Anyone else seen this? A few left leaning people on my Facebook feed have posted about this. We are supposed to “send a message” to big businesses by not spending any money today. Especially at places like Amazon, Wal-Mart, gas stations, and other big chains. Even staying off social media.
Exactly what message is being sent? So what if you don’t buy anything today? You still need stuff. Filling up your car or going to the grocery store yesterday instead of today really doesn’t matter to the grocer or gas station.
As for me, I am meeting a friend for lunch. But it is at a local restaurant and not a chain so that is permitted under the “rules”. I did do my grocery shopping yesterday so there’s that. Don’t really need gas and there is nothing I need so that’s it for today.
Things like this are stupid. They accomplish nothing because it’s not like you can avoid shopping forever. I can see avoiding a particular retailer if you find them unsavory but in many cases you have no choice and the alternative isn’t much different.
It’s just a case of virtue signaling and gives fuel to the fire for those who like to laugh at the woke crowd.
I'm glad you brought this up because I thought about it but figured it would be dismissed (and I don't think I've EVER used the word "woke" because.....what the hell......)
I agree with pretty much everything you point out regarding the ludicrousness of (most) boycotts, but the question I've been asking myself for years is, "OK, but what constitutes a win here?" And related to that is, "Can anyone tell me the last successful boycott of anything?" I'm sure folks will say the Bud Light one, which I guess is somewhat right, but it's also mitigated by the fact it was an easy win because there are more varieties of beer that taste better than Bud Light, so I don't drink any less beer, I just drink less Bud Light. But beyond that
when was the last successful boycott? The Civil Rights era, maybe??
We had TWO SIDES protesting the NFL over Kaepernick and the anthem, and the last time I looked, the NFL still exists and plays that repressive anthem, their only addition being a nice regression to a separate but equal national anthem for the Super Bowl. But since nobody was boycotting on behalf of a second national anthem, who won what?
Baptists mad at Disney over Ellen coming out of the closet? Disney is still around.
Same sex marriage advocates raging at Chick-fil-A? They're doing well, too.
Whoever mad at Target over the bathrooms? Are any problems at Target due to the bathroom?
My understanding of the Civil Rights era boycotts (and I wasn't around, I have no idea how specifically successful or less than stellar any may have been) was that the stores that were specifically targeted for boycott were PRIMARILY white-owned businesses whose clientele was LARGELY black, meaning you WERE in fact taking a huge chunk out of their bottom line. That kind of boycott could succeed to some extent and smart business owners would modify or alter their approach IF such a boycott was going to hurt them.
Tangential note: when the protests erupted in 2020 over the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, I was following the commentary (I hate to say it this way but given the suffering I was dealing with AT WORK with Covid, the Floyd news was a respite for me from all the Covid horror; revolting, I know). Well after they'd been protesting about, oh, six weeks or so a few of the leaders and participants were musing about how "nothing has changed." Well.....what exactly were they trying to change? Floyd's murder was an EXTREME example and comparatively rare, but the larger point - what were they trying to change? It was a lot of rage (and a lot of it justified, too), but there was no coherence, no actual demand for any measurable change, just a lot of yelling, protesting, and throwing inanimate objects into the water. It's not like they were REALLY living under Jim Crow, where the written law explicitly justified racist behavior, all of those written laws were changed years ago.
But let's assume for a second that they actually did have concrete demands; it was 11 years from Brown v the Board of Education to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. ELEVEN. YEARS. And some people thought they were going to chance the world in less than 11 weeks. There were quotations - and this was on CNN, not Fox - of "it doesn't feel like anything has changed" and "we have to keep momentum". Again - FOR WHAT???
I see these two points as somewhat related because both have the problem of, "Ok, what is the end goal? What can be defined as winning your point?"
Today's blackout seems to be to be some more performative narcissism at work. But again, I don't even blame the folks boycotting; the internet and social media has given them the delusion they can play God and change the world at the click of a button.
And remember there were some delusional people who thought they could sign a petition and the Chiefs would get rid of perhaps the best kicker in the NFL.
