Many corporations, including most professional sports, have frantically jumped on the Black Lives Matter train to virtue-signal their opposition to systemic racial oppression without consideration of the fact that the country has produced millions of black millionaires, billionaires, Senators, Congressmen, Attorney Generals, Judges, business owners and leaders, and of course, the historic election of President Obama.
Recently, Goodyear Tires thought it time to segregate its employees into two camps: acceptable and intolerable. Employees with a desire to endorse Black Lives Matter and LGTBQ issues would be allowed to voice that support while those who support President Trump and the police were allowed and expected to shut up. No exceptions. They quickly ran it back after President Trump tweeted about boycotting their tires and their stock price took an immediate hit.
Regardless, the rush to support BLM reveals how deeply politics has infected today’s corporate culture. Obviously, getting political means choosing sides but there are two sides to that choice because agreeing with one means explicitly rejecting the other. Woke corporations want all the “benefits” associated with progressive virtue signalling while expecting continued support from those whose political ideals they are actively demonizing.
Their willingness to throw large numbers of employees and customers under the Fake News bus is little more than a short-sighted attempt to capitalize on purposely inflamed, factually challenged emotions of the day. There will be consequences, but they won’t match well to hopes and expectations.
Is Politicizing Business Still Bad Business?
Of course, it is, but even with the growing pile of evidence proving the meme of “Go Woke! Go Broke!”, corporations continue to adopt and promote their Wokeness at an astounding pace, and with increasingly shrill voices to drown out rapidly growing opposition to their ideological ideals.
Totalitarian political ideologies insist on politicizing every aspect of our lives because that automatically grants them political power over those facets of society. No business in their right mind would want that but we live in a world where power hungry politicians want nothing else, and they have the support of the Fake News, Fake Education, Fake Entertainment industries, and Fake News-infected celebrities to aid them in their quest.
The first huge problem with corporate politicization is that it trashes the beliefs, views, and humanity of the large number of employees who think differently. They will be forced to remain silent or face the wrath of Marxist HR departments and if they want to avoid cancellation they will implicitly condone and support the corporation’s public political positions even when they vehemently disagree with them.
The second issue with politicizing corporate culture is that it immediately converts half or more of one’s customers into undesirable, and often hated, political foes. In the end, such a repugnant anti-business concept can only hurt the employees, customers, and shareholders because normal, free people will rightly flee corporations who view them as repugnant individuals.
Pro Sports: The Privileged Kings Of Woke
If one could scour the sands of time to view this planet’s historical record, their time would end long before finding a group of people afforded greater privilege than multi-millionaire, multi-colored celebrity athletes. Athletes and celebrities used to appreciate the love and appreciation of adoring fans. Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe for the hockey illiterate, was famous for spending hours treating all fans with unreserved respect as he believed they were personally responsible for his privileged station in life.
No more. That respect now comes with a prefix. For celebrity wokethletes, disrespecting every fan with a differing political opinion is not only acceptable, but mandatory. You will kneel. You will raise a fist. You will skate. You will beg forgiveness for sins you don’t own, and you will be made to pay for them.
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Lebron “Woke King” James
Now, after another shooting of a black man by police in Wisconsin, players have refused to do the job they’re paid by fans to do, and withdrew their services in support of a black man who was wanted for sexual assault against a minor, was armed with a knife, and resisted arrest. The logic is hard to fathom.
Lebron “Woke King” James whined on Twitter about how “it” must stop! Not sexual assaults against minors. Not arming up and resisting arrest. Not the lawlessness and attacks against black businesses and people by BLM. No, no, no. Violent, rampaging mobs of thugs shouldn’t be expected to change their vile ways, instead, their victims must accept culpability for the assaults, looting, arsons, and murders against them.
The strangest part of the moment is how leagues are doubling down on their political position while fans are expressing extreme disgust with the athlete’s antics by turning them off. Never before have businesses competed so hard to purposely drive away their customers, and not just by continuing to produce a widely rejected poor product, but by alleging those customers are unworthy of their enlightened product.
The people running the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and other professional leagues are very smart people so what is going here? Is there anyone capable of saving pro sports from themselves?
When Political Ideology Meets Owner Reality
There is no way a business can survive the loss of a large part of its customer base, so the Owners won’t continue to operate in such a toxic, debilitating environment for much longer. After all, they aren’t stupid people either, although Mark Cuban is starting to make me wonder.
This is why, if sports are to be saved, Owners will step up and demand an end to the politicization of their product, which in this case is people. I suspect the next few years will bring changes at the executive level, and commissioners like Goodell and Bettman will be asked to tone down the ideological crusade or to step down before the destruction is complete.
The simplest explanation for corporations going political is they have studied the cultural landscape and, like the mainstream media and academia, have concluded progressivism will eventually win the culture wars. They are simply aiming product marketing at the “beliefs” of their future fan base at the expense of their current fan base.
They haven’t figured it out yet, but their future fan base doesn’t share the same love of physical competition as the old, die hard fans did. They’ve gone far beyond turning their backs on previous fans. They’ve repulsively labelled them racist bigots and, unsurprisingly, many fans are unhappy at being slurred.
It is inevitable that politicized businesses will regret trading certainty for hope and capitalist ideals for communist rope.
In sporting terminology, this is known as an “own goal”. In life, it’s known as tyranny.
Mark Gray hails from the Kirkland Lake, Ontario area and has spent over 30 years as an Analyst/Developer in Big IT, mostly in Calgary’s Oil-And-Gas Sector. Creator of an non-partisan, analytical methodology that seeks out and identifies Bias and Deceit embedded in weaponized information.
Many corporations, including most professional sports, have frantically jumped on the Black Lives Matter train to virtue-signal their opposition to systemic racial oppression without consideration of the fact that the country has produced millions of black millionaires, billionaires, Senators, Congressmen, Attorney Generals, Judges, business owners and leaders, and of course, the historic election of President Obama.
Recently, Goodyear Tires thought it time to segregate its employees into two camps: acceptable and intolerable. Employees with a desire to endorse Black Lives Matter and LGTBQ issues would be allowed to voice that support while those who support President Trump and the police were allowed and expected to shut up. No exceptions. They quickly ran it back after President Trump tweeted about boycotting their tires and their stock price took an immediate hit. 
