Theme: What determines
success or failure of a boycott?
Why this Topic?
Let’s be clear. The
recent trial of George Zimmerman[2]
has called for boycotting the entire state of Florida as a result of the not guilty
verdict of George Zimmerman in his shooting of Travon Martin[3]. The call for the boycott surrounds the Stand
Your Ground Law[4], and how
Zimmerman initially used this defense as a means to defend his shooting of the
unarmed 17 year-old. I will not spend
the time debating the pros and cons of the case. There are enough of us who are contesting the
outcome, with what I believe is good reason.
Contesting and boycotting are not necessarily the same, so I want to be
clear, that I am focused on the issue of boycotting, how it works, and why,
even in the case of George Zimmerman and the State of Florida, why it could
fail[5].
Not saying that I hope it fails, but why it could fail.
Additionally, the term boycott gets thrown out very quickly
in a response to a community’s dissatisfaction.
Many people appear to be on board when the term is initially thrown out,
but what does it mean to “boycott”? We
may all have a basic understanding of the term.
We may understand that it means, not to buy someone’s products, or not
to do business at a particular location, or with a particular company. But what does it mean in terms of who does it
really affect, and to what extent are we who choose to participate in a boycott,
willing to go to bring about the desire results?
If we would refer to one of the many definitions of
boycotting, we would learn that it means to abstain from, or cease from
engaging in activity that could result in an economic loss as a result of
refusing to do business with an individual, group or agency. More specifically:
boy·cott[6]
verb
(used with object)
1. to
combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of
intimidation or coercion: to boycott a
store.
2. to abstain from buying or using: to boycott foreign products.
As we look at the definition(s) above, I thought I would
look at five historical boycotts that have taken place throughout world
history. What am I looking for? I am
looking for whether they failed of succeeded?
I am looking for that point at
which boycotting made a difference. I am
looking to see where the intended target gave in fully, partially, if at all,
and what made the difference that the intended target of a boycott decided to
give in. I am looking for why people choose
to boycott, while others don’t believe that it will make a difference. Will I find these answers? Not necessarily during this posting, but I am
looking beyond this posting, and hope that you will too, because there has to
be something that you want to stand up for/against. Those five boycotts are
v
Occupy Wall Street 2011;
v
The Tea Party of 2009;
v
The Boston
Tea Party of 1773;
v
The Montgomery
Bus Boycott of 1955, and
v
Tianaman Square Uprising of 1989 (The lone
protester)
Let’s take a brief look at these five historical instances
and see if you agree whether they failed or succeeded.
Occupy Wall Street (Did
it fail or succeed?) Failed!
Said to have begun in September of 2011, this group was
formed to draw attention to what was said to be corporate influence on
government by the 1% of influential Americans over the 99% of the working poor
of Americans. To this day, this group
continues to have events protesting how corporations affect the outcome of laws
where the rich are said to be exempt from the very laws that the poor are most
likely to be arrested and prosecuted for.
Or perhaps worst yet, is that the rich are oblivious to the impact of
their money-making decisions that in many ways contribute to the poor getting
poorer, and the rich getting richer.
“Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors,
genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are
The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the
1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab
Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of
nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.” www.occupywallst.org [7]
The Tea Party 2009[8](Did
it Fail or Succeed?) Succeeded!
Reportedly, before President Obama had taken office in
January of 2009, Rick Santelli, of CNBC
News,[9]
was among those ranting about how government was taking tax payer dollars to
bail out private companies. The
contention was that the government was rewarding bad behavior by corporate America ,
particularly banks, investment companies and insurances companies who had
reportedly caused an economic collapse.
Santelli began the uproar, but within less than 3 months, the tea party
was (re)-born, suggesting that the President Obama’s stimulus programs was
taxation without representation (again).
The Boston Tea Party 1773 [10] (Did it Fail or Succeed?) Succeeded!
Between 1767 and 1773, Colonists were imposed upon a tax by
the British Parliament to pay for British soldiers stationed in and around the
American establish colonies to protect the settlers from the Canadians and
their Native American Allies gained through the French and Indian war (1754-1763). The Colonists protested the taxation given
that they believed that the soldiers that could be used could from their
colonies rather than from Britain . In response to the excessive taxation (The
Stamp Act 1765-repealed 1766 after protests) and the Townshend Duties or
Revenues Act, 1767-repealed 1770, after protests), which were imposed on just
about anything that the settlers sold or used, including tea. One of the means by which the colonists
decided to protest the unfair taxation by the British government was to disguise
themselves as Native Americas and board ships belonging to the East India
Company and dump 20 chests of tea, 600,000 pounds into the Boston Harbor . For their actions, the British Government
imposed additional taxes on the American Colonies to pay for the loss of
revenues by the dumping. This and other
actions between the colonies and Great Britain , would eventually
lead to the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) [11]
It could be argued, according to the website entitled, that
the “The Montgomery Bus Boycott” (http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html),
began not on December 1, 1955, but as far back as 1943, when
a black woman, named Rosa Parks was left at a bus stop after paying her fair,
told to get off and board at the back door, only to have the bus pull off. Or
maybe the bus boycott had its origin when in the early 1950’s a black minister
tried to get other black bus patrons to get off the bus because he had to give
up his seat to a white man, when unfortunately, he was told: “he should have
known better.
The story of the Montgomery Bus boycott is well documented,
with Ms. Rosa Parks as the matriarch of this historical piece of American
History. Her refusal to give up her seat
to a white man, December 1, 1955 was perhaps either a culmination of frustration,
or the lynchpin that brought a nation to awareness of the reports of acts and
laws that were passed and enforced against People of Color, merely because of
the color of their skin. Ms. Parks’
arrest and the subsequent boycott would lead to an economic impact that affect
all of downtown Montgomery . But not only that, it would lead to also,
violence against a people whose only outcry was to be treated like human
beings, but instead, their homes would be firebombed, they would be arrested on
trumped up charges, their businesses would be targeted maliciously, all because
they wanted to be treated with dignity, as per the Constitution of the United
States.
Historically, it could be said that the protest for equality
for People of Color began in the case of Brown vs the Board of Education, [13] or
in the case of Plessy vs Ferguson 1896 [14]
where a black man sat in the “wrong” or legally sanctioned location on a train
(by race) in the State of Louisiana, where separate but equal was the law of
the land. Perhaps the protest of People
of Color, can be said to have begun in the case of Dread Scott (1975) ,[15]
where the United States Supreme Court ruled 7-2, that People of Color, whether
free or slaves, were not citizens of the United States, and could not sue in
Federal Courts, particularly in this case, for his freedom.
Protesting for the right to be treated fairly by People of
Color in the United States ,
seems to have been, and continues to be, to this day, an on-going fight for
justice. For example, as recently as
the position of Chief Justice, the Louisiana Supreme Court attempted to deny
Chief Justice Bernadette Johnson the position of Chief Justice, citing that she
has not fulfilled the right to the position, despite having been appointed by
the United States Supreme Court with all rights and privileges befitting any
judge holding her position and having met the standards so established by the
State of Louisiana. [16]
I remember seeing the news that day. I don’t recall where I was specifically, but
I know that it didn’t matter where I was because the picture/video would be
shown around the world, for days to come.
It was an apparent young Asian, possibly a student. He was captured on film, standing down a
armored tank. He was captured on film
obstructing the passage of a tank, that perhaps had played a role in rolling
over hundreds of student protesters, who had opposed recent actions of by the
Chinese Government. In a response to the
uprising by the students, the government dispatched the PLA, or the People’s
Liberation Army, said to be the Military Arm of the Communist Party of China.
The film showed a sort of latter-day David and Goliath
semblance, where despite the inevitability of his impending doom, the young man,
armed only with his jacket and a shopping bag, stood in front of a tank and
caused it to stop. When the tank
attempted to go around the young man, the young man side-stepped in front of
the tank to keep it from going past him, but to also dare the operator to run
over him. Subsequently, the young man was
taken by force by the military from the sidelines of the street to a place, to
this day, we may never know.
In that brief moment, we saw a lone protester, who may have
been involved in the larger protest.
What we saw perhaps was the equivalent of the many protests that rise up
from individuals, groups, or political forces, that stand against perceived
unfairness, unlawfulness, unethical, or even the lawfully sanctioned. The risk, or cost to protest, may cost one’s
life, or livelihood, but one who protests, has to be prepared to pay that
price, even in at a moment’s notice, as indicated in the video .
Boycotting-How it
Works, Why it Fails?
When I first proposed this topic, I wanted to focus on
emotions vs. strategy. I could find
nothing to suggest that emotions were the guiding force behind whether
boycotting succeeded or failed, although emotion seemed to have been a very
important component when we look at the examples given above. But the reason(s) why boycotts succeeded or
fail has to on strategy. At least,
that’s what I got out of Professor Brayden Kings blog, Kellog Insight, at the Northwestern
University entitled, Why Boycotts
Succeed-and Fail [18] (As you
can see, my title isn’t original). Here is
a summary of Professor King’s initial observation from a research he conducted:
First of all Dr. King hypothesized 3 things about the
strategy of boycotting. He hypothesized
that boycotts were going to be successful based on:
- media attention & sales decline, or
- media attention and reputation decline, or
- media attention will result in high targets conceding
His study looked at
53 of 144 companies/firms that conceded to protests between 1990 and 2005. From his study, he determined the following:
v
Sales declination was less an indicator of
boycotting than corporate reputation. He
indicated that if reputation was affected, that companies were more likely to
concede
v
Corporate entities with strong reputations were
less likely to concede to boycotts if their reputations remained strong, even
if sales declined;
v
Companies with a poor reputation were less
vulnerable to boycotts, because they had less to loose.
Lessons learned
If any lessons were learned from Dr. King alone, based on
his background, it would seem that we should know, going forward, the
following:
- Choose your company or group carefully, noting their reputation in the community, and determine their sales success;
- The best companies to boycott are companies whose good reputations are on the decline;
- Have a plan to involve the media, from the very beginning
Obviously these lessons relate to companies, but what about
the political arena? It would appear
that if it can be determined that if a company supports a political party or
candidate whose position is in conflict with the community’s then, that
company, or set of companies who have a reputation that is vulnerable, would be
the most likely candidate to target for boycotting in order to get the
attention of a political entity.
How Protests Matters- Quote:
Organizing people around disciplined, consistent non-violent resistance in
which you neither meekly submit to injustice, nor angrily lash out against it,
but instead move in a calm and determined way to challenge it is
extraordinarily difficult. But it
works. Getting people to come out every
once and a while, hold a “protest” is, by contrast, pretty easy. And, in the right frame of mind, its even
fun. I’ve had fun doing it. But it doesn’t really change anything. Matthew Yglesis [19]
Be prepared
If you are going to participate or initiate a protest, be
prepared to stand your ground (no pun intended). Be prepared to stand for something that you
believe in. Be prepared to stand your
ground in the pursuit of fairness, justice and equality, even if you have to
stand alone. Make it known that you are
protesting, but be prepared for the backlash, or the pushback, possibly to the
detriment of your reputation, your finances, your family, because protesting in many cases means that you are
affecting someone else’s family, livelihood and finances. Even if they are being unfair to you, they
are not being unfair to their cause if it puts food on their family’s table.
Be prepared to stay the fight. Be prepared for the success of the protest,
because no battle won means that it is all over. Many people don’t take being protested
against lightly, and they will come back, possibly, with a vengeance.
Be prepared to be called a trouble-maker, or someone who is
just trying to make a name for themselves.
Be prepared with a set of demands, that spells out exactly what you/your
group wants, how you want it, and by what time.
Spell out benefits, not perks; spell out needs, not wants. Be prepared to state how the actions or inactions
of the targeted group affects or damages your well-being, as a group, not
individually. No one cares about you as
an individual. Be prepared to stand for
a cause that is bigger than you are, and stand strong.
Conclusion
Boycotting, How does it work, why does it fail? That was the focus of this post. With all due respect to boycotts of the past,
boycotting going forward will work best when the strategy includes targeting
businesses that have a reputation that is vulnerable, especially when the media
is involved. What causes boycotts to
fail is when the targeted business or entity has a strong reputation in the
community, a reputation of doing things for those most in need in the
community, i.e. children’s charities, pets groups or the elderly.
Boycotting works when the targeted entity’s sales are
reduced because their source of business is impacted, and their reputation is
vulnerable.
What we saw throughout the examples was organization,
emotions, and a willingness to stand up for a cause bigger than anyone
individual. Personally, I believe that a
key element of any boycotting, is that those who are participating are
committed to the cause on the table, and not a cause that is unrelated. If the media is involved, they will want to
know that everyone is fighting for the same cause, otherwise, the overall
intent will be lost before it gets started.
Whatever it is the boycott involves, be prepared with a strategy that
includes leadership, a list of demands, why, and when they can be expected to
be met. And then, be prepared for the
long road ahead. As protesters, you have
to prove that you are serious about your demands. You have to prove that you are committed to
not doing business with the targeted entity, and that as a committed group, you are willing
to do what it takes to make a difference.
Knowing this alone in preparation, or in consideration of conducting a
boycott, may determine whether the boycott succeeds or fails.
Disclaimer: This
post should not be considered as an incentive to protest any given issue or
towards any given entity without legal
advice. No legal advice should be implied
from this posting. If you or your group
are considering protesting an issue of importance to your job, community, or
wherever you believe your rights have been violated, it is suggest that you review the historical information provided
here as well as consider looking up Professor Brayden King of Northwestern
University, before pursuing an opportunity to protest.
[1] Why
Boycotts Succeed- and Fail- http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/why_boycotts_succeed_and_fail
[2] George
Zimmerman- http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-juror-murder/story?id=19770659
[3] Travon
Matin- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin
[4] Florida ’s Stand Your
Ground Law- http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/Sections/0776.013.html
[5] Not
intended to be legal advice, all information is the opinion of the blogger
only. Your feedback is encouraged
[6] Boycott
Definition- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/boycott
[7] Occupy
Wall Street- http://occupywallst.org/
[8] The Tea
Party Movement- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/05/us-midterm-elections-2010-tea-party-movement
[9] Rick
Santelli, CNBC News- http://www.cnbc.com/id/15837966
[11] The
American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)- http://www.encyclopedia.com/searchresults.aspx?q=The+American+Revolution
[12] The
Montgomery Boycott of 1955- http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html
[13]
Separate but Equal Doctrine- http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/separate-but-equal.html
[15] Dread
Scott Case- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
[16] Chief
Justice Bernadette Johnson, Louisiana
State Supreme Court- http://www.wtsp.com/news/national/article/278544/81/After-dispute-La-getting-first-black-top-judge
[17] Cole,
Charlie, BBC News Tianaman Square-
1989- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4313282.stm
[18] King,
Brayden, 2009, How Boycotts Succeed-and Fail http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/why_boycotts_succeed_and_fail
[19]
Yglesias, Matthew, 2009, What Are
Today’s Protests Missing? http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2009/04/03/192396/what_are_todays_protests_missing/
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