Enough With the Selective Boycotting.

Ever since the Chris Brown-Rihanna incident, I've made a personal decision to never buy his music or in any other (conscious) way support his business financially.  Because of her response to the incident, especially as a role model for young women and in particular young black women, I also don't buy anything by Rihanna and change the station when her music comes on.  I can't listen to her without thinking about men beating up women and how terrible that is.

I'm inspired that so many people are boycotting and calling out Chick Fil-A for its CEO's hatemongering toward the LGBT community.  (I want to vomit that Bloomberg actually said it's not government's job to get in the way of beliefs of a corporation.  Um, yes it is.  If a restaurant were blocking women, or patrons of a given race, or those with disabilities, it would be a major problem and the government would most certainly be involved.)

But Chris Brown and Rihanna are also businesses.  So is Charlie Sheen (spousal abuse), Sean Penn (spousal abuse), Roman Polanski (sexual abuse), Woody Allen (child abuse, I'd say), etc etc.  If you are against it in life, don't fiscally support the perpetrator of it in leisure.

I'm not going to overlook horrific behavior, especially when people are unrepentant, just because I might enjoy something that an artist produces.  Once I find out about someone of influence doing something really damaging, I just can't enjoy their work anymore anyway.

In the U.S., we vote with our wallets.  So let's all be aware of what we're paying for.  It may not be easy - I love Target but had to push myself to switch stores as much as possible when it came out (ha!) that it was funding an anti-gay organization.  Honestly, I'd rather just shop at Target and tell myself my little purchase doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  But integrity is just more important.

I could be better at this.  I read the expose on workers' conditions in Apple factories in China on my iPhone with only a twinge of guilt.  But this isn't a pick-your-cause thing.  Even if you're not part of the group that's being hated on - I've never been abused, I'm not gay, I'm not a factory worker, etc - it's truly all connected.  If we allow one company to discriminate based on X, what's to stop another company from discriminating based on Y?  We need to have each other's backs as a society.