In this time of thanksgiving, a tribute to the real heroes

Thank you, brands

We are in a season of gratitude! There’s no way to write that sentence without sounding like a weary dad turning his head to shout at his kids in the back seat of the car, but, well, if the shoe fits…

“Pipe down! We are in a season of gratitude!”

And it’s true. We are. There is a time and a season for everything, and just as a few weeks ago those of us who live in the United States were in a season where it was socially acceptable to decorate our yards with inflatable grim reapers and tombstones, it is now time for thankfulness and myth-perpetuation (you think I’m talking about the myth of the colonial benevolence, which sure, but let’s not forget the myth of gourd edibility).

I’m on the record as being in favor of gratitude, at all times, but especially at moments when the reality of the world as it is makes it difficult to imagine a better one. I personally have so many things in my life for which I’m earnestly grateful. So many! Blessings upon blessings, truly.

I’m not going to write about any of them.

Instead, I want to use this moment to thank some truly unsung heroes. Last week, David Weigel of Semafor published a newsletter about how conservatives who have recently gone all in on “anti-wokeness” as a political strategy, are now slowly backing into the bushes. While I suspect that rumors of the death of anti-wokeness are exaggerated, I was struck by Weigel’s assertion that one of the primary reasons why “anti-wokeness” has fizzled out is because the supposed “wokeness” wave to which it was responding has also fizzled.

A couple clarifications, briefly. Yes, “wokeness” is an appropriated term that once meant something much different in Black communities than it has now come to mean more popularly. Yes, the process by which it became a conservative buzz-word is both depressing and fascinating. I wrote about all that earlier this year! A pretty good piece, I think! And no, if “wokeness” is defined as “marginalized groups speaking out for their basic dignity,” I don’t think that “wokeness” has fizzled. Those movements have always been in our midst, both when they are and aren’t receiving popular attention.

What has fizzled, though, is the recent wave of corporations attempting to appeal to cosmopolitan liberal consumers and employees with outward, performative displays of social conscience. Those are definitely on the downswing! Remember how quickly Target and Bud Light ran away from queer and trans people when a bunch of internet reactionaries started getting even moderately huffy? Have you seen the average organizational DEI budget lately? Oof!

What a delightful, silly, inconsequential moment we’ve been through. A moment of trying? Or pretending to try? Hard to tell!! But as the song goes, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” So with that, I can think of no better way to commemorate this season of forgiveness than with a tribute to The Brands That Tried.

Here’s a hall of fame for you. To each of these brands: Thank you, sincerely.

Brand: Listerine

Cause they ostensibly supported: Human rights for queer people

How did they express that belief? With a rainbow bottle of mouthwash.

What’s the deal with all the labels on each stripe? Well, those aren’t inaccurate. That is what each stripe on the pride flag originally represented when it was developed back in the 1970s.

But did they have to make it all cursive and Chip and Joanna Gaines-y? Yes, they did. Have you ever made a bottle of mouthwash that is immensely proud of its own queerness? IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!

You know that the original Pride was a rio…. COUNTERPOINT: The original pride was a celebration of a fresher and cleaner mouth than brushing alone!

BRAND: STARBUCKS

Cause they ostensibly supported: Racial equity!

How did they express that concern: Through a CEO mandate that employees write “race together” on drink orders as a signal for customers to actively engage them in conversations about structural oppression.

Wait, I totally forgot they did that: So did I!!! And now that I’ve remembered, it’s all I’ve been able to think about.

Well, at least Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ famously chill and normal CEO who has not been a complete weirdo about unionization efforts, started this effort earnestly and not as part of a hasty PR clean-up campaign? Um, sure!

But can we talk about that New York Times photo and caption?: Absolutely. Hey, Holly Ainslie. I assume that you’re not a White Pages reader, but if you are, I just want to say: Holy cow did our nation’s paper of record do you dirty! This caption makes it sound like you were personally running around the country writing “race together” on everybody’s cups nationwide! I don’t think that’s how it went down (though if I’m wrong and you want to write about that experience— wow, hit me up, please).

BRAND: THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

Cause they ostensibly supported: Racial justice

There’s a big part of you that doesn’t want to just make fun of this, right? Totally. Remember: this was the summer of 2020. We were all flailing around, trying to express our outrage and consternation while still processing our fear and collective trauma from a literal pandemic. I forgive all of our imperfections! And I appreciate that the NBA let players exercise some means of self-expression in that moment (particularly given the league’s disproportionate Blackness and many players’ inspiring histories of racial justice activism).

But… Well, it’s objectively very funny seeing Gordon Hayward wearing a jersey that says “education reform.”

What does education reform mean? I was literally employed in the field of education reform for over a decade and I’m still not totally sure.

Ok, moving on… “Gleichberchtigung”… should we be worried about that? It sounds threatening: I am assured that it means equality in German.

And surely Andre Iguodala had a smart explanation for what he meant by “Group Economics?” Yes, he did. And I agree with him.

But still… Pretty funny! And very indicative both of that moment in time and the contradictions inherent in billion dollar corporations acting as intermediaries for social justice expression.

The league only allowed certain messages, right? That’s correct. So a player could say “Group Economics” but not “Reparations Now,” for example.

Huh! Right? I could talk about this for hours, but I can’t because apparently I’m no longer allowed to walk up to the barista at my local Starbucks, shove a cup that says '‘GROUP ECONOMICS” in their face and engage them in conversation.

BRAND: TARGET

Cause they ostensibly supported: Latino Heritage Month

So, the insinuation here is that Target is committed to celebrating Latino heritage for more than just a single month, right? Yes, my Spanish isn’t great, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the “Más Que” part means.

Pretty cool, so this included special displays that highlighted Latino owned brands and products, right? I think so?

How long were the displays up? One month!

One month? Yep, so in other news..

Wait, what about the “más que” part? Todos Somos Target! New question please!

BRAND: THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

Cause they ostensibly supported: Being gay! Doing (war) crimes!

Any notes here? Just one.

It’s going to be something about how you’re against the rainbow bullets because they still kill people, right? Well, I’m not crazy about that, but there’s an even more pressing problem.

What’s that? I have no idea whether or not the bullets in question promote a fresher and cleaner mouth than brushing alone.

BRAND: VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY

Cause they ostensibly support: Live, laugh, love, land back!

Now Garrett, they’re not technically a corporation, is it fair to pick on them? No it isn’t. Nor would it be fair to share this land acknowledgment from one of the most inspiring social justice groups of our time, the Washington State Department of Corrections.

How is the partnership between the Washington State Department of Corrections and Indigenous communities going?: Could be better!

What do the Snuneymuxw people say about all this? Well, I was not able to reach out to an official Snuneymuxw representative for this piece, but I can only assume that their response would have been “dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt; sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth.”

Beautiful: I know

BRAND: BARNES AND NOBLE

Cause they ostensibly support: Being the only bookseller in the world brave enough to ask the question, “but what if Captain Ahab was Black?”

Well, what’s the answer to that question? I think he still would have been really focused on catching that whale.

This was a bad idea! You tell that to the young Black reader who, thanks to these covers, can now imagine themselves growing up to be an obsessive whaler, or perhaps a pirate, or even a pair of wealthy Italian teenagers from warring families who fall in love only to befall a tragic fate.

Or a Frankenstein?: Good point! Or a Frankenstein!

BRAND: THE BRITISH VERSION OF BURGER KING (WHICH, IF I HAVE MY FACTS RIGHT, IS ACTUALLY OFFICIALLY FIFTH IN LINE FOR THE THRONE)

Cause they ostensibly support: Uhhhhhh….

Um, maybe we should wrap this up? Good idea!

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All of this is very silly, of course. And not just silly, but telling. There are layers here— about the broader post 1960s trend of corporate commodification of social movements (vintage Naomi Klein right there), about the elite capture of social movements (hat tip to Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò) and the in-group signaling rituals of college-educated professionals (Elizabeth Currid-Halkett!).

There’s also a cautionary tale at play, one about the dangers of focusing our politics merely as a game of performative statement making rather than tangible social transformation. Above all, though, it’s a gorgeously weird time capsule of a moment. A frequently cringe-y moment. An often quite disingenuous moment. But a moment nonetheless, one where social justice and social media met for the first time, where many of us learned and grew but were also individually and collectively clumsy in our efforts to do so. Goodness the brands were silly. But brands are always silly. And for that— the delightful, distracting silliness of their efforts to appear as if they cared— I am grateful. To paraphrase a sign I saw at a very real and not at all manufactured protest: Thank you, to the brands, for a decade’s worth of joining the conversation.

End notes:

I know it’s been a while since I’ve done a song of the week and I promise that it’ll be back soon. This time around, I was already hitting the outer limits of email sendability with all these screen shots.

Oh, and speaking of expressions of gratitude: If you appreciate The White Pages, thanks for considering supporting it (using any of those buttons up above). My goals for my own financial sustainability are pretty humble (cover the cost of childcare so that I can write and organize), and truly every single new share, subscription or book pre-order helps a ton.