Yestereve, I was having dinner with my dear friend Shelly Horn at Spice in Chelsea, when I checked my Facebook page via my phone. An ally/comrade/acquaintance of mine in Minneapolis had posted a link to a story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune in which Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel offers an apology for the corporate donation to Minnesota Forward and pledges to establish a review committee for any future political contributions to ensure that the money does not go to candidates that are going to piss off the Target employees and shoppers in the future (paraphrasing is all mine). This friend of mine from back home had posted this article on my wall saying, "In your face Brandon Lacy Campos, boycotts are effective."
Now. I am going to say this for the last damn time. Never in ANY of my writing on this subject have I ever said that boycotts are ineffective, and least of all in my blog Why Not To Boycott Target. I have, indeed, reference successful boycotts in order to illustrate WHY they were successful and HOW they were organized. Disorganized boycotts with no concrete organization or political goals, such as the call for a Target Boycott, hurt workers without doing anything to engage them or empower them to be a part of the solution. The grape boycott was exactly the opposite, it included the farm workers who helped strategize the boycott. They had an understanding that immediate personal economic loss would lead to higher wages and better working conditions.
I have been very clear to keep my analysis to this particular circumstance and suggest strategies that would get us to where we need to go and build stronger coalitions along the way. And, for the last time, I have offered unconditional support to any individual that chooses to not shop at Target because of the MN Forward donation. That is the last I will say on that subject.
But, what disturbs me most about the statement, "In your face Brandon Lacy Campos, boycotts are effective,:" is not that there seems to be some "gotcha game" being played between people that are allies, nor is it that instead of seeing the suggestions for action as disagreement about strategies and a political dialogue but instead as an opportunity to silence or deride folks in the same community, it is the fact that anyone could read that piece of crap apology in the Star Tribune and think to themselves, "WE WON!"
Nowhere in the article did Target agree to withdraw their donation. Target did not agree to lead by example and remove itself from future political contributions, thereby recognizing that the Citizens United ruling was foolish and bad for democracy, nor did the company even give lip service to justice by offering an offsetting donation to an LGBT rights organization. All that was offered was a lukewarm "I'm sorry," that sounded more like an apology that some employees and some people in the community were angered by the donation instead of a sincere regret at the damage done to the community of workers at Target and the community at large. The difference between an apology and an amends is this: An apology is meant to make the apologizer feel better, an amends is meant to fix the damage done and put things right with the aggrieved.
This was an apology and not an amends, and, therefore, I reject it.
I was debating whether or not to write about the apology today, but no sooner did I have that thought, that a friend of mine from college posted a note on my wall saying that he thought he heard that Target apologized. It helped me realize that Steinhafel was playing a smart media game. It is easy for anyone that hasn't actually read the newspaper article to assume that along with the apology came a remedy. And the way that the grapevine works, that apology, without analysis, will, indeed, take some of the pressure off of Target.
Thankfully our community is full to the brim of smart folks that saw it, read it, and then kept right on planning actions against Target.
I maintain that boycotting Target is the wrong approach to this situation. I will be checking in today with a friend of mine that met with the LGBT employee group at Target a couple of days ago, and I am anxious to hear how that went.
And let me be clear, I do support direct actions at Target Stores, and in that vein, if you are in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, there will be a peaceful demonstration tomorrow at the Southdale Mall Target Store at 7000 York Avenue from 11am-1pm.
Let's keep the pressure up, but let's also keep eye ours on justice and not just us.
Showing posts with label Minnesota Forward. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minnesota Forward. Show all posts
Friday, August 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The End of Dissent or When the FB Target Boycotters Went Neo-Con
Over the last few days, I believe I have offered proactive solutions that would help build a stronger justice movement through organizing around the Target (and Best Buy) donations to Minnesota Forward. While many folks have expressed appreciation and support of the points I have offered in the three blogs that I have posted about the Target Boycott and the Citizens United ruling there are many that have disagreed. Overwhelmingly, people that hold that a boycott is the right strategy have disagreed respectfully and expressed their reasons why they believe that it is a good response. A large few, but still the minority, have had various levels of virulent response from dismissal to outright hostility and shaming tactics. That all comes with the territory.
Over the last few days I have, and other folks have, posted some of my blogs on the Facebook page "Boycott Target Until They Cease Funding Anti-Gay Politics." In fact, I wasn't aware of the group until my partner, after posting my initial blog "Why Not to Boycott Target," to the group brought the group to my attention. Since then, I have posted my last three essays to the group, and I have engaged in respectful yet dissenting conversation with several of the members of the group, including the gentleman that founded the group.
Today, I went back to the site and saw that there was a conversation going on around the political donation by Target and its connection to the Citizens United v FEC decision, which I wrote about yesterday. I thought it would be appropriate to post a link to yesterday's essay in the context of the conversation taking place. It was then that I discovered that my right to post links to the site had been revoked by the site administrator.
At first I thought, or hoped, that it was a glitch with the system. So I tried posting the link, instead of within an existing conversation thread, as its own stand alone link. I was, once again, told that I was not allowed to take that action.
For the first time in this dialogue around strategy I shifted from disappointed to very angry.
Restricting or eliminating dissent, quieting opposition, and removing the ability of individuals to participate in community dialogues are tools of the Right and not the Left. Or, better to say, those are tools of the far right fascists and the far left Stalinist/Maoist communists. In community dialogues, where there are feelings and offerings of multiple strategies, as long as the dialogue stays respectful, the community can only come out stronger on the other side of the work to hear, synthesize, and craft a measured and intelligent response or proactive engagement with a justice issue. Utilizing ones personal power to silence someone with whom you disagree for the simple fact that you disagree with that person is shameful.
When I served as the chair of the National Lavender Green Caucus of the Green Party of the United States, there was a member of the caucus that, on a regular basis, posted ridiculous, harmful, and rabid emails to our list serve concerning his belief, and the pseudo-science behind it, that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. As an HIV positive person I was deeply offended. His postings, which also included personal attacks on positive people that held the belief that HIV does, indeed, cause AIDS callws us deluded at best and stupid at worst. Yet, after reprimanding this individual for the tone of his emails and the ad hominem attacks, I took no further action on his ability to participate in dialogues as long as decorum was maintained. Though I HATED the things he was saying, and though I felt viscerally that they were wrong and hurtful, and though I had the power to remove him from the dialogue altogether, I didn't. That is the measure of how committed one is to building community and not directing it. It takes more courage to listen to ideas with which you don't agree then to remove those ideas from the conversation.
In the end, I understand that there are those that feel so strongly about the Steinhafel donation to Minnesota Forward that they are unable or unwilling to consider the collateral damage, strategic damage, and human damage of a boycott. If those same people are unable or unwilling to see this as a PRIME organizing opportunity to build, sustain, and strengthen cross community and multi-issue organizing, then perhaps posting anything to a group occupied by those folks is a fruitless enterprise.
We demand as a community the right to exercise the First Amendment, and, yet, too often we don't apply that right to those around us. Sad sad day.
Over the last few days I have, and other folks have, posted some of my blogs on the Facebook page "Boycott Target Until They Cease Funding Anti-Gay Politics." In fact, I wasn't aware of the group until my partner, after posting my initial blog "Why Not to Boycott Target," to the group brought the group to my attention. Since then, I have posted my last three essays to the group, and I have engaged in respectful yet dissenting conversation with several of the members of the group, including the gentleman that founded the group.
Today, I went back to the site and saw that there was a conversation going on around the political donation by Target and its connection to the Citizens United v FEC decision, which I wrote about yesterday. I thought it would be appropriate to post a link to yesterday's essay in the context of the conversation taking place. It was then that I discovered that my right to post links to the site had been revoked by the site administrator.
At first I thought, or hoped, that it was a glitch with the system. So I tried posting the link, instead of within an existing conversation thread, as its own stand alone link. I was, once again, told that I was not allowed to take that action.
For the first time in this dialogue around strategy I shifted from disappointed to very angry.
Restricting or eliminating dissent, quieting opposition, and removing the ability of individuals to participate in community dialogues are tools of the Right and not the Left. Or, better to say, those are tools of the far right fascists and the far left Stalinist/Maoist communists. In community dialogues, where there are feelings and offerings of multiple strategies, as long as the dialogue stays respectful, the community can only come out stronger on the other side of the work to hear, synthesize, and craft a measured and intelligent response or proactive engagement with a justice issue. Utilizing ones personal power to silence someone with whom you disagree for the simple fact that you disagree with that person is shameful.
When I served as the chair of the National Lavender Green Caucus of the Green Party of the United States, there was a member of the caucus that, on a regular basis, posted ridiculous, harmful, and rabid emails to our list serve concerning his belief, and the pseudo-science behind it, that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. As an HIV positive person I was deeply offended. His postings, which also included personal attacks on positive people that held the belief that HIV does, indeed, cause AIDS callws us deluded at best and stupid at worst. Yet, after reprimanding this individual for the tone of his emails and the ad hominem attacks, I took no further action on his ability to participate in dialogues as long as decorum was maintained. Though I HATED the things he was saying, and though I felt viscerally that they were wrong and hurtful, and though I had the power to remove him from the dialogue altogether, I didn't. That is the measure of how committed one is to building community and not directing it. It takes more courage to listen to ideas with which you don't agree then to remove those ideas from the conversation.
In the end, I understand that there are those that feel so strongly about the Steinhafel donation to Minnesota Forward that they are unable or unwilling to consider the collateral damage, strategic damage, and human damage of a boycott. If those same people are unable or unwilling to see this as a PRIME organizing opportunity to build, sustain, and strengthen cross community and multi-issue organizing, then perhaps posting anything to a group occupied by those folks is a fruitless enterprise.
We demand as a community the right to exercise the First Amendment, and, yet, too often we don't apply that right to those around us. Sad sad day.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Why Not To Boycott Target
For the last few days, there has been justified anger and disgust with Target Corporation's, and in particular, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel's, support of MN Forward, a pro-business/anti-tax political action committee in Minnesota, which is supporting the rabidly anti-gay GOP candidate for governor Tom Emmer. Tom Emmer not only opposed same sex marriage but also he admires and is in close cahoots with the lead singer of the Christian band You Can Run But You Can Not Hide, which promotes the killing of queer folks.
Make no mistake, to use the vernacular, that is FUCKED UP.
The reaction, though from the queer community has been varied but, overall, has been without nuance, without tactic, and without any clear objectives or a path to reaching those objectives. Understandably, people are pissed off. I am pissed off. Target is based in my home town of Minneapolis. My first job was at a Target in a black working class neighborhood in North Minneapolis. I worked in the Target Corporation Legal Department in high school, and my Mother has worked in various Target stores for more than 20 years. Steinhafel's donation is a direct slap in the face to all of the queer corporate employees (and I promise you that Target's corporate staff is at least 25% openly queer), and the thousands of queer employees in Target stores across the country.
But the rush to call for a general boycott of Target stores is not only going to be ineffective and will not create the result that is wanted (an apology from Target and either a retraction of the donation or an offsetting donation to an LGBT human rights group), but a boycott will directly HARM the overwhelming majority of Target employees: the working class/below living wage workers that are the core of the Target workforce.
Even if the United States were not in the grip of a massive recession. Even if jobs, in general, were plentiful, to craft a response that targets an oppressed class of people in order to vindicate another class of oppressed people does nothing for justice and guarantees that systemic oppression wins in the end.
Here are the facts.
* Target is a huge company with an annual revenue exceeding $65 billion dollars with more than $2.5 billion dollars in annual profits.
* Target is a single corporation but its stores operate as if they were franchises. This means that each individual store is judged on its own merits and not by the company as a whole. When a single store under performs the losses at that store are passed on DIRECTLY to the employees AT THAT STORE by way of reduced work hours. Target has in the past simply closed under performing stores, displaced those workers, and opened a new store in generally more lucrative and more conservative markets within the same geographical area.
* The workers of Target are not our, well, target. The CEO of Target is, and it is the CEO, not the hourly wage workers that should be the focus of any protest action. I repeat working class people/low wage workers/and the underemployed are our allies not our enemies.
* And, in addition to the issues outlined above, Target is the single largest nongovernmental supporter of homeless and precariously housed youth programs in Minnesota. A drop in revenue will, directly, impact these most vulnerable in our community.
(Side note: There is a reason why corporate philanthropy exists. It is for JUST this sort of situation when a company tries to pull some shady business. It makes decision making around tactics harder. The community, therefore, must beat them at their own game WITHOUT using their tools)
In order for a boycott to truly be effective, it would need a mass movement in all 50 states over a sustained period of time that resulted in at least a 10% drop in overall revenue. That is not a possibility, therefore the energy could be and should be exercised in other more effective arenas.
A boycott of individual stores will directly result in hardships for low wage workers, some of whom will be queer, which will further a divide between queer folks and working class folks AND CONTINUE THE PERPETUATION of the myth that queer folks ARE NOT working class and are privileged and have ideals that are out of sync with working people. Thank God Queers for Economic Justice exists to support working class queer folks, and thank the creator that there are organizers like Susan Raffo, editor of Queerly Classed, that understand the connections between class and sexual orientation.
For these reasons...for reasons of unity with working class folks and queer working class folks an organized boycott of Target is WRONG and unjust. I do, however, support the right of individuals to express their personal outrage through making different shopping choices. This woman has made a personal and courageous decision to not shop at Target, and I support her specifically because of the tactic she chose to use: the media.
The media, viral or otherwise, is how this fight is going to be won. While it is nigh on impossible for queer folks to impact the bottom line of Target through a protest, we can win the fight in the court of public opinion. Frankly, Target prides itself on being a community based venture that CARES about the people it serves and provides artistic and social justice funding to ensure that the least have access. The way to get Target to pay attention is to slap their reputation directly in the face through creative use of the media.
Here's what I suggest:
1) If you choose to boycott target personally, use the model of UpTake.org, record your direct action and make it available widely on the web with a cogent discussion of why you are choosing to shop elsewhere.
2) In most major cities, particularly Minneapolis and New York, Target sponsors large artistic ventures--museums in particular. In New York, almost all of the major museums (Whitney, Guggenheim, MoMA, The Met) have free Target evenings at the museum. Organize a peaceful yet colorful and loud protest each week on the FREE NIGHT in each of these locales. Keep the protests loud and lively on these evenings. I guarantee this will generate personal buzz and garner media attention.
3) Perform direct actions outside of your local Target stores. Send canvassers from your local/state-wide LGBT rights organization to collect donations outside of your local Target. Create local media buzz around this issue.
The only thing that separates Target from Wal-Mart is Target's reputation. Attack the reputation, and you will, I promise get the results that five years of boycott will not win.
It is BEYOND TIME that our movement mature. Whether we are talking about war, poverty, racism, or religious intolerance, it is time that our movement, which includes individuals in all these other spaces/places/ and identities, to create bridges and recognize significant organizing and building moments and then UTILIZE those moments for justice instead of a temporary catharsis.
Make no mistake, to use the vernacular, that is FUCKED UP.
The reaction, though from the queer community has been varied but, overall, has been without nuance, without tactic, and without any clear objectives or a path to reaching those objectives. Understandably, people are pissed off. I am pissed off. Target is based in my home town of Minneapolis. My first job was at a Target in a black working class neighborhood in North Minneapolis. I worked in the Target Corporation Legal Department in high school, and my Mother has worked in various Target stores for more than 20 years. Steinhafel's donation is a direct slap in the face to all of the queer corporate employees (and I promise you that Target's corporate staff is at least 25% openly queer), and the thousands of queer employees in Target stores across the country.
But the rush to call for a general boycott of Target stores is not only going to be ineffective and will not create the result that is wanted (an apology from Target and either a retraction of the donation or an offsetting donation to an LGBT human rights group), but a boycott will directly HARM the overwhelming majority of Target employees: the working class/below living wage workers that are the core of the Target workforce.
Even if the United States were not in the grip of a massive recession. Even if jobs, in general, were plentiful, to craft a response that targets an oppressed class of people in order to vindicate another class of oppressed people does nothing for justice and guarantees that systemic oppression wins in the end.
Here are the facts.
* Target is a huge company with an annual revenue exceeding $65 billion dollars with more than $2.5 billion dollars in annual profits.
* Target is a single corporation but its stores operate as if they were franchises. This means that each individual store is judged on its own merits and not by the company as a whole. When a single store under performs the losses at that store are passed on DIRECTLY to the employees AT THAT STORE by way of reduced work hours. Target has in the past simply closed under performing stores, displaced those workers, and opened a new store in generally more lucrative and more conservative markets within the same geographical area.
* The workers of Target are not our, well, target. The CEO of Target is, and it is the CEO, not the hourly wage workers that should be the focus of any protest action. I repeat working class people/low wage workers/and the underemployed are our allies not our enemies.
* And, in addition to the issues outlined above, Target is the single largest nongovernmental supporter of homeless and precariously housed youth programs in Minnesota. A drop in revenue will, directly, impact these most vulnerable in our community.
(Side note: There is a reason why corporate philanthropy exists. It is for JUST this sort of situation when a company tries to pull some shady business. It makes decision making around tactics harder. The community, therefore, must beat them at their own game WITHOUT using their tools)
In order for a boycott to truly be effective, it would need a mass movement in all 50 states over a sustained period of time that resulted in at least a 10% drop in overall revenue. That is not a possibility, therefore the energy could be and should be exercised in other more effective arenas.
A boycott of individual stores will directly result in hardships for low wage workers, some of whom will be queer, which will further a divide between queer folks and working class folks AND CONTINUE THE PERPETUATION of the myth that queer folks ARE NOT working class and are privileged and have ideals that are out of sync with working people. Thank God Queers for Economic Justice exists to support working class queer folks, and thank the creator that there are organizers like Susan Raffo, editor of Queerly Classed, that understand the connections between class and sexual orientation.
For these reasons...for reasons of unity with working class folks and queer working class folks an organized boycott of Target is WRONG and unjust. I do, however, support the right of individuals to express their personal outrage through making different shopping choices. This woman has made a personal and courageous decision to not shop at Target, and I support her specifically because of the tactic she chose to use: the media.
The media, viral or otherwise, is how this fight is going to be won. While it is nigh on impossible for queer folks to impact the bottom line of Target through a protest, we can win the fight in the court of public opinion. Frankly, Target prides itself on being a community based venture that CARES about the people it serves and provides artistic and social justice funding to ensure that the least have access. The way to get Target to pay attention is to slap their reputation directly in the face through creative use of the media.
Here's what I suggest:
1) If you choose to boycott target personally, use the model of UpTake.org, record your direct action and make it available widely on the web with a cogent discussion of why you are choosing to shop elsewhere.
2) In most major cities, particularly Minneapolis and New York, Target sponsors large artistic ventures--museums in particular. In New York, almost all of the major museums (Whitney, Guggenheim, MoMA, The Met) have free Target evenings at the museum. Organize a peaceful yet colorful and loud protest each week on the FREE NIGHT in each of these locales. Keep the protests loud and lively on these evenings. I guarantee this will generate personal buzz and garner media attention.
3) Perform direct actions outside of your local Target stores. Send canvassers from your local/state-wide LGBT rights organization to collect donations outside of your local Target. Create local media buzz around this issue.
The only thing that separates Target from Wal-Mart is Target's reputation. Attack the reputation, and you will, I promise get the results that five years of boycott will not win.
It is BEYOND TIME that our movement mature. Whether we are talking about war, poverty, racism, or religious intolerance, it is time that our movement, which includes individuals in all these other spaces/places/ and identities, to create bridges and recognize significant organizing and building moments and then UTILIZE those moments for justice instead of a temporary catharsis.
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