Boycotting Bigoted Corporations Should Become Standard

Regarding the comments on Nextdoor and general confusion in the community about why the postponement of the senior drive through was necessary, as this event was intended to be catered by the infamously bigoted company Chick-fil-A, I wanted to expand on my points in a previous article.

I’d like to think that the administration and Leadership wouldn’t have selected Chick-fi-A as a vendor had they known the company’s donation history. So to make sure that a situation like this never happens again, I felt the need to delve deeper into the explanation as to why we should not spend money at Chick-fil-A period, regardless if it’s for school events or on our own time.

If you’re thinking, “I get Chick-fil-A only every once in a while, and I’m not homophobic, so it’s okay, right?” then you’re irrevocably mistaken, but it’ll my pleasure to dive into an explanation: any time you stop at Chick-fil-A, whether it’s a miniature 1 inside a food court or a full-on restaurant, and put any amount of money, no matter how small, into the hands of a Chick-fil-A employee, you are contributing to the demand of a market. Even though I have just started Economics this year in school, it’s a fairly simple concept that if you give money to a company, they make a profit on that money and can adjust their prices accordingly to maximize their output.

Therefore, buying anything from Chick-fil-A will result in some profit on the management’s end. We’ve seen what Chick-fil-A does with its earned money, and by eating in its restaurants or using it to cater events, we fund these efforts – no matter our own personal beliefs. There’s a reason most social change begins with boycotting stores and companies that inhibit social progress. Through withholding our support as customers, the company will be forced to address the regression in the demand for their products if they want to survive. This could mean reparations for the LGTBQ+ community or just simply be a step in the right direction by serving as an example to other massive corporations of the power of their consumers.

And would it honestly be so bad to go to McDonald’s or Chipotle instead? If it would be, please send some time reflecting on what truly matters.

People are wired to be bandwagoners. Enough people at school begin wearing Nike Air Force 1s, everyone gets Nike Air Force 1s. The moral of the story: people see, people do. If you are vocal about why going to Chick-fil-A is wrong, and if others see less people inside a Chick-fil-A, their customer population will continue to dwindle.

But this is a double edged-sword: if you go to Chick-fil-A and others see the long lines for the drive-through or your post on social media that you love the waffle fries, then your more impressionable followers will subconsciously want to head on down to the nearest Chick-fil-A.

In short, our spending habits have consequences, whether those consequences are intended or not.