Co-Opting Social Movements: How Corporations Profit Off Of Human Rights Issues
J. Weber and Owen Derico
With Pride month having recently ended, some may reflect on the typical in-person Pride celebrations: parades, gatherings, and general festivity. However, it is imperative that we remind ourselves of the beginning of the Pride movement, which was the opposite of a celebration. The first Pride was a riot. Black trans women were, and still are, at the forefront of the movement. This movement was highly criticized, and many of the leaders that we look to with admiration faced legitimate consequences for their bravery. In recent years, we have seen the commodification of the Pride movement within our society. In 2015, when same sex marriage became legal nationwide, we started to see a cultural shift in terms of Pride. Being queer in America was (slowly but surely) becoming more accepted in our country, and, thus, corporations began to find ways to profit off Pride. The influx of corporations in Pride parades began. At first glance, this may seem to be the opposite of an issue, but this is not the case. The issue is not necessarily that they are doing so, but that this trend only began after queerness became more widely supported in America. These companies didn’t take a stand for LGBTQ+ folks until it became profitable.
In addition to Pride, we have recently seen corporations voicing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Many companies have vocalized the phrase “Black lives matter”, but their action stops there. Rather than taking steps to ensure the legitimate liberation of the Black community, they appease consumers with performative statements and actions. In hopping on the bandwagon only after societal movements become widely supported, corporations focus more on supporting the side of the issue that will lend to the biggest profits rather than actual concern about the issues themselves. This demonstrates the ways in which corporations co-opt social justice issues and turn them into mere trends, rather than the serious civil rights issues that they are.
A common counter to this is that these corporations are helping these movements through their “involvement”, but it is important to note that capitalism does not motivate the rapid forward progression of a social movement. Many of us see companies taking a stand as “courageous” because they’re “risking their profits”. But the fact of the matter is that most companies won’t take a stand unless they know their profits won’t be harmed, and sometimes they’ll only take a stand if their profits will increase. Simply put, a company’s social statements weren’t drafted until after the marketing and accounting departments determined that making a statement would financially benefit the company. These statements cannot have good intentions or effects if they were only published after clearing them with capitalism. We can see this concept in a lot of places, including, of course, corporate affiliation with pride, heightened diversity of characters in media, or even more public promotion of LGBT+ individuals to positions of power within these corporations, and while, as was alluded to earlier, none of these things are necessarily bad, they do not represent a corporation embracing a movement; rather, that the movement has reached a place within our culture where it can be profitable.
Not only have corporations co-opted the Pride and Black Lives Matter movements, but they have also recently adopted the idea of “sustainability”. In actuality, corporate sustainability does little, if any, good for the environment. Companies have a tendency to use advertising gimmicks such as “made partially from recycled plastic” or “uses less water” to convince consumers of the environmental benefits, but neglects to confront the fact that they are largely responsible for the effects of climate change that we see today. At first glance, these labels may appear to be progressive, but without accountability at the corporate level, these tactics only serve to shift the guilt of production onto the individual consumer. Instead of confronting the climate crisis in a significant way by acknowledging their responsibility, companies shift responsibility to the individual consumer by convincing them that the most ethical solution is to buy from their “sustainable” lines.
As was previously alluded to, not only are corporate responses to these kinds of social issues often not very meaningful, they can also be active distractions from the issues that should be addressed directly. In the case of climate justice, incremental change from corporate entities can present the appearance of care for the environment and an interest in sustainable production, when in fact it falls far short both of what could and should be done, in order to soothe the conscience of consumers while very minimally altering normal production practices. However, even for social movements for whom corporations do not directly (outside of their participation in the capitalist economy) stand against activists, similar corporate responses and public relations moves can still serve as potentially detrimental to movements. In a capitalist system, corporations will never value systemic issues like homophobia and transphobia, racism, and climate change as much as they value profit.
Owen Derico is sixteen years old and a sophomore at Walnut Hills High School who works with Ohio Youth for Climate Justice and the Young Activists Coalition. He is from Cincinnati, Ohio, and specializes in media criticism and graphic design.
