Okay… so I wasn’t even expecting to write about this topic, but the number of people asking me for my opinion leaves me with no choice. So if you haven’t heard in this week’s latest “social issues” longtime actress/comedian Monique is now feuding with Netflix. The reason she is at odds with Netflix is because Netflix only offered her $500,000 dollars to do a standup special while offering comedians like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock 20 million dollars. She’s also claiming that they’re racist because they offered comedian Amy Schumer 14 million dollars. Now when I first heard this story I was on Monique’s side. Hell I’m still on her side. I mean Monique has been in the entertainment business for over 20 years and she’s a great comedian. So her asking for her worth is not a bad thing because she deserves way more.
Now here’s where things got interesting. After saying everything that was on her mind, she said she wanted to boycott Netflix and asked others to join her. Now like I said before, I’m on her side with this. But as soon as she said the words “boycott” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Don’t me wrong it’s not that I’m afraid of giving up on Netflix. Hell I can’t just watch Hulu. It’s just that when she said boycott, knew I exactly where this was heading…nowhere. I hate to say this but I think boycotting is overrated in this generation.
Don’t get me wrong I think boycotting is a great method to force people to bring change, but in this generation it feels like a joke. The reason I say that is because a lot of people aren’t willing to put in the work to boycott to bring that change. What? You don’t believe me? I’ll give you a few examples.
Remember last season when the NFL let go of Colin Kapernick for protesting the national anthem, so many black people during the summer were like “Man that’s wrong for what the NFL did to Kap. I ain’t watching no more football until he get signed”. But then next season rolled around and you know what happened? “Who’s ready for Monday night football”! That example wasn’t enough huh? Look at what happened with the racist H&M ad against black people. People saying that they were done buying H&M. Then the next week and it was a 80 percent discount and people were going crazy.
I don’t know… I feel boycotting has lost its true meaning in this generation. Back during the Civil Rights movement black people were willing to go the distance to boycott something just so their point could get across. Now in this generation, we are so conditioned that we just throw the word boycott around like it means nothing. When the H&M situation happened and saw so many people angry on social media I just thought to myself, “If you’re going to continue to shop there why are you wasting all your energy being upset”. My thing is if you’re going to continue to support a racist business by putting money in their pockets, then there’s no need to get upset. But hey, that’s just my opinion.
What do I know right? Peace.
