Savory Snacks for Social Justice
▻https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/brands-corporate-publicity-racial-justice
Pringles Chips went dark on Twitter for #BlackOutTuesday. The official Star Wars account released a short statement in support of black employees and artists. @Barbie pledged to champion diversity and declared her solidarity with the entire black community. Toronto-based restaurant GarfieldEATS, meanwhile, tweeted an image of the eponymous cat’s sullen eyeballs accompanied by the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, as if to suggest that the infamously lazy and glutinous feline dislikes discrimination almost as much as he hates Mondays.
To give the brands their due, some of these efforts seem well-intentioned — after all, if commercial enterprises are offering nominal endorsement of anti-racism, that’s obviously better than the alternative. The burlesque absurdity of reading messages of inclusion drafted by the branding specialists at Call of Duty: Warzone and FritoLay aside, there’s something less innocuous about the way particular companies inevitably seize on anything social justice–tinged as an opportunity for the most transparently cynical exercises in PR.
This includes corporate leviathans like Amazon, which proudly touts its commitment to diversity and opposition to discrimination while underpaying its workers and treating many people of color in its employ like less than garbage. It includes McKinsey, which (among other things) eagerly offered its services to the Trump administration’s brutal immigration agenda and advised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to restrict the caloric intake of migrants held in detention camps while earlier this week issuing a statement that condemned “racism, hatred, and prejudice” in every form. It includes NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has evidently developed a severe case of amnesia about his contemptible response when San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee for civil rights.
Je me demande si c’est le capitalisme US qui lâche Trump ou si c’est juste l’#hypocrisie de base, qu’on pourrait appeler #blackwashing.