CAPITALIST CO-OPTING OF SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS:

Very regularly, you will see corporations adopt a social justice movement. Now, to the undiscerning liberal tweeting "MORE WOMEN CEO's " that might sound like it's a good thing. But is it really?

CW: Racism, racist violence, homophobia/homophobic violence, refugee/war

For many police forces in white nations, police abuse of power against minorities is a well-documented occurrence. Few more documented than in the US, where a culture of police militarization and white supremacy have combined into extreme incidences of police brutality.

Many of you are already v familiar with the stories of police brutality against black Americans, but for those who aren't, do your own research into Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner. Those are just a small, infamous handful in an ocean of racism.

The reason I am saying "do your own research" is because for many people having the stories of how these men and women died can be very traumatic, and so I do not wish to repeat that here.

However, when we come back to capitalist co-opting of social justice movements, we can see that out of police brutality against black Americans in the US, the #BlackLivesMatter movement arose out of it in protest of racist police brutality.

One very famous, catalyzing event that happened in this history is when San Francisco 49ers quarterback sat down for the playing of the American national anthem during the third preseason game in 2016. When asked why he didn't stand, he responded that he wouldn't stand...

...for a nation that justifies police violence and brutality against people of his own race and other people of colour.

This caused an enormous furor with conservative circles and incited the ire of then candidate Donald Trump.

Kaepernick incited a form of protest where players would take a knee for the national anthem before games as a protest against violence against black Americans.

However, where there's a social justice movement, there's money to be made.

Not ones to pass up on a good exploitation of a justice movement, Nike started a huge new marketing campaign in 2018...

...with Kaepernick as the face of it:

Nike made $6bn from this marketing campaign, alongside a lot of conservatives filming themselves burning their Nike shoes that Nike had already made their money from.

Kaepernick was responding to the murders of Trayvon, of Garner, of Rice, of Brown and of many others

His protest was borne out of indignation at racist state violence.

In effect, Nike found a way to turn the racist murder of a 12-year old boy into six billion dollars.

In a similar vein, who can forget the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad? In which, Kendall Jenner in an crowd protesting a line of armed riot police clearly set up to be mimicking #BlackLivesMatter goes up to an officer and gives him a Pepsi and...solves racism?

Seriously the whole message Pepsi appeared to send here was that Pepsi would solve police brutality. Pepsi may allow you to absolutely level your local Macy's but it cannot solve police brutality.

On International Womens Day (what used to be called International Working Women's Day and is still what it should be called), a litany of companies simply delight in pinkwashing their brands to engage in feminism as a pantomime performance...

From McDonalds inverting the golden arches to create a 'W', to Amazon presenting themselves as a feminist company whilst working people including women to death, to the endless praising of women CEOs as the pinnacle of feminism, truly corporations love IWD like no-one else

HOWEVER

If market research had revealed that it would in fact be more profitable for them to completely reject IWD and truly embrace the patriarchal machine explicitly, they'd be running ads telling women to get back in the kitchens within second, much how they did in the 50s

Companies do what the profit motive dictates; they only co-opt these initiatives if it tells them it would be beneficial to the bottom line. There is no moral compunction here whatsoever from these faceless institutions.

Finally, they truly do not spare expense when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community and the yearly celebration of Pride.

Whether it be white Skittles, homoerotic Smirnoff bottles, the rainbow Dorito or my personal favourite, Marks & Spencer's LGBT sandwich, they pull out all stops.

Now, as I've laid out in my previous examples - these companies do this only for profit. Were it more profitable to be raging homophobes, that is what they would do. And for a very long time, it was. However, some companies are truly egregious in doing this.

When I attended the Pride Parade in July last year in London with my friends, the one float that stood out ot me the most was that of BAE Systems - a defence manufacturer that has sold over £15bn in weapons to Saudi Arabia; a state within which being gay is punishable by death.

BAE truly has decided gone the multi-track drifting route when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights; running their stall in the Pride parade in London and contributing to the deaths of LGBTQ+ people in the Middle-East

This is an attempt to paint rainbows over the worst crimes of capitalism

Barclays also made large show over their solidarity with gay people, updating the logo on everyone's banking app to their eagle adorned with the Pride colours...

....this all the while owning significant shares in Israeli defence manufacturer Elbit Systems who have committed war crimes in Yemen and Palestine. How many deaths of LGBTQ+ people have Barclays funded with their depositors money?

Those are very real and very egregious examples. There are other instances, such as Ben & Jerry's using the Syrian and Libyan Refugee crisis to sell ice cream. Ben & Jerry's are not the worst culprits, but they are still complicit in this co-opting of movmnts for soc justice.

In short, companies don't give a fuck if you're a minority - they don't care if you're oppressed (especially when they're the ones doing it) and they don't care in helping you. They'll sidle up to you once most of the hard work is done and pretend they were your friends all along

when all they ever wanted was your money.

Don't fall for their shit.

Next International Working Women's Day and Pride, tell corporations to go fuck themselves.