Block Consciousness

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In an e-mail that was sent to affiliate marketers by Rakuten Linkshare on behalf of the LEGO Group (via The Toybook), the company confirmed it would cease marketing for any toy sets related to the police.

The e-mail included a product listing of more than 30 LEG building sets, Minifigures, and accessories that involve police officers, firefighters, criminals, emergency vehicles, and buildings….

Over to you, cop-loving Maga Bloks.

Lego Pulls Advertising for Police-Related Toys In Support of Black Lives Matter (COS)

Thanks Johnny

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25 thoughts on “Block Consciousness

  1. Jonickal

    So now we’re basically telling people that all police are bad?
    This isn’t progress.

    1. Matt Pilates

      I disagree. Though this move by the plastic polluter par excellence is more about profit and marketing than about say, looking at the INTERNAL corporate structure of LEGO and examing it’s own internal equality policies. Pretty much like every other corporation actually.

      More useful if they unendorse the use of LEGO in TEDx youtube videos – that STEM/SV meme is well past any 2005 use-by date.

      1. :-Joe

        +100% Well said… – Just boycott LEGO.

        It was a really great toy for kids but the plastic has to go.

        Learn how to sustainably grow trees for material, learn basic woodwork and joinery etc. and do something more useful with your creativity… Unless your age 3-10 and can’t be allowed to operate machinery safely.

        Or go for a walk and get some excercise and fresh air….

        :-J

    2. SOQ

      +1.

      What a bizarre thing to do. I am no fan of some of them and there is arguments for reform but they also deal with the sorts of wildlife most of us don’t even know exist let alone encounter.

    3. :-Joe

      +100% – The cops are a lot of things and often wrong but they need better regulation, support and training not more tensions.

      :-J

  2. Zaccone

    What have the police outside of America done to deserve this?

    The American police are admittedly massively problematic. But I fear this whole international ‘movement’ is lumping police from other countries in with them. And thats just going to further an “us vs them” mentality in society. Which will make our police forces more like the Americans, in the long run.

    1. shotopunx

      When I was 17, my friends and I attended the Reclaim the Streets protest in Dublin. Garda Donal Corcoran, and other, stripped their numbers off their uniforms so they could batter with impunity. A friend of mine who was 15 was punched directly in the throat, unprovoked, by Robocop himself. Other friends of mine ended up in hospital with split skulls. These friends received payment from the state, acknowledging the sever abuse of power by the Gardai, yet the gardai themselves faced no reprecussions. In fact they still serve.

      I was beaten savagely by a large group of men two years later. As I bled on the ground, the garda arrived, while the group of attackers were still there. They arrested a friend of mine who called them and left.

      Terence Wheelock was murdered by gardai. So was Brian Rossiter who was 14. There are many more.

      Many people of color in this country report abuse from gardai. Nothing happens. In fact, before the protest I mentioned above, there was NO OVERSIGHT of Gardai.

      Google what they did to Dara Quigley. Have you heard of Maurice McCabe?

      FUPP THE GARDAI

        1. shotopunx

          Fantastic stuff. No acknowledgement of the litany of horrific abuses, just “McCabe was a Guard too”.

          1. class wario

            it’s so weird to me to see somebody bring up maurice mccabe here as a means to *defend* the gardai as an institution.

          2. Cian

            I think people bring up Garda McCabe to highlight the folly of generalising a whole group of people.

    2. Matt Pilates

      I know a kid from Dalkey who used to do scenarios in LEGO with Gardai manning checkpoints etc.

      He used the regular cop figures but wrapped a big roll of blue plasticine around the middle of each one.

  3. class wario

    They’re also donating 4 million dollars to relevant causes. Great effort from them.

  4. jeremy kyle

    They’ll cease marketing them, ironically while basically marketing them.

    Shur it’s just Lego.

    1. delacaravanio

      Yes. It appears that they will keep making and selling them, just not marketing them.

      You’d wonder how much marketing they could do in the first place. Advertising to kids is so regulated these days.

      Taking your cake and eating it…

  5. Termagant

    If we’re to take it that yellow legomen represent white people then black legomen should be a sort of burnt sienna colour

    Sorry, legoindividuals

  6. f_lawless

    Apparently, a new line of oversized “protestor bricks” are in the LEGO production pipeline

  7. TypeONegative

    Worth noting that those aren’t official Lego minifigs and the only weapon the current police wield are handcuffs. Lego doesn’t make contemporary gun pieces, and the closest you ever got were blunderbusses, cowboy revolvers, and space blasters, although the first two are probably discontinued by now. There is a deep third-party market for accessories, but every kid at heart knows the most powerful weapon a minifig could wield was the ORANGE TRANSPARENT CHAINSAW

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