The Color of Change.... Boycott

I want to talk on a topic that has been getting a lot of press. And that is the topic of a boycott that was started by colorofchange.org, after Glenn Beck made a personal statement on the air about President Obama. (Please note, he does have every right under Freedom of Speech to say what he wants to say.) Colorofchange.org then started to pressure the Fox advertisers to not advertise during his time slots. And I am sad to say that many of them have done just that.

Lets take a look at the organization that started the boycott. Lets look at colorofchange.org, and the projects they have supported in the past. First, on their website they say "ColorOfChange.org exists to strengthen Black America's political voice. Our goal is to empower our members—Black Americans and our allies—to make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone." POSITIVE POLITICAL and SOCIAL CHANGE.... Now lets look at how well they are doing that, and notice that they also said FOR EVERYONE.

So lets look at the projects they have called their group to action on.

3-5-2009 Demand governors put people above politics.
I agree that people should be more important than politics. But their project was to force governors that DID NOT WANT to take the TARP money to take the money. These governors did not want to take the TARP money because they did not agree with the HEAVY tax that it would cause. The TAX that takes money from some to gives to others. They also did not like the control they had to agree with when taking the money. This in no way is a change for everyone. This entire stimulus package was designed to help a specific group of people, while taking wealth from another group of people. -- Conclusion - colorofchange.org is pro Welfare and Redistribution of wealth.

3-26-2008 Stop Discriminatory Sentencing
In this project, they state that 1 in 9 black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are now behind bars. And they make the connection that it is because the laws treat 5 grams of crack cocaine the same as 500 grams of crack cocaine. Basically they are trying to change the laws so that it is OK to have a small amount of crack cocaine, because the poor can't afford large quantities of it. Remember, we are trying to make positive political change for everyone. -- Conclusion - colorofchange.org is pro drug use and believes that some cocaine use is OK, and you should not be responsible for your actions when you are breaking the law.

1-29-2007 Stop HUD from suing Katrina survivors
This one is one of the best. If you remember, it was well covered in the news. That when people returned to HUD housing, they stated to remove everything that was not physically part of the walls. They removed toilets, sinks, light fixtures and the like. Remember, these people DONT own these units, they are Government Housing. So in response, HUD started to use the legal system to collect monetary damages. Once again, remember, HUD is now trying to get back tax payers money that these people STOLE from the units. colorofchange.org then started a campaign to get HUD to stop prosecuting the thieves. So colorofchange.org now shows that they are saying that it is OK to steal from HUD. Conclusion - colorofchange.org is in favor of stealing from the government, and not being responsible for your actions.

Now for the one that I really wanted to talk about....

Stop the race baiting.
Glenn Beck made a statement (his own opinion) that he believed that Obama is a racist and has a deep-seated hatred for white people. I don't necessarily agree with his statement, but it is his right. So they started an email campaign to get advertisers to pull their advertising dollars. And so far it has worked with a bunch of them moving from Glenn's time slot to other time slots. But none of them have actually moved from FOX.

Here is my problem with this. The boycott mentality makes no sense. Let me explain. Because of a few thousand peoples emails, a company then stops advertising on a show that now has close to 3 MILLION viewers. Does that make any business sense? How smart is it to satisfy several thousand people, and remove your company so that it is no longer visible to 3 MILLION people? No matter what a company does, you will always make someone mad or angry with your product. The goal is to put your product in front of as many people as possible, so that you can sell as much of your product as possible. By bowing to ColorOfChange.org, you are putting your company at risk. Not only are you aligning yourself with them, but you are also removing your product from a 3 MILLION people view.

I think that any company that did pull their advertising has made a mistake. They have aligned themselves in the media with changeofcolor.org and its movement, as well as created a backlash for themselves. There is now also a movement to boycott the companies that are boycotting Glenn Beck. Which his listeners have the right to do just like the companies have the right to pull advertising.

I think both are wrong, because boycotts really don't solve the issue. A better solution to the Glenn Beck statement would be to try to get him to retract it or to apologize. The boycotts by both camps only hurt the employees of each of the companies, by removing revenue from them. People say that the capitalistic society is bad, but don't think it is a bad thing when they are trying to use it to force a special intrest groups change.