How to Solve Performative Activism in Corporations
According to Chelsea Candelario, performative activism is activism that supports an issue or a cause to gain attention, monetization, or support from others rather than caring about making a difference in the cause. The example that I am going to use in this argument is the pharmaceutical company, Phizer. During Pride Month last June, Phizer showed a temporary logo that featured their name behind a rainbow pride flag. While this may sound genuine, the problem is there were rumors of Phizer being homophobic after a report came out of the pharmaceutical company firing a gay man for protesting against homophobia in Russia.
Let’s Talk About Pfizer
While that instance may not be enough to tell if Pfizer is genuinely homophobic or not, that is the problem with performative activism. It may be nice for the company to consider a change to their logo, but how do we know that the company cares about the cause and not just viewing it as a trend for profit. When influential corporations are exposed for being performative, virtually little effort is done to change the behavior. Concerning pride month, the term “rainbow capitalism” is one that I have seen floating around on social media for years. Specifically, companies that use the LGBTQIA+ symbol of a rainbow as a marketing strategy for their company during Pride Month, yet show little to no support for the community during the rest of the year.
What’s the Problem Here?
This becomes a problem because a lot of these companies tend to repeat the same toxic cycle everywhere when it comes to addressing these political issues. That is, the cycle of supporting the social issue or historic month during its occurrence, being called out for it on social media or other platforms, doing nothing to address it, and doing the same thing again the following year. And in some cases, despite pretending to support such causes, some of these companies actively fund other organizations that go against said causes. For example, McDonald’s created a rainbow flag fry box during pride month in 2017, yet was affiliated with individuals who donated to Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020 despite Trump being actively homophobic. I believe that if this cycle continues, these companies will lose support from the minorities they claim to “support” as well as their allies, which could have a negative impact on how the public views them. In fact, due to criticism of their commitment to racial equity, McDonald’s themselves have already had to change their diversity pledge in order to avoid being canceled.
How do we Solve This?
In order to address the issue of performative activism among corporations, I think it is important to look at two factors. The first factor is how do these companies address their performative activism when held accountable? Do they acknowledge their errors and make an effort to do better? Do they acknowledge their errors but continue the same performative behavior? Or are the errors even addressed? Secondly, whether or not these errors are addressed, what do these companies do to show support for these minorities they claim to support? Do they try to hire people within that minority? Do they donate to causes that benefit minority groups?
I think that for companies to avoid looking performative when promoting support for a social cause, they need to do two things. The first thing is to hire more people who are a part of those minorities. For example, if you are a company that claims to support Black Lives Matter then you need to hire black employees. Especially since systemic barriers can make it hard for black people or any oppressed group of people to get good jobs. Bigger companies especially can help get minorities out of those oppressive barriers by hiring them. Secondly, these bigger companies should also donate either to nonprofits that support these minorities or donate to smaller, minority-owned, businesses. If multimillion-dollar companies such as Apple or Amazon say that they support these minorities, they should have the ability to financially support their causes or businesses. These two actions make the support from these companies look less performative and more genuine.
