#starbucks activism

[honeylemony]

Stay with me here but.

White women who get rabid over Taylor Swift ---> their own environmentally learned beliefs that they are special for some non specific (white) reason ---> Taylor swift writing POV you are the hero You are the one that everyone wants You are the victim You are small and tiny and could never hurt anyone but also You are so fierce and if anyone is mean to you you're going to Get Them (girlboss style) ---> white women crying when they get called out for being bigoted ---> Starbucks Activism over People Hating What you Like and that being Misogyny ---> white women upholding white supremacy in all forms except its inherent misogyny

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Members of a private WhatsApp group, including billionaires like the CEO of Dell and the former CEO of Starbucks, allegedly used the chat to discuss ways to pressure New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police to crack down on Gaza solidarity protests at the city’s universities, according to The Washington Post. AJ+ has not seen the chat messages referenced in The Washington Post’s report directly. ⁣

⁣

NYPD officers raided encampments at schools like Columbia University and the City College of New York, arresting close to 200 protesters in just one day. The police raid at Columbia in late April was the first on-campus mass arrest in 50 years, with police using riot gear and military-grade weapons against mostly peaceful protesters. ⁣

⁣

While Gaza solidarity encampments have been frequently targeted with violence by police and pro-Israel agitators – and over 2,200 people have been arrested – a study found that out of over 550 Gaza protests at U.S. universities, 97% have been peaceful. ⁣

⁣

…⁣

Senior Producers: Kareem Yasin, Ben Angeloni⁣

⁣

[phoenixyfriend]

I don't know who needs to hear this but yelling at people to boycott Starbucks as a first step to helping Palestine does not do nearly as much as:

Calling your Senator

Donating to a charity like PCRF, UNRWA, or MSF

Emailing your Senator

Actually looking up the companies BDS asks you to boycott (Starbucks isn't on there; you can boycott if you want, but maybe start your call to action with something a little more relevant, like McDonald's or Puma)

Calling your House Rep

Voting in your primary election

Emailing your House Rep

Donating to a pro-ceasefire candidate who's up for reelection this November like Tlaib or Sanders

Emailing the DNC

Learning about the most effective rhetoric for changing minds

Donating to get out the vote campaigns

Emailing your governor

Literally anything that isn't blogging about how boycotting Starbucks being the biggest thing you can do

But especially picking up the phone and calling your goddamn senators

Smugly telling people to stop going to Starbucks does next to nothing. Call. Your. Elected. Officials.

[flango87]

idk about yall but im boycotting for LIFE. there r other coffee shops, there r other places for me to get food, and i certainly dont need the new iphone. and lets not stop at boycotting unethical brands. I like to think i was already a consious consumer, but im stepping it up. Im thinking LONG AND HARD about buying anything non essential. we ALL NEED TO STEP IT UP. you do not need that new throw pillow. new sweater. new mug. new candle. new lipstick. new whatever. STOP BUYING SO MUCH SHIT!! IT WILL NOT FILL THE VOID INSIDE YOU!! WE HAVE SO MUCH POWER IN WHO WE GIVE OUR MONEY TO!!

[politijohn]

Source

Source

Nothing to see here!

[jj3llyfishh]

[anteomnia]

at the point that if i see Anyone looking at noah schnapp with anything except disgust or disdain, even if he’s dressed up in his bowl cut and will byers uniform, because that motherfucker is Heinously pro genocide

[statementlou]

I feel like when people ask famous personalities to participate in activism, they may be influenced by the parasocial relationships they have formed with these celebrities and not that they really care about what is going on. They expect famous individuals to act as role models or representatives of their beliefs. That's why I think, it is crucial to maintain a critical perspective and not depend solely on celebrities for activism. This can result in a passive approach to social change and disregard the significance of collaborative action and personal engagement. The majority of celebrities don't care lol even who speak up about it publicly. Their reality is different from ours, like Gigi Hadid also drank Starbucks the other day, Bella Hadid worked with a lot of Zionist brands and did a photo shoot with them recently, etc etc. And let me not start on stans culture... the worst thing ever

Okay this is fascinating because yes! I agree with you so much! But then I was completely floored by the choice of the HADIDS (literal Palestinians who never shut up about the cause) as examples- but actually I love it because I think it opens up two really really important points that maybe get to the heart of the whole issue. Gigi and Bella Hadid are, as I said, literally Palestinian, and have throughout their public lives (not just recently) never been silent or backed down in defense of Palestine even when it has very publicly lost them (Bella primarily) jobs and opportunities, and they both continue to be outspoken even while literally targeted and threatened by zionists. Pretty much everything anyone has wanted or asked for from any celebrity, right?! But here we have, first of all, Gigi having all of that discounted because she bought Starbucks, a brand that is not even an official boycott! I feel like this is a perfect example of prioritizing performative and symbolic activism over actions with material impact, if someone who has been so consistent and stalwart can see all that dismissed because they spent $5 on a coffee (that, again, has no material financial relationship to Israel). I personally think that on a scale of good done vs harm, Gigi can afford a lot of problematic coffees, and this is not even getting into the Hadid families finances which involve huge amounts of money being used and moved around in ways that do more to help the cause than any image choice can unbalance. And then you say that Bella has worked with zionist brands- I don't know anything about this so I can't speak to it. Given that we are also apparently considering starbucks a zionist brand despite the company not operating in or having any ties to Israel, I would question what this means. But it doesn't matter- I think the point is that consumer/ individual purity isn't possible! No one is making pure consumer choices, no matter how many brands they boycott, and certainly no celebrity can continue to be one without having unsavory connections. I think that BY DEFINITION no celebrity is politically pure because if they cut all those ties, THEY WOULD NO LONGER BE A CELEBRITY. Whether the pursuit of purity is realistic or desirable is a much bigger issue, but the point is that as you say, looking to celebrities to be activists will end only in disappointment. Their job is to entertain in specific ways and they do that; if that's not working for you, then consume some other celebrity's product (persona). As I have said from the start, if you want to stan Louis because he is talented and hot and kind and smart and fun then you are in luck! But if you are looking for an activist spokesperson, he is not going to be that, and yelling at him (or people who don't consider that a deal breaker) isn't going to change that.

[the-ind1gen0us-jude4n]

I’ve never had or liked Starbucks, they’re a dickhead company and their stuff is just an excuse to get diabetes because all their shit is loaded with sugar.

But these fucking pallywood actors are driving me so mad that I feel like stuffing my face with the worst iced coffee I will ever have.

I am so against the bullshit that large corporations always do, but I am also against people boycotting these brands because some of them might have something to do with Jews.

Fuck Starbucks but fuck woke bullshit activism even more.

[pilloclock]

Manchester today outside of Barclays 🇵🇸

[nando161mando]

Boycotts work, keep pushing

[phoenixyfriend]

It would be great if people stopped using real atrocities as an excuse to hate on a White Girl Brand.

Even BDS does not focus on Starbucks. They haven't mentioned it since 2014.

"I'm boycotting Starbucks in support of Palestine!" No, chance are you saw a chance to talk shit about a brand that's popular and it makes you feel like you're better than everyone else. It gets notes. Why talk about actual boycotts like Chevron and HP and Sodastream and Puma when you can give people an excuse to hate That Popular Thing That Girls Like?

"But they shut down that one group for being pro-Palestine!" They shut it down with political speech as the EXCUSE. That was not about Palestine. It was about unions. That was a union-busting action. Not a political one. It was a stupid union-busting action because of the bad press it got them for supposedly being pro-Israel, but it was about the union. From the corporate perspective, it was about the union. It was a chance to take down one of the unions.

EDIT: Other claims of explicit zionism by the company as a whole have been debunked. The matter of Howard Schultz is more complicated. See below.

Boycott the company for its union-busting. A boycott without a clear message doesn't do shit, and you are wasting your time and energy, and spreading misinformation besides.

You are NOT HELPING PALESTINE by spreading misinformation. Sure, the opportunity to hate on Starbucks is going to mean more people share your past and it goes farther, but it's also going to make them think that boycotting a company that has nothing to do with Israel is going to help, rather than, say, paying attention to the gas pumps they use or the food they eat.

The above image is from the BDS page on economic boycotts. It's official as of early January. This is on the same page:

We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. We need to target companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling large, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”

Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. Many do not have clear demands to the companies as to what we expect them to do to end the boycott, making them ineffective.

I'm not saying that Starbucks SHOULDN'T be held accountable for using the Gaza war as a point of contention in their unrelated union situation. It was a shitty thing to do, and incidentally and indirectly supported Israel.

EDIT: I've been given some information on how Howard Schultz, the CEO, has investment ties to Wiz and other Israeli companies that are actually involved with current events. This is significantly more than I was previously finding. If you choose to boycott for this reason, have at ye.

However, I do still hold to my stance that companies ACTUALLY BEING TARGETED by BDS should be the ones name-dropped in posts that feature calls to action. It's a matter of efficiency and effectiveness. The more people that are led to believe that Starbucks is the biggest bad in the room, the less people will join in boycotts and divestment of McDonald's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Wiz, Airbnb, Caterpillar, Chevron, and all the other companies that BDS is saying are actually important to stop giving money to.

Back to the original post.

But.

BUT

The proliferation of specifically anti-Starbucks rhetoric as a supposed form of pro-Palestine Action is overshadowing ACTUAL ACTION. If every single post about boycotting to support Palestine mentions Starbucks, and maybe Puma or Sodastream, but doesn't mention any of the two dozen other companies that BDS states are actually crucial to making a change, including other American food franchises (that just do happen to be more stereotypically boy-popular, like pizza and burger chains), then you are ACTIVELY taking away support from the boycotts that matter.

And the reason this happens is because "Starbucks bad" feeds into the confirmation bias for people that already dislike it for being popular or overpriced or not to their taste.

So take a step back. Ask yourself, "am I boycotting Starbucks because I actually believe it will help and am listening to groups like BDS, or am I just using this as an excuse to badger people into avoiding a franchise I already dislike?"

Okay? We on the same page?

Great. Now check if your local Starbucks is unionized, if their union is asking customers to boycott THEM, and then maybe boycott anyway.

But check if it's actually doing something or just distracting you from real activism, first.

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

ngl a lot of internet 'activists' are fake and im tired of pretending otherwise. yall will claim to support SA survivors but then make prison rape jokes. yall will claim to support trans people but then misgender someone after they do bad things. yall will blast people for not boycotting chic-fil-a but then buy a latte from starbucks. yall will claim to care about people's mental health, but then tell literal teenagers to kill themselves because they said something off color or call everyone with schizophrenia or npd "evil and abusive".

yall ask others to let them know whenever they say something bad but then have a fucking temper tantrum whenever you're told not to use certain words that happen to be slurs.

[youcantdateosmosisjones]

How YOU, the average citizen, can play a part in ending the fascist plague ruling over the people that need your help:

We are now in a time of open, uncensored political unrest regarding the atrocities being committed- and that have BEEN committed in Palestine, the D.RC, Yemen, Sudan, New Guinea, Mexico, Algeria, Ethiopia, and so many more- because the colonial interests of nations like the U.K, the U.S.A, Canada, Israel, and so many more.

Why has this been happening in the first place? Money; land; resources; and the expansion of their economic empire. The people of Africa and the Americas were slaughter over rich resources and access to trade routes, and today colonial powers still exploit Africans for cheap access to what they sought after in the first place. In the Americas, the indigenous peoples were murdered and disregarded for a new empire to be built. These are only 2 vague examples I'm using that I'm sure most of you that see this (if your living in a western country) know about to some degree.

The very systems we live under and rely on for our contemporary survival are the same ones actively oppressing and colonizing those who have the resources they need, in order to sell those products back to us, so that we keep the workforce upholding this country intact. That's why it's so hard for people in 1st world countries to come to their senses and force themselves to face the reality of millions- because to them it isn't real. Our governments keep us docile and comforted, because we fuel their banks.

I'm done ranting, now. But it's important for you to know this information going forward. We the people have no hand in making legislation, passing laws, visiting the presidents of other nations, or making real global decisions- because the system isn't built for us to be able to do that. However, you still fund your government by participating in commerce. Commerce is truly all your government cares about. If you want to pressure your representatives into taking action, take part in boycott's; protest outside of tech stores in the name of the D.R.C; withdraw your money from the bank; disrupt any sale you can. I understand that the majority of citizens have jobs, families, and responsibilities to attend to, which is why even the smallest of deeds matters.

We as a global community have reached a point of total unrest about the treatment of our fellow human beings, and it is vital that we hold our ground- even as we are overwhelmed by the flood of information that previously unaffected our lives. But why do we get to be uncomfortable when there have been countless people dying all over the globe, using OUR GOVERNMENT'S MONEY, without so much as a protest for them? Please, use what resources and freedom you have right now to fight for those who don't.

None of us are free, until we're all free. To everybody everywhere, fight for peace.

[smokegrassshakeass]

Remember, we don’t stop boycotting until Palestine and its people are free.

Your Stanley cup is not worth the lives of innocent children.