Boycott Culture is alive and well in America. I have no problems with a person choosing to boycott any business that they don’t agree with the practices thereof, however I do have a problem when you assume I should be boycotting the business as well or I am a bigot, racist, sexist, or any other form of -ist.
It used to be that boycotts were used as a means for cultural change. Now it is used to act out personal grievances. Dennis Wyatt states in a recent editorial: ” Instead of being well-thought-out and organized efforts such as lettuce and grape boycotts organized by real change agents such as Cesar Chavez, most of the ones popping up today are from folks acting on the spur of the moment hearing someone say something they don’t like.”
Because Uber CEO, Travis Kalani, was part of a Trump Advisory committee, people started demanding #deleteuber boycotts. No one bothered to find out if Kalani was in full agreement with Trump or was trying to promote favor with the President. No. He had any kind of association with a President people don’t like so we should automatically boycott his company. Now people are calling for boycotts of Tesla because Elon Musk hasn’t stepped down from the advisory board. His response is one people should hear: “Activists should be pushing for more moderates to advise President, not fewer. How could having only extremists advise him possibly be good?” Exactly. If you make anyone who might be able to have a voice of reason advise the President too scared to try, all you will get is people who don’t care what you think and are to the extreme in their viewpoints.
You have people boycotting Norstrom because they stopped carrying Ivanka Trump’s line and people boycotting Bloomingdales because they still do. You have artists who will boycott Israel (Roger Waters) declaring it is because of human rights issues but have no problem performing in Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia.
In the end it diminishes what a true boycott is and should be. So for now, I am boycotting the boycotts.
