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​​The Limits of Consumer Activism

blurred photograph of crowd below large interactive billboards

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: “Woke Capitalism.”

In response to Walmart’s roll out of new Juneteenth party supplies, wine, and themed ice cream, among other offerings (including a “Congrats Officer” police banner labeled as Juneteenth Day Party Decorations), prominent Black activists and comedians on Twitter, TikTok, and other social media platforms critiqued the corporation for failing to understand the actual values the holiday represents.

From Walmart’s trademark of the word “Juneteenth” to the promotion of its own branded Juneteenth ice-cream instead of a Black-owned ice cream brand with the same flavor, the company’s effort to bring in Black dollars read as tone deaf. Beyond the problems with the products themselves, Twitter users pointed out the general meaninglessness of corporate pandering when larger issues of oppression are still unaddressed.

What should we ultimately expect from influential companies like Walmart? Better products? Donations to just causes? More diverse representation within corporations? And, what is the role of activism targeted at corporations as it relates to larger projects of liberation?

Let’s start with the first set of questions: What should we expect from corporations? It seems that the primary issue in the Juneteenth merch case is that there is a disconnect between the company’s values and the buyers’ values. Whether Walmart made a good-faith effort to embody the values of Juneteenth or just attempted to maximize profit, the company failed to understand the values behind Black liberatory projects and the holiday itself.

One thing that we could expect from corporations is better products. Representation in product choice is important — when things are made for you with an understanding of your needs and expectations, it can improve quality of life and help you feel seen. But products alone are rarely the focus of our liberatory projects. What else might we expect companies to change?

We can also expect corporations to hire a diverse team of workers throughout all levels of the company. This helps to ensure not only fair equality of opportunity, such that anyone of any race, gender, or other social position can come to hold power within the company, but also good product design, because there will be multiple perspectives to influence the process. Walmart still has work to do in this regard, as Black employees are overrepresented in lower wage positions and underrepresented in higher wage positions.

However, diversity in corporate positions of power isn’t enough. If the lowest paid workers in a company make up the greatest share of workers and aren’t paid enough to live on, then we have simply created new hierarchies of inequality and injustice.

Corporate diversity, without fair wages, only liberates a select number of people (and those who make it into the halls of power often find them hostile to the historically marginalized).

It seems that better representation demands, in part, the material and social conditions for people of all different backgrounds to be able to live and flourish. For instance, a company should not merely hire disabled people and expect them to conform to company expectations without accommodation — the physical and organizational structures of the company should be rebuilt to allow those employees to carry out their jobs well.

This holds true at the level of corporate donations. We often expect corporations to donate to just causes and critique them when they don’t, but there are also unfortunate power differentials that arise when the corporate elite can hoard money to donate to political goals instead of paying their workers a fair wage that would allow them to donate to causes they care about. In the age in which money is speech, surely this is not what we want our representative democracy to look like.

The main issue with our discussions around woke capitalism is not any of the individual critiques: it’s the big-picture strategy. What seems to be happening in our collective discourse is that we get caught up in easily Twitter-izable consumer issues that companies will quickly respond to in order to avoid a social media backlash. Even at the level of corporate diversity, it’s much easier to put a few Black employees in positions of power than to ensure a living wage for all employees.

In some ways, the “woke capitalism” battle between conservative and liberal forces is the easier battle to win, and so we get stuck in these proxy wars for the harder work of systemic change to address inequalities compounded by history and multiple intersecting oppressions.

Instead of focusing our efforts into getting companies to respond to issues regarding product design, representation, and charitable donations, it would serve us better to treat these as issues that arise from the same central problem: class-based inequities that are built upon white supremacy and that disproportionally impact marginalized groups.

If we can shift our energy to the more difficult battles of ensuring that companies make the material and organizational changes for workers to have a good quality of life and that our broader social and legal structures are made more just, our victories will be more meaningful. We will ultimately have a greater impact, even if, on the whole, we have more failures at the level of responding to bad product design.

Black activists understand this point well. The Walmart social media outcry and subsequent apology happened over a relatively short period of time, and it represents a small (though not inconsequential) piece in a much larger project of policing and prison reform, affordable housing and fair wage fights, and other efforts to celebrate Black freedom and joy. Unfortunately, our collective discourse tends to highlight these shorter-term projects and hide the longer and more difficult labors of organizing. So long as we, especially as allies, remember to engage in and contribute to these larger projects of liberation, there is no problem in using consumer activism to promote better corporate practices. We just need to understand the limits of that approach.

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“Woke Capitalism”

distorted photograph of Times Square building stretching into sky

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.

Adam Smith’s matter-of-fact account of the moral consideration we should expect in our economic transactions will strike many as the self-evident ideal. The divorce of the social or political from the economic is nothing more than savvy industry. Business-as-usual. The introduction of sentiment to our dealings would only make for bad business and worse politics. This is the position of those condemning the rise of “woke capitalism.”

“Woke capitalism” has become a catch-all term standing in for a hodge-podge of ideas, convictions, and positions. Coined by Ross Douthat in 2015 to describe businesses’ hollow virtue-signalling, the term has been expanded to include even the slightest appearance of corporations “bending a knee” to the cancel culture mob.

Critics characterize woke capitalism as a kind of ill-informed and ill-intentioned boardroom activism solely invested in the construction and maintenance of a PR image. It represents a superficial dedication to sanitizing bad looks and poor optics. It presents as an unwillingness to countenance anything with a whiff of controversy about it. In this, cynics see a poorly disguised feint aimed at getting out in front of political blowback and indicating one’s social justice bona fides before the torch and pitchfork crowd come knocking.

But for many, the problem isn’t so much its falseness as its ambition. Corporations, these voices contend, shouldn’t be in the business of criticizing public policy or shaping public opinion. They shouldn’t be throwing their weight around when it comes to matters of state. It’s corporatism, plain and simple — rule by unelected magnates rather than by the will of the people.

Thus the woke capitalists are either cowards submitting to progressives’ demands in pursuit of the path of least (commercial) resistance, or power-hungry usurpers bent on circumventing Congress in transforming their cultural preferences into social reality. Whether motivated by fear or greed, these elites are beginning to play an outsized and objectionable role in shaping our shared future.

But does this picture reflect reality?

Progressives would be surprised to see CEOs listed as co-conspirators. Woke capitalism will strike many as an oxymoron. Exploitation appears inevitable and its effects are not suffered equally. Our consumer society’s commitment to cheap goods and even cheaper labor seems wholly at odds with the project of social justice dedicated to revealing and combating inequality and discrimination.

While we may have moved on from Milton Friedman’s assertion that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to its shareholders, we’re still struggling to articulate a vision of businesses’ greater obligations that might be as equally concrete and action-guiding. We remain in dire need of defining just what considerations these corporate entities owe us — the people who make these businesses run, as consumers, laborers, voters, and tax-payers. From offshoring to tax evasion to union-busting, we need to know whether a corporation can be an ally.

The ongoing debate over the power and limitations of “woke capitalism” provides ample material, space, and opportunity for sustained examination of the kinds of problems corporations create, the kinds of problems they aggravate, and the kinds of problems they can (and cannot) solve.

-Tucker Sechrest

Kenneth Boyd — “What Is Unwoke Capitalism?”

Daniel Story — “Corporate Activism and Non-Ideal Democracy”

Elizabeth Williams — “The Limits of Consumer Activism”

Giles Howdle — “Rainbow Myopia: A Left-Wing Case Against ‘Woke Capital’“

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What Is Unwoke Capitalism?

close-up photograph of SHOP storefront sign

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: “Woke Capitalism.”

It’s Pride Month, which means that many of your favorite or not-so-favorite corporations have likely been changing their social media avatars to their rainbow versions, and perhaps making statements about how they currently/always have/have at least thought about supporting the rights of those in the LGBTQ+ community. Sometimes called “rainbow capitalism,” this yearly trend is one form of so-called “woke capitalism,” in which corporations disingenuously champion social causes with the sole purpose of making more money off of their left-wing consumers.

At least, that’s how it started out when the term was coined way back in 2018.

These days, however, “woke capitalism” is poorly defined.

Sometimes it refers to what critics call a hollow kind of virtue-signalling, either to court new left-leaning consumers or out of a fear of losing existing ones. But it has also taken on another meaning: whenever a corporation is guided by any kind of social values (or, at least, certain kinds of social values – more on this in a bit) and not by increasing value for its shareholders, it is engaging in “woke capitalism.” Interestingly, this new kind of woke capitalism ditches the requirement of being insincere: even, and maybe even especially, companies that have demonstrated a genuine interest in social causes have been placed under the umbrella of woke capitalism.

Depending on who you ask, woke capitalism is the future. Or a force that desperately needs to be fought. This fight is either a bad and regressive thing, or a good and necessary thing. Capitalism is something that the right has become ashamed of, or else it’s businesses that have become ashamed of being woke. When companies do go woke, they’re making good social progress, or not nearly making progress quickly enough. It can be difficult to keep up.

When considered in the broadest sense of merely being guided in some way by a concern for social causes (as opposed to the hollow virtue-signaling kind), a form of capitalism in which companies make at least some effort to address social issues seems better than nothing.

What corporate responsibilities ought to be, exactly, is a matter worth discussing. But with the notion of “woke capitalism” being as nebulous as it is, and with so much discussion about its merits, it’s also worth considering: are there good arguments for an alternative?

There seem to be two options. The most popular is what appears to be a return to shareholder capitalism: the idea that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to make money for its shareholders, and thus any potential decrease in profits in the name of furthering progressive social causes (or, really anything besides profits) is, in some sense, not what a business should be doing.

This seems to be the default position of many of woke capitalism’s critics. The main target is businesses that have expressed concern for environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG, for short). This is bad business, it is argued, since ESG puts causes over profits. For example, Disney’s recent speaking out against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill has the potential to cost the company money after Florida governor Ron DeSantis vowed to eliminate the special status that the state had given to Disney theme parks. Although not exactly hurting for cash, Disney could have hoarded even more if it had just stayed quiet.

Of course, defenders of woke capitalism will respond that investing in social causes is not antithetical to making profits, either because doing so helps capture certain consumers, or because failing to do so risks alienating them. Others will point out that shareholder capitalism has been challenged long before the rise of woke capitalism.

Indeed, DeSantis’ actions seem much more motivated out of spite rather than a desire to maintain the sanctity of shareholder capitalism. Instead, they are indicative of another way in which one can reject woke capitalism, namely to adopt what we might call unwoke capitalism.

If woke capitalism is that which is driven by a concern for causes that are typically viewed as progressive, then unwoke capitalism is driven by a concern for causes that are typically viewed as conservative.

For example, a recent opinion piece describes Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter not just as the acquisition of a business, but as “a wider fightback against a hyper-liberal version of global capitalism” as one of Musk’s stated goals in acquiring Twitter is “to correct what he sees as Left-liberal bias.” Unwoke capitalism pops up in smaller places, as well, in businesses such as Black Rifle Coffee – which touts itself as pro-military, pro-law enforcement, and “anti-hipster” – as well as other coffee businesses that feel like Black Rifle wasn’t sufficiently right-wing. Or consider Coign, the self-proclaimed “America’s first credit card for Conservative” which, as part of its fight against wokeness, pledges to donate part of its profits to “Conservative causes” (although said causes have yet to be determined). Other examples are easy to find.

Here, then, we can see three different ways to understand the backlash to woke capitalism. One predicates itself on a concern for capitalist values (specifically that of maximizing profits); a second is based on a rejection of a specific set of progressive values (specifically ESG); and a third not only rejects those values but replaces them with conservative ones. While these positions are distinct, opinions and other think-pieces on woke capitalism often run them together.

For example, in the opinion piece on Musk’s attempt to acquire Twitter, the move was initially portrayed as one in which the historically unprofitable Twitter could finally be made profitable under Musk’s tutelage. The author also claims that woke capitalism is responsible for “soaring inflation, flat-lining growth, and massive debt mountains.” If any of this were true, it would constitute financial reasons for rejecting woke capitalist business models. However, the motive to “open debate that includes the Right as well as the Left” on Twitter is clearly based on values beyond pure profit-maximization.

Criticisms of woke capitalism thus tend to conflate two arguments.

The first is that businesses being concerned with social values is bad business; the second is that many businesses are concerned with the wrong values. But accepting the one doesn’t require accepting the other: for instance, one could argue that businesses that are concerned with advocating for conservative values also violate capitalist norms, as doing so risks putting values ahead of profits, they just happen to be different values from the woke capitalist crowd. In this way, woke capitalism and unwoke capitalism would share the same flaw.

Whether woke capitalism is bad for business is an empirical question. While there is no real indication that it is, rejecting it does not mean needing to replace progressive values with conservative ones.

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The Social Justice of Copyrights and “Public Domain Day”

photograph of Duke Ellington record

In addition to starting a new calendar year, January 1st marks “Public Domain Day” when copyright restrictions expire for a new batch of artworks, thereby allowing new audiences to view them more easily and new artists to adapt them without needing special permission from the copyright holder. This year, the United States saw certain works from Buster Keaton, Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Duke Ellington, Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, and more enter the public domain, including the classic jazz song “Sweet Georgia Brown” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous book The Great Gatsby.

On the one hand, it might seem like increasing accessibility to cultural artifacts is simply obviously good; given how many high school English classrooms rely on battered copies of Fitzgerald’s story, for example, we can see immediate benefits (both aesthetic and practical) to making it easier and cheaper to purchase new books. But, taken to its logical conclusion, this kind of argument seems to suggest that it might always be necessary for artworks and artifacts to be so accessible. If Gatsby really is so valuable, and if it is so embedded within American culture that it is often called “the great American novel,” then why should Americans have had to pay to read it in the first place? Put differently: why is The Great Gatsby only just now entering the public domain?

In brief, the concept of a copyright offers two related basic protections:

  1. It ensures that artists are compensated for the work that they perform, in a way that
  2. Ensures that society will continually benefit from the work of new artists (who, following from (1), will feel free to pursue their art).

This is why, for example, the Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Basically, in theory, copyrights work to level the social playing field a bit so that artists can (at least potentially) enjoy sufficient financial security to be able to practice their art. In effect, this makes copyrights a matter of social justice, since the people who benefit from these protections the most are precisely those from less-affluent or otherwise disadvantaged backgrounds. Although F. Scott Fitzgerald was not exactly socially disadvantaged, the person aiming to write the next great American novel could easily be discouraged from doing so without the hope of protected financial recompense for their labor offered by the copyright system. That is to say: aspiring writers might instead spend their energy towards non-artistic ends if their Gatsby was to simply immediately enter the public domain without helping the writer to, say, buy groceries.

To illustrate, imagine two people who both have an interest and talent for music: Thomas is born to a wealthy family in Hollywood, while Susan grows up in a lower-middle-class family in the Ozarks. Even if copyrights don’t exist, Thomas still has the luxury to pursue his art to his heart’s content: his family’s wealth offers him a level of comfort that shields him from the risk of “wasting time” on a hobby with no guarantee of compensation. The same cannot be said of Susan so easily: while she might still have plenty of personal reasons for playing music on her own, if the realities of her social position, say, require her to work a full-time job in order to provide for basic necessities, then she would be taking on considerable risk to herself if she instead chooses to devote her time to her art without any real guarantee that her music could offer her a profitable career. In principle, copyright laws offer Susan the promise of some financial protection such that if her art ends up becoming profitable, then she will be able to uniquely enjoy the monetary fruits of her labor without other artists being allowed to copy her work (at least for a time); it’s true that Thomas gets this benefit too, but notice that it doesn’t really affect him — he already had the financial protection to do as he liked with his art in the first place.

So, philosophically speaking, copyrights serve as a mechanism to help underwrite the kind of equality that John Rawls talks about with his first principle of justice: in explaining his view of a free and fair, egalitarian society in A Theory of Justice, Rawls argues that “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.” Insofar as copyrights can serve to more fairly distribute opportunities to develop artistic skill and create artworks, they might be thought of as components of a just society. Without protections like this in place, it would become, in principle, roughly impossible for anyone not born into privilege to pursue a career in the arts.

It’s worth noting that this is also why artists cannot copyright “generic concepts” or natural elements of normal life: a copyright is only valid for unique artistic creations. In mid-2020, the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sued Netflix over the depiction of Sherlock Holmes in its film Enola Holmes; while many of Doyle’s stories involving the character of Holmes have entered the public domain, they all tend to present Holmes as a generally cold and unemotional person. Because it is Doyle’s later stories (that are still under copyright) that see Holmes display more warmth and kindness, the caring demeanor the detective shows his younger sister in the Netflix film provoked the copyright-holder to sue. However, the generally-ridiculed lawsuit was settled out of court in December, presumably because “warmth and kindness” are hardly unique artistic creations.

But this also evidences the problem with the other side of copyright laws: artworks are importantly different than commodities or other products for sale. Fitzgerald and Doyle weren’t just “doing their jobs,” for example, when they wrote The Great Gatsby and the Sherlock Holmes stories: they were effectively contributing to the cultural fabric of our society and the artworks that we collectively use to texture our social fabric with shared points of understanding and reference. It might be argued that, just as “warmth and kindness” are ubiquitous to the point of being un-copyrightable, the cultural familiarity of a character like “Sherlock Holmes” is (or is becoming) similarly un-copyrightable.

Such is the argument for “Public Domain Day.” Only the most radical defenders of the public domain would argue that copyrights are, in principle, problematic: indeed, artists both need and deserve to be secure to create their art (consider also: how else might audiences expect to come by new art to appreciate?). However, over time, the sedimentation of individual artifacts into the cultural consciousness makes a unique property claim on them less clearly valid — particularly after the original artist’s death. Though details differ by country, it is common now for copyrights to extend (in general) for either fifty or seventy years after the death of the artist, allowing both the original creator and their dependents to uniquely benefit from the artwork for a limited amount of time before legal ownership of the artifact is distributed collectively.

Rawls also carves out a space for thinking about copyrights in this way within his Difference Principle that allows for some individuals to benefit more than others if that inequality also serves to benefit the least advantaged in society: presumably promoting the further and continued creation of new artworks (as copyrights are designed to do) is just such a public benefit. But once the general welfare is no longer upheld by the existence of a copyright, it would be just for the copyright to dissolve — as indeed we see demonstrated and celebrated each year on Public Domain Day.

(A crucial note: you may have noticed my repeated hedging in previous paragraphs as I have defended copyright law “in principle” or “philosophically.” This is because the actual practice of copyright law in the United States is fraught with problematic and unfair issues that Rawlsian principles of justice would struggle to support. Indeed, the extension of copyright terms seen in the last few decades, the corporate interests apparently motivating such legislation, and other threats to a shrinking public domain (as well as unique questions posed by new forms of art and media) are all issues that deserve both philosophical and legislative attention in a way that is far more complicated than the simple picture I’ve sketched in this short article!)

Still, copyrights play an important part for anyone looking to protect the financial interests they have bound up in their art; for the rest of us, Public Domain Day grants us the green light to continue bearing back into the past to bring it forward into today.

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The Ethics of Escapism (Pt. 3): Searching for the Personal when Everything Is Political

image of Lebron James with "More than an Athlete" slogan

It is beyond understatement to say that anyone could be feeling overwhelmed right now. For over four months, there have been daily protests against the brazenly public murder of Black people by police officers. If the police violence and terrorizing weren’t enough, the often hateful and willfully ignorant responses to calls for change to the system are emotionally draining, constant throughout the year, and can come from surprising places within anyone’s personal circle.

We can add to this ongoing discord the divisive attitudes concerning the pandemic and a rapidly approaching national election — fewer than 40 days away! — where the stakes are presented as the highest in history. The sheer amount of noteworthy news flooding in every day makes it difficult to balance the need to act and stay informed against restorative personal commitments that are needed to reproduce this labor on a daily basis.

In recent days and weeks, there have been loud calls to have a sharper dividing line between what can or should be “political” and what shouldn’t be. There are loud public complaints that the arenas that appear to allow for the sort of personal restoration, now drudge up the very issues that many seek to escape.

At the NFL season opener, fans in Missouri booed the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans when they stood arm-in-arm on the field in support of racial unity. Angry responses to demonstrations calling attention to the unjust treatment of Black people in the US and in sports have a long history, and the response to the unity demonstration is reminiscent of the hateful response to Colin Kaepernick’s protest during the national anthem four years ago.

Also this year, Naomi Osaka won the US Open’s singles tournament while wearing masks with the names of Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Philando Castile and Tamir Rice, all victims of racial injustice. British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton wore a shirt calling for the arrest of Breonna Taylor’s murderers.

The world of sports is not the only arena where politics is “encroaching.” Media such as movies and TV are including more and more topical content and referential issues. For instance, Marvel series have made more and more direct references to the realm of government and the dynamics played out in our administration. Zac Stanton at Politico claims that escapist content is impossible at this point and recommends “leaning in.” In 2018 at the New Republic, Jeet Heer suggested that avoiding the content of the news would require the drastic measure of avoiding media completely.

The desire to cling to apolitical media and discourse is nothing new, and complaints about political encroachment similarly did not begin with the exhaustion of 2020. But it is difficult to develop an understanding of “political” that can cleanly divide entertainment that has a political message from that which doesn’t.

One sense of the “political” is the realm that you can disagree with friends but remain friends; perhaps in this sense the political denotes the particulars of policies and government, while the fundamentals of friendship can be preserved. For instance, in this sense, the “political” could address specifics of how the economy should work: should we have a progressive or flat tax? What should the brackets be? How should our tax dollars be allocated to different programs? Many can imagine disagreeing with friends over this question, especially given how much we can understand where the values of our friends originate and which issues resonate deeply and differently with each of our loved ones.

Another sense of the political is more robust. “Political” can delineate the role that power has in our society, and the importance that the relationships of power be put to use appropriately. The government wields a huge amount of power in a variety of ways, legislating support for citizens in less fortunate circumstances, articulating parameters of punishments for its citizens, and the standards for individuals to dwell in its boundaries and become citizens. The government further protects and ensures that people are respected and treated with the dignity that morality demands in domains that the public deems its jurisdiction.

When “political” denotes the power dynamics and moral reality of persons in our society, we could understand this domain as one regarding justice. On this understanding, the relevant topics would go beyond the policies that are invoked in the more minimalist sense above – where the political represents the sphere in which two people could agree on “the fundamentals” of morality, yet disagree about politics. Here, the topics and issues of politics or justice, include how people are rightfully treated, how government plays a role in how we should relate to each other in a society, who should be granted rights, how punishments should be meted out, etc.

There is media and entertainment whose content explicitly addresses the issues that are uncontroversially “political.” News is the clearest example, but films and TV shows that include political figures, revolutions, and topics related to our current situations of racist violence, corrupt leaders, and widespread illness also might qualify as “political” media at this time.

However, it is not just the explicit content of the entertainment that we consume that qualifies as political. Our interactions with one another every day reflect a particular power dynamic and moral reality. When the media we consume encourages the dehumanization of marginalized groups of people in our society, it buttresses our current power structures and propagates the unjust relationships in our society, where not everyone is equal and not everyone gets to be respected, safe, and viewed as worthy of the same rights.

The jokes in our movies and TV series whose premises are that fat people are lazy, gorge themselves on food, or are punishments to pursue for romantic pursuits at bars are a matter of politics, propagate an unjust society, or the representation of trans people as individuals “dressing up” as a different gender, or tricking people into dating them, or completely outside of mainstream society, or the overrepresentation of straight white people as the default, and non-white and queer people as struggling, or victims, or uneducated, are all matters of justice, whose continued use helps to prop up an unjust society. Media is saturated with depictions of the moral relationship between the various members of our society, and this composite picture creates and reflects the reality we see.

When people boo at a show of solidarity and inclusion at a sporting event, they are mistakenly categorizing “sports” as entertainment free from the political domain. Setting aside the billions of subsidies the NFL gets from tax-payers, the national anthem sung at every game, the fact that politicians gain political points by throwing first pitches and are seen as more “American” for luxuriating in their overpriced viewing seats, all suggest that sports are political. Players stood for racial unity, faced booing from the fans, and then performed for an unsupportive and aggressive audience in a sport that is notorious for putting its players’ health and safety at risk, which is a matter of justice.

This group of professionals face a history of racism in their organization, working for team owners who are almost exclusively white (and many of whom have deep ties to Trump), and lacking the support from their privileged white teammates during fights for racial justice. Further, 70% of NFL fans are white, and the racist attacks on shows of support for racial equality as well as the brazen display of disrespect for athletes reveals deeper issues in the fandom of the NFL.

On neither understanding of “political” can sports fans genuinely claim political encroachment.

On the minimalist understanding of “political,” where we are restricted from considering questions of human rights and respect, the recognition of racial violence and bigotry falls outside the scope, and there are not grounds for complaint on the basis of political encroachment. Anything that could be considered “political” on this account has always been there, friends simply don’t talk about it.

If, however, we have the more robust understanding of “political,” then all media and entertainment are matters of justice and a question of our obligations regarding the the rights and dignity of ourselves and others. The oppression and violence towards members of our society is relevant to justice and politics, but it is not distinct to particular arenas, or content explicitly about the news. Politics in this sense is a part of all domains of life, and friendships, entertainment, etc. are part of politics. Relationships with those close to us would not be very healthy or successful if they included deep disagreements over who was worthy of rights and dignity. Entertainment is politically laden and potentially unjust when it exploits the labor of marginalized groups, as many sports do. Similarly, when pernicious stereotypes saturate visual media and reinforce dehumanization and bigotry, this is a political issue when politics is understood as justice.

Whether we understand politics in the minimal sense or as the domain of justice, there is no clear boundary cordoning it off from between the various aspects of our lives. Entertainment, as tied up in our experience of the human condition, has always been (and will always be) “political.”

 

Part I – “The Ethics of Escapism” by Marko Mavrovich

Part II – “Two Kinds of Escape” by A.G. Holdier

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The Ethics of Escapism (Pt. 2): Two Kinds of Escape

photograph of business man with his head buried in the sand

Shortly before Labor Day this year, polling data of the American workforce indicated that a majority (58%) of employees are experiencing some form of burnout. Not only was this an increase from the early days of the pandemic (when the number was around 45%), but over a third of respondents directly referenced COVID-19 as a cause of their increased stress. Reports on everyone from “essential” workers, to parents, to healthcare professionals and more indicate that the effects of the coronavirus are not merely limited to physical symptoms. Ironically, while the steps taken to limit COVID-19’s physical reach have been largely effective (when properly practiced), those same steps (in particular, self-imposed isolation) may be simultaneously contributing to a burgeoning mental health crisis, particularly in light of additional social pressures like widespread financial ruin, state-sanctioned racial injustices, and a vitriolic election season.

Indeed, 2020 has not been an easy year.

Nearly a century ago, J.R.R. Tolkien — creator of Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and the whole of Middle-Earth — explained how fantasy stories like The Lord of the Rings not only offer an “outrageous” form of “Escape” from the difficulties people encounter in the lives, but that this Escape can be “as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic.” In his essay On Fairy Stories, Tolkien asks, “Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?” It is true that Escape from reality can sometimes be irresponsible and even immoral (for more on this, see Marko Mavrovic’s recent article), but Tolkien reminds us to avoid confusing “the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter” — the problems of the latter need not apply to the former.

There are at least two ways we can distinguish between Tolkien’s two kinds of Escape: epistemically (rooted in what someone seeks to escape) and morally (concerning one’s motivations for escaping anything at all). Consider how a person might respond to the NFL’s decision to highlight a message of social justice during its games this season: if they are displeased with such displays because, as Salena Zito explains, they “are tired of politics infecting everything they do” and “ just want to enjoy a game without being lectured,” then we might describe their escape as a matter of escaping from information, perspectives, and conversations that others take to be salient. Depending on how commonly someone engages in such a practice, this could encourage the crystallization of their own biases into an “epistemic bubble” where they end up never (or only quite rarely) hearing from someone who doesn’t share their opinions. Not only can this prevent people from learning about the world, but the “excessive self-confidence” that epistemic bubbles engender can lead to a prideful ignorance about reality that threatens a person’s epistemic standing on all sorts of issues.

If, however, someone instead wants to avoid “being lectured at” while watching a football game because they wish to escape from the moral imperatives embedded within the critiques of the lecture (or, more accurately, the slogan, symbol, chant, or the like), then this is not simply an epistemic escape from information, but an escape from moral inquiry and confrontation. Failing to care about a potential moral wrong (and seeking to avoid thinking about it) is, in itself, an additional moral wrong (just imagine your response to someone ignoring their neighbor trapped in a house fire because they “just wanted to watch football”). In its worst forms, this is an escape from the responsibility of caring for the experiences, needs, and rights of others, regardless of how inconvenient it might be to care about such things (in the middle of a football game or elsewhere). Nic Bommarito has argued that being a virtuous person simply is a matter of caring about moral goods in a manner that manifests such caring by instantiating it in particular ways; much like the people who passed by the injured Samaritan on the road, escaping from reminders that we should care about others cannot be morally justified simply by selfish desires for entertainment.

Both of these are examples of Tolkien’s Flight of the Deserter: someone who has a responsibility to learn about, participate in, and defend the members of their society is choosing to escape — both epistemically and morally — from reminders of the duties incumbent upon their roles as social agents. But this is different from the Escape of the Prisoner who simply desires a temporary reprieve to unwind after a stressful day. In the absence of immediately pressing issues (like, say, your neighbor trapped in a house fire), it seems perfectly acceptable to take some time to relax, de-stress, and recharge your emotional reserves. Indeed, this seems like the essence of “self-care.”

For example, the early weeks of the first anti-pandemic lockdowns happened to coincide with the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a Nintendo game where players calmly build and tend a small island filled with cartoon animals. For a variety of reasons, quarantined players latched on to the peaceful video game, finding in it a cathartic opportunity to simply relax and relieve the stress mounting from the outside world; months later, the popularity (and profitability) of Animal Crossing has yet to wane. You can imagine the surprise, then, when this gamified Escape of the Prisoner was invaded by Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, who elected to offer virtual signs to players wanting to adorn their island in support of the Democratic candidate for president. Although it would seem an exaggeration to call this a “lecture,” insofar as someone complains about “just wanting to play a game” without being confronted with political ads, there seems to be nothing morally wrong with criticizing (or electing to avoid) Biden’s campaign tactic — probably because there is no inherent obligation to care about a politician’s attempt to get elected (in the same way that there is a duty to care for fellow creatures in need).

So, when thinking about the ethics of escape, it is important to distinguish what kind of escape we mean. Attempts to escape from our proper moral obligations (a Flight of the Deserter) will often amount to ignorant or shameful abdications of our moral responsibilities to care for each other. On the other hand, attempts to (temporarily) escape from the often-difficult burdens we bear, both by doing our duties in public society and simply by quarantining ourselves at home, will amount to taking care of the needs of our own finitude — Tolkien’s Escape of the Prisoner.

In short, just as we should care about others, we should also care for ourselves.

 

Part III – “Searching for the Personal when Everything Is Political” by Meredith McFadden

Part I – “The Ethics of Escapism” by Marko Mavrovich

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The Ethics of Escapism (Pt. 1)

photograph of Green Bay Packers stadium lightly populated before game

The NFL will imprint “End Racism” and “It takes all of us” in the end zones of stadiums in lieu of team logos. NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell stated that “the NFL stands with the Black community players, clubs and fans confronting systemic racism,” a commendable sentiment. The NFL will also allow coaches and officials to wear patches embroidered with “social justice phrases or names of victims of systemic racism.” Many coaches have signalled their support for the league’s latest policies and its general shift towards allowing sociopolitical issues into the game. Adam Gase and the entire coaching staff of the New York Jets will wear “Black Lives Matter” throughout the 2020 season. Mike Tomlin, head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, used this summer’s protests to speak with his team about social justice while also calling out the league’s lack of diversity. Even Bill Belichick, who is famously averse to “off-field distractions,” has welcomed these social justice conversations into the locker room. The NFL is but one example of the invasion of sociopolitical movements into entertainment.

The politically blank pages of one’s life are disappearing. No longer can one turn on late-night television to escape politics. No longer can one watch post-game interviews without being reminded of the social discord. No longer are Academy Award acceptance speeches devoid of political advocacy. These spaces are politicized. While late-night talk show hosts, athletes, and actors have undoubtedly revealed their politics and championed social values in the past, such revelations were notable because they were atypical. Now, they are the norm. As comedy writer Blayr Austin notes, “There’s never a moment reprieve from the chaos of news.”

Perhaps this transformation of those previously unscathed spaces of entertainment ought to be celebrated. There are at least three reasons to think so. Firstly, the entertainers — athletes, musicians, actors, and business personalities — are members of society, too. It may be unfair to expect them to silo their personal political preferences from their public work so that some of their fans can enjoy an escape from the so-called “chaos of the news.” But while entertainers are not entirely removed from society’s ills, they enjoy a comfortable arm’s length distance from it and the everyday reality of average civilians. Secondly, entertainers may be necessary catalysts for the desired change. But of course, the flipside is also true: entertainers may be necessary catalysts for undesired change (See my piece, “Novak Djokovic and the Expectations for Celebrity Morality”). Thirdly, some may argue that their silence will only serve to perpetuate the social ills debated today — systemic racism and racism injustice come to mind. But using this argument as a reason to compel entertainers to be political would obligate entertainers to “speak out” and raise awareness on a whole host of ills without any sense of how the ills should be prioritized, while also assuming that the classification of some social developments as “ills” is always beyond doubt. Ending racism and sexism are goals we might all agree on, but are inclusion riders equally unobjectionable? This third reason is also problematic because it conflates permissive conditions with obligatory participation. While silence on a social ill may permit the ill to continue unabated by criticism, silence is not an instrument of enacting that ill. In other words, silence is not the act that propagates the ill — even if it permits the ill to occur — which is an important distinction to understand when discerning proper responses to social developments.

But what about the fans who may find this blending of social justice and politics with entertainment suffocating (even if they do are sympathetic to the cause)? Is it wrong for them to feel that way? Is it wrong for a fan to seek a 3-hour reprieve from the omnipresent sociopolitical tumult by watching football? There are at least three reasons to think so.

Firstly, the ability to escape from the omnipresent sociopolitical tumult is not a luxury that every individual enjoys, especially if that tumult intimately affects an individual; therefore, the escapist fan should not want such an escape or, at least, the vehicle of entertainment (e.g. the NFL) should not address his or her escapist desire (e.g. not be reminded of the unjustified police killings and destructive demonstrations while watching the game). Yet the principle that underlies this reason would imply behavioral and attitudinal changes that others would find ridiculous. I should not complain to my landlord about the malfunctioning A/C in my apartment because, after all, some people suffer in far hotter climates without it. I should not want to go to the gym to clear my head because some people do not have access to gyms or other means of clearing their head. These examples are absurd, but so, too, is the argument.

Secondly, the fan should not be critical of the blending of social justice and politics with entertainment suffocating because he or she is not obligated to watch. Social media plays host to some version of the following exchange: “I don’t like how political football/the Tonight Show/the Oscars has gotten!” which is invariably followed by the retort: “Well, you don’t have to watch!” But of course, such a statement does not resolve the conflict. Suppose the conflicted spectator only watches professional football and finds pleasure in the 21 weekends of games from September to February. To tell him or her “You don’t have to watch!” is akin to saying “You don’t have to participate in your favorite hobby/interest/game/mode of necessary relaxation!”

Lastly, the fan should be held to the same standard as the entertainer: to be silent — to escape — only serves to perpetuate the existing ills that have fomented the never-ending barrage of news and the social fractures, therefore it is wrong to seek the reprieve. Do not sports, late-night talk shows, and award shows celebrating cinematic achievement pale in comparison to the problems yet to be resolved in our community? Maybe so. But does this mean that one is wrong to seek a political-free zone of entertainment? If the answer is yes, then it seems we must always be on-watch, always be advocating, always be consuming the news, always be active in resolving all of society’s ills, and always be denying ourselves an escape — however short, however trivial — from our contentious, divisive, and oft-disappointing reality.

 

Part II – “Two Kinds of Escape” by A.G. Holdier

Part III – “Searching for the Personal when Everything Is Political” by Meredith McFadden

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Debate over the Anti-Racist Reading List

blurred photograph of bookshelf with birght, colorful books

The Black Lives Matter movement has generated important conversations in multiple arenas of American life, including one surprising conversation currently taking shape in the literary sphere. Intellectuals and book-lovers alike are reconsidering the value of the anti-racist reading list. These lists, which rapidly gained popularity in the wake of George Floyd’s death, offer a selection of primarily non-fiction books that deal either directly or indirectly with racism for those hoping to educate themselves about structural inequality. There is no one official list; the most popular and visible are those assembled by national newspapers, public libraries, universities, but websites and blogs with less cultural pedigree are putting together their own lists of recommended reading. Many Black writers and intellectuals, like Ibram Kendi X, have wholeheartedly embraced the anti-racist reading list, while others have expressed doubt over the purpose and effectiveness of the project. Are reading lists a good foundation for anti-racism, or are they another dead-end outlet for white allyship?

Ever since Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin captivated America in 1852, white Americans have turned to literature, especially fiction, to navigate the emotional and political labyrinth of racism. But as Melissa Phruksachart points out, “unlike previous moments in which fiction supposedly becomes the portal to empathy for the Other, the contemporary literature of white liberalism eschews the novel and coheres around the genres of nonfiction, autobiography, and self-help.” This is one of the most prevalent critiques of the anti-racist reading list, that such lists rely heavily on the exploitation of Black pain rather than celebrate their creative potential and achievements. Kaitlyn Liu articulates this point when she says, “Although anti-racist reading lists are published with the best intentions, they have become part of a broader system which generalizes and compartmentalizes Black authorship into perpetual voices of trauma and pain. Rarely do the books listed support the overlooked stories of Black joy, love or success without mandating a hardship among it.” As Lauren Michele Jackson, one of the earliest critics of anti-rascist reading lists, notes, such lists often defeat the very purpose of literature. Someone who reads Morrison as a field guide to understanding racism, she says, will not fully appreciate the work as a novel, as an artistic achievement by a talented Black writer. Jackson fears that reading lists can encourage white people to approach Black literature “zoologically,” engaging in the art at arms-length. The books that most commonly appear on anti-racist reading lists (Ibram X. Kendi’s recent nonfiction, Robin J. DiAngelo’s White Fragility, biographies of revolutionaries like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.) can feed into this trend, despite the value of each individual work.

At face value, it seems that Americans have turned away from the emotional insight and sensitivity to language offered by the novel for the cold hard facts of nonfiction, but Phruksachart argues that that isn’t the case. She notes that contemporary trends in nonfiction don’t teach white readers racial literacy so much as “emotional literacy. In doing so, they attempt to help colormute readers see, hear, think, and respond to the concepts of race and racism without triggering the sympathetic nervous system—without launching into fight-or-flight mode, which too often materializes as denial, anger, silence, or white women’s tears.” Understanding why we respond emotionally and physiologically to our own prejudice does seem like a valuable first step to addressing racism, but Phruksachart poses an extremely vital question: “is white supremacy really a problem of knowledge?” Does knowing the history of racism, or knowing our individual place in it, spur white allies to change the material conditions of non-white Americans?

Phruksachart would argue that it doesn’t. In perhaps the most penetrating critique of the anti-racist reading list, she states that

“The literature of white liberalism is obviously not a decolonial abolitionist literature. It succeeds by allowing the reading class to think about antiracism untethered from anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism. That is not to say that it has nothing to offer, nor that the authors are pro-capitalist shills. While all of these books offer sharp analyses of the way capitalism destroys Black and minoritized lives, they mention, but don’t center, the powerful critiques of capitalism issued by Black and minoritized traditions.”

In her view, contemporary anti-racist literature is palliative for white liberal readers, and while these works may contain glimmers of insight, they cannot truly help their audience unpack the causes of structural inequality.

This is an extremely insightful point, but it is perhaps unrealistic to expect a nebulous list of books to unravel global capitalism. As Jackson writes, “it is unfair to beg other literature and other authors, many of them dead, to do this sort of work for someone. If you want to read a novel, read a damn novel, like it’s a novel.” We certainly shouldn’t discourage anyone from reading and learning about race, but we should remember that reading isn’t meant to be a substitute for praxis, but a supplement. It’s a way of indicating to ourselves and others that we are engaging with a certain issue, that we are willing to think deeply about it and learn from others. As Harvard professor Khalid Muhammad puts it, “People use reading as a way to understand what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and why the work is critically important. There’s a fundamental requirement of organizing around shared knowledge, usually coming from shared text, to build collective engagement around what histories are relevant to explain the matter. That’s been true, certainly, for the entire history of Black freedom struggles.” Knowledge might not be the single key to unraveling white supremacy, but it is the basis for critical engagement with the world, and it’s certainly a good place for white readers to start.

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Under Discussion: Law and Order, Human Nature, and Substantive Justice

black-and-white photograph of lady justice

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: Law and Order.

For many, the end of this week marks the passage of a six-month period of American history characterized by throbbing dystopian existential dread. The pandemic has been the score to a dark production that, when the spotlight was hot, turned out to be a series of character studies that no one asked for nor were particularly interested in watching. With hundreds of thousands dead and millions more left with lives permanently affected by the virus, the richest among us have become much richer not just during the pandemic, but because of it, and many who were thriving at the start of this year now find themselves evicted from their homes with nowhere to go. What’s more, police brutality and systemic injustice have packed our streets with protesters demanding meaningful change. Looting and rioting have occurred, which has motivated the federal government to respond with force not just against people violating the law, but against reporters and peaceful protestors as well. Against this backdrop of chaos, the President of the United States clenches his fist and calls for “law and order.”

In Plato’s Republic, Glaucon, one of the characters in the dialogue, provides a justification for the existence of laws that paints a grim picture of human nature. He argues that being unjust is in everyone’s interest, presumably because doing so allows a person to satisfy all of their desires. However, in a world populated by other individuals possessed of strength and skill, no single individual can get away with being unjust all of the time. This is why laws are necessary. Glaucon says, “When men have both done and suffered injustice and have experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just.” If Glaucon is right, we are all, at our core, interested in promoting our self-interest, and we relinquish our ability to do so only so that we won’t be harmed by others attempting to do the same. Without the strict enforcement of the laws, we will inevitably descend into division and outright battle with one another — it’s in our very nature to do so.

If this is the right way of viewing things, then the state is justified in acting forcefully to protect us from ourselves and from each other. The government is the only entity preventing us from tearing one another apart for our own selfish reasons. When people call for law and order, they are calling for governmental intervention against perceived danger at the hands of people who they view as scarcely more civilized than beasts. One important corollary of this kind of view of law and order is that executing the law, whatever that law might be, is just.

There are a number of serious problems with this theory regarding the relationship between law and justice. First, some laws are morally and rationally indefensible. In these cases, the cry for “law and order!” is a cry to violate rights or to bring about a worse rather than a better state of affairs. For example, when slaves that escaped from captivity were returned and punished when captured, technically demands for “law and order” were being satisfied. This example highlights the need for a more substantive account of justice according to which just laws are not just agreements between self-interested persons, but instead are designed to promote some objective good or to prevent some objective harm.

Second, this kind of demand for “law and order” doesn’t do anything to ensure fairness in practice. This is because the entities that people are inclined to describe as “beastly” and “threatening” are determined by prejudices and tribalism. Calls for “law and order” tend to be demands to prevent or punish certain kinds of crimes committed by certain categories of people — usually poor people and members of minority populations. People don’t want to see vagrancy, public intoxication, and petty crimes on their streets, but they don’t make much of a fuss about corporations violating environmental regulations in ways that endanger the health of members of nearby communities and create unsafe living conditions for future generations. People want crimes against property to be punished but aren’t up in arms about the losses people experience due to insider trading and other kinds of white-collar crime. People want populations that they view as “scary” out of their neighborhoods, but they aren’t concerned about whether individuals and institutions doing significantly more harm end up getting away with it. Corporations and men in suits don’t tend to frighten people.

People who demand “law and order” often want proportional retributive justice for the members of the groups that they find threatening. The more power, wealth, and privilege a person has, the less likely they are to be punished severely. For example, consider Felicity Huffman, a rich actress who committed fraud to get her daughter into a good college. She was sentenced to 14 days in prison. For rich people who can afford good representation, the criminal system is a revolving door — they are out before they even have time to process the fact that they were in. Privileged populations almost never face society’s most serious punishments. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously said, “People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.” Good representation is expensive.

At the end of the day, if “law and order” is just a social construction that people agree to protect their own interests, then the entities with the most power in society will see to it that the laws end up protecting their interests first and foremost. After all, we don’t all actually consent to the laws. Many citizens are politically disenfranchised because of their life circumstances. Representatives rarely end up actually speaking for these people.

The picture of human nature according to which we are each self-interested individuals protecting ourselves from harms caused by other self-interested individuals is psychologically impoverished. We are beings that can and do care about others. We are capable of empathy and altruism. Our criminal justice system could be a real justice system, where that term means something more than shallow retributivism. To protect the well-being and basic dignity of all people, the call should not be for “law and order!”, but for “Justice!”, which is rarely the same thing.

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Jay-Z and Colin Kaepernick: Is It Business or Personal?

photograph of flag ceremony at NFL football game

In 2016, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling on the sidelines at games during the national anthem as a way to protest against racial injustice against African Americans. Kaep’s demonstration ignited a stream of racial dissent in the country, drawing support and criticism alike. Activists and other athletes voiced their support for Kaepernick, while he received criticism from individuals such as President Trump for being disrespectful to our troops, unpatriotic, and anti-American. Amidst the controversy, Kaep opted out of his contract with his then-team the San Francisco 49ers looking for a new start in the free-agency market–he never found one. Kapernick’s protests had created a rift between him and the NFL, and he has remained black-balled from the league for the past three years. Recently, the NFL announced a partnership with hip-hop businessman mogul Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label, where the two organizations will collaborate on entertainment as well as social justice initiatives. Amidst the many reactions to the partnership, questions arose about Colin Kaepernick’s lack of involvement in the initiative, as Jay-Z was one of the many who voiced support for Kaepernick. With the NFL season about to begin, two persisting questions that hang is: should Jay-Z have done this partnership with the NFL and should he have included Colin Kaepernick?

First of all, Jay-Z is a businessman. Or just “a business, man” as he says in Kanye West’s song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone.” Either way you put it, Hova has transcended the world of hip-hop and parlayed his knowledge of the music world into a commerce role that touts a serious business portfolio. For instance, Jay-Z co-founded Roca Wear, a clothing line that at its peak had annual sales of $700 million dollars. He co-owns the 40/40 Club, a high end sports bar chain that opened in New York City, co-owns a champagne brand, co-owns the streaming service Tidal, and has hands in a variety of other business ventures. Hova is an opportunist, so it would only make sense that when one of the most popular and most viewed organizations comes to him with an opportunity, he seizes it. That’s what businessmen do.

But as different components of the NFL-Roc Nation deal are pieced together, the phrase “it’s nothing personal, it’s business” comes to mind. Why should Jay-Z pass on a lucrative opportunity? One could argue that his partnership with the NFL is a bit hypocritical. Amidst the Kaepernick controversy, Hova showed support for the former NFL quarterback on multiple occasions, dedicating a a performance of his song “The Story of O.J,” a song about black bodies and the impact of money, to Kaep. Hova even went on SNL with a blacked out Kaepernick jersey on. So if Jay-Z supports Kaep, then how could he align himself with the very organization that kept him out of a job for so long? The hip-hop mogul answered this question himself, stating that “Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice so in that case this is a success — this is the next thing.” Hova went on to explain that “There’s two parts of protest: the protest, and then there’s a company or individual saying, ‘I hear you, what do we do next?’”

On one hand Jay-Z’s words make sense. Protests can only get protesters so far. When the protesting is over, what’s next? More protests or reform? Hova’s response to critics and a lack of Kaep involvement seem reminiscent of the idea of a seat at the table. Once you’re in a position to enact change, you make use of that opportunity. The NFL-Roc Nation partnership heavily focuses on the league’s “Inspire Change” program, an initiative for social justice. Roc Nation is expected to boost the program through using music and entertainment as a platform. Jay-Z is now in a position to make an impact in whatever way and sees fit and make change for the better. Also, who’s to say that Kaep won’t be brought in later? Just as Nike stunned the country by featuring Kaep in their campaign commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of their “Just Do It” slogan, Roc Nation could bring Kaep back into the league in a different way. But on the other hand, Jay-Z’s partnership with the NFL could be seen as him just cashing a big check for an organization that needs him, hoping that his presence will boost the ratings that they lost to the Kapenernick controversy. After all, Hova is a businessman, and nothing is personal.

Already, the NFL and Roc Nation have announced a free concert in Chicago to kickoff the league’s season opener, featuring Meek Mill, Rapsody, and Meghan Trainor. The concert is free, and proceeds will go to social justice organizations. It’s still not clear whether the partnership will be lucrative for social justice, or just for Jay-Z and the NFL. But if Colin Kaepernick didn’t kneel during the national anthem, there’s a chance that no change would be happening at all.

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Jay-Z and the NFL: Hypocrisy or Suite Participation?

photograph of Jay-Z mural

Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter) made headlines recently when he announced a new partnership with the NFL to “work with the league on social justice initiatives and entertainment programming,” including the Super Bowl halftime show. The move came as a surprise to many, as in the past Carter has vocally expressed his opposition to the behavior of the NFL, especially with regards to their treatment of Colin Kaepernick and the national anthem protests. He has even included such criticisms in his lyrics: for example in “Apeshit” he raps,

I said no to the Superbowl, you need me, I don’t need you
Every night we in the endzone, tell the NFL we in stadiums too

Here he refers to an incident in which he turned down an offer from the NFL to perform at the Super Bowl, again, out of solidarity with Kaepernick.

In response to this new deal, then, many have called Carter a hypocrite, charging him with abandoning his principles simply to make a buck. How should we think of Carter’s actions here? There certainly does seem to be something unsavory about this seemingly abrupt about-face, but should we think that he has crossed a moral line?

The charge of hypocrisy is not lost on Carter. In response to concerns that in making a deal with the NFL he is essentially abandoning Kaepernick, Carter defended his actions, albeit in a way that some have found troubling. For instance, when asked how he could join forces with the NFL with a good conscious, he responded that he thought that “we’ve moved past kneeling” and that he could do more good working from within:

Let me bring attention to injustice. Everyone’s saying “How are you going forward if Kaep doesn’t have a job?” This wasn’t about him having a job. That became a part of the discussion. He was kneeling to bring attention to injustice. We know what it is. Now how do we address the injustice?

If this is what Carter genuinely thinks that he’s doing – that he really is putting himself in a position to do more good working from within – does this mean that he should not be charged with being a hypocrite?

First things first, it’s far from clear whether we really have moved passed kneeling. The fact that kneeling during the national anthem garnered so much initial attention indicates that such protests are at least somewhat effective, and the cause that the demonstrations were initially meant to draw attention to – namely the disproportionate violence of police officers against African Americans – is still one that very much requires attention. There is certainly a reading of Carter’s statements, then, that makes it seem as though he is merely trying to justify selling out, rather than actually being interested in genuine activism.

But perhaps this is too harsh. Socialist and writer Michael Eric Dyson, for instance, argues that:

Jay’s deal with the NFL represents a valid and potentially viable attempt to raise awareness of injustice to black folk, and to inspire the league to embrace just action for the black masses. It may fail — and it certainly should not be used to diminish Kaepernick’s noble, iconic battle — but the effort is not a repudiation of justice.

According to Dyson, putting someone like Carter in a position of power within the NFL is indeed something that could effect change in a way that mere protesting could not, a move that Dyson refers to shifting from “street protests to suite participation.” If partnering with the NFL could, in fact, give Carter more power to effect the kinds of changes Kapernick and others want to see within the league and elsewhere, then Carter’s deal would not represent an abandoning of Kaepernick or his causes.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Writing at the Washington Post, Kevin Blackistone argues that Jay-Z’s support for Kaepernick is fundamentally at odds with his deal with the NFL, stating that:

Jay-Z can’t stand up for Kaepernick while tucking himself into bed with the NFL. It is disingenuous. It is hypocritical. It is fake. It’s like a rapper growing up in tony suburbs rappin’ about trappin’.

Blackistone also notes that this would not be the first instance of hypocritical behavior in Carter’s business career, referring to his involvement with the development of the Barclays Center which saw the displacement of many working-class residents in Brooklyn. With this history in mind it is tempting to interpret Carter’s actions as ones motivated by a good business sense, and not by a good moral sense.

While many have speculated on Jay-Z’s intentions and hypothesized about what will or will not happen once his deal with the NFL officially begins, we will of course have to watch and wait to see whether anything good actually comes out of this partnership. There is one reason to be pessimistic, however, which is that it’s difficult to imagine that the NFL is actually concerned about improving social justice initiatives and not just trying to make it seem like it cares by aligning itself with Jay-Z. For instance, Michael Harriot writes:

The NFL has no interest in social justice. As long as they can keep their new-millennium Mandingos mute until the players’ repeatedly concussed brains and cartilage-less knees render them disposable, the NFL couldn’t care less about black lives. 

Similarly, Billy Haisley writes that:

It’s perfectly reasonable to believe that, at heart, both Kaepernick and Jay-Z are serious, compassionate, well-meaning men who are deeply invested in addressing the plight of marginalized communities, and who seek to use their considerable platforms to do so in the best way they know how. It’s also accurate to say that lending themselves and the things they stand for to mega-corps that do not and cannot care about the admirable convictions they wish to support is a lamentable, counterproductive plan of action.

Of course, even if the NFL is motivated much more by having the appearance of caring about social justice rather than actually caring about it, that does not mean that someone like Carter would not still be able to effect change within the organization. It might just make it more difficult for actual change to take place (for discussion see Cole Martin’s “Commodifying Activism“).

So what should we take away from all this? Again, there is a sense in which time will have to tell as to whether the partnership between Jay-Z and the NFL is a beneficial one. Of course, we can still ask the questions of whether siding with the enemy is acceptable if one genuinely thinks that one can better effect change from within, or whether doing so makes one a hypocrite regardless of good intentions.

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Social Issues as Product Promotion: Exploitation or Artistic License?

On April 4, Pepsi recalled an ad less than 24 hours after its release on account of ridicule for its insensitivity towards social justice movements. In the ad, Kendall Jenner is in a photoshoot when she notices a protest occurring outside. Prompted by a head nod from one of the protesters, she joins the crowd and eventually hands the police officers on duty a Pepsi; outbursts of applause and cheering come from the crowd when the officer accepts the Pepsi.

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Politicizing a Tragedy, 30 Years after Bhopal

One would certainly hope that, as far as environmental regulation goes, we are better off than we were fifty years ago. We would hope that novels like Rachel Carson’s ground-shifting Silent Spring, a work chronicling the dangers of the U.S. chemical industry, have made enough of an effect to prevent the author’s dystopian predictions from becoming a reality.

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