at or drowned out in a crowded room is 'published' and jumped on by people who seek to amplify the nonsense.
There was nothing to see here; ideally Brew Dog wouldn't have dignified it with a response. It would have fizzled out in no time.
it sounds like it cropped up on their shareholder forum initially, so I think Brew Dog were obliged to respond to that as a query from their punk equity holders, and now newspapers like the Standard are covering it, even if they seem to claim the real William Shatner was upset,and asking for formal responses.
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