In a recent RRP blog, we wrote about supporting Black Owned Businesses and why it’s important to support them! Today, we are posting about boycotting unethical businesses. There is more than one way to go about protesting. Boycotting is one of the many types of protest, and is also an effective type of protest as well.
Boycotting is a personal decision, just like most acts of activism. Boycotting is the act of limiting or stopping the use, purchase, dealings with social institutions, or a person as a protest for moral, social, political, and environmental reasons. Boycotting is really important because it holds businesses, entities, or individuals, accountable for their actions. It can damage a company’s revenue, but the main objective for boycotting is to make businesses or corporations recognize what is wrong and then making them fix it due to the lack of revenue from boycotting.
Many people think boycotting is ineffective because the action of a single person will not make a big difference. However, that isn’t true. There is power in mass! Although not all boycotts are organized and visible, we guarantee you are not the only person boycotting a business. 25% of boycotts that gain national media attention bring about change. That is a big percentage and it shows that it can work.
If you are still feeling discouraged about boycotting, there have been more than one successful boycotts in U.S. history.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 was a major civil rights protest where Black Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. They were protesting the segregated seating in the city buses and the boycott was the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. The most notable activist from this boycott was Rosa Parks. On June 5, 1956, Montgomery ruled that any law requiring “racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment, adopted in 1868 following the U.S. Civil War, guarantees all citizens—regardless of race—equal rights and equal protection under state and federal laws.”
United Farm Workers’ Grape Boycott in the late 1960s was led by Cesar Chavez who had organized the boycotts against grapes grown in California because of the farmworker's poor pay and poor work conditions. The boycotts were also representing the Filipino Asian American farmworkers as well, who were being exploited along with their Mexican American and Latiano/Latina farmworker community. “Marches and hunger strikes, grape pickers made their plight a part of the national civil-rights conversation.” The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which established collective-bargaining power for farmworkers statewide.
Toyota Motor Corporation Ad Boycott in 2001 which canceled a television ad that reinforces negative stereotypes towards the Black community. The ad shows a smiling black man with a “likeness of a RAV4 embedded in a bright gold tooth.” Perpetuating and reinforcing a negative image and stereotype. Toyota in turn extended its relationships with minority-owned businesses but the ad still stemmed from the corporation's roots of ignorance and racism.
The University of Missouri boycott in 2015 was a recent and effective boycott led by students from the university who realized the same systemic injustices that perpetuate itself in Fergusen were present on their campus. They formed an activist group and called themselves the Concerned Student 1950, referring to the year the university first admitted its first Black student, and they pay homage to this historic event. The Concerned Student 1950 disrupted their school’s homecoming parade by protesting. There was incredible backlash such as racial slurs, violence, and received public condemnation from the faculty, students, alumni, and the community. The students continued to persist and the football team recognized the activism and threatened to not suit up for a game nor practice until the needs of the Concerned Student 1950 were heard and the President Tim Wolfe resigned. After hunger strikes, boycotting all football activities, the president of the University of Missouri soon resigned. If the football players did not play one upcoming game against Brigham Young University, the school would have lost a projection of 1 million dollars. In sum, boycotting increases the chances of institutions to surrender to the demands of communities facing systemic injustices rather than lose revenue.
In sum, boycotting can work even if it’s not seen or organized. There is power in hidden mass. It needs to be clear however, that we are in no means telling you what you should or shouldn’t be boycotting in this blog post. We at RRP want our readers to make those choices and decisions for themselves. However, if you are looking for a good tool to find businesses and corporations to boycott that are pushing back or outright against social justice, DoneGood can help! DoneGood is an online source that makes it “quick, easy, and affordable to use our purchasing power for good. When you give a business your money, you want to know you’re getting a quality product, and that your money will be used in a way that fits your beliefs.”
Protesting, and boycotting specifically, is a marathon and not a sprint. Don’t get discouraged if you feel that your boycotting won’t make a difference. It can, and it will.
Sources:
"Boycotting: The effects of taking capital out of capitalism," By John Davis
"Why Consumers Boycott Even If Prospects Look Bleak," By Tobias Hahn
"How consumers hold businesses accountable," By Eliza Mills
"Boycotts and the bottom line." By Brayden King
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