My grandma boycotts Starbucks. 80 and completely without social media, even she has picked up the campaign. Her breakup with Starbucks, so closely following her enamoration with the iced pumpkin cream chai tea latte, is indicative of how widely and successfully the boycott has disseminated. You would never know that Starbucks doesn’t belong to the BDS movement’s list of companies to boycott considering how viciously commenters will flay a TikToker holding a drink with a conspicuous green siren logo. Typically, the guilty consumer responds with “I didn’t know!” Fat chance. Let me reiterate: my grandma boycotts Starbucks. Everyone knows.
But does everyone know why they’re boycotting the multinational corporation? The fast, unforgiving rip current away from Starbucks has kicked up sand into the eyes of every well-intentioned boycotter. Starbucks is the bogeyman, the puppet master, the frappuccino fuel for the IDF. The part Starbucks plays in the genocide of the Palestinian people has been vastly puffed up by social media. Strangely, putting more eyes on Starbucks has not enhanced people’s understanding of the intent behind the boycott. People are more estranged than ever for the reason behind their stance.
The Starbucks boycott originated from the company’s response to a tweet from its union, which affirmed its solidarity with Palestine. Starbucks sued the union for “trademark infringement,” claiming that the union couldn’t appropriate the logo for political statements. This isn’t novel or surprising: Starbucks seizes any tactic to delegitimize and disempower its unionized workers. The company is gross, shameless and a textbook union buster. By all means, make your spinach, feta and egg white wrap at home.
However, Starbucks doesn’t actively fund Israel. It doesn’t feed IDF soldiers, like Mcdonald’s does. It hasn’t donated $2 million to Israel relief groups like Disney has. It isn’t an Israeli company, like Wix is. Yet the outcry against Starbucks is by far the loudest and most enduring. No, it doesn’t make sense to stratify companies’ support for Israel, to place them on a continuum from “most evil” to a “little less evil.” Starbucks isn’t a scapegoat, because it isn’t innocent. Still, its involvement within the genocide has undoubtedly been inflated and inflamed, which helps Israel continue its campaign behind the curtain — to divert attention from its murders, to obfuscate its genocidal acts, to guide Americans to focus on all the wrong things.
To clarify, I don’t encourage anyone to give their money to Starbucks. There is not a finite number of companies one can boycott, a quota which a consumer can fill, then tap out from. It is deeply disingenuous to act like boycotting Starbucks poses inconvenience or difficulty. Boycott Starbucks now, and boycott Starbucks in the years to come. It is a classically vampiric corporation, sucking and squeezing its workers for more profit.
The Starbucks boycott is a symbolic representation of Americans’ solidarity with the Palestinian people. Even if Starbucks doesn’t fiscally support Israel, it falls under the general umbrella of entities that allow the destruction of Palestinian people. So does every American: our tax dollars fund air strikes, land seizures, food and fuel blockades, the annihilation of entire cities and the production of propaganda to convince the world that all of the above is justified. No matter our stance on the genocide, we are all economically complicit. However, that reinforces the worth of resisting the genocide in our minds, hearts, and conversations, on ballots and on the streets, with calls to representatives, by unflinchingly refusing to look away. A symbolic boycott is not a meaningless one.
Significantly, a symbolic boycott can’t be divorced from its intent. The revolutionary potential of a symbolic boycott deflates once boycotters misunderstand and misrepresent their actions. The Starbucks boycott isn’t effective if the reason people aren’t buying Starbucks is to appear socially desirable. The Starbucks boycott is unique from other boycotts because its implication for Israel isn’t directly monetary. It is an expression of solidarity, proof that the American government can turn our dollars to Israel, but that our consciences still reside with Palestine. Instead of shaming people to participate in the boycott, we should provide them with reasons to join, so that they can boycott thoughtfully and deliberately. For the boycott to matter, boycotters must be mindful.
The alienation of the boycott from its true meaning is symptomatic of how thoroughly Israel has distracted the public. Israel has mastered how to diffuse and displace American attention. Think of how Israel has committed its worst atrocities during Christmas and the Super Bowl, while Americans were looking elsewhere. The boycott has the potential to devastate Israel, but only if its participants understand why they’re boycotting in the first place.
Starbucks shouldn’t be the face of this genocide. It is the launchpad for Americans to consider their culpability in the genocide, but not the landing place. Point fingers at Israel, not at each other, and not even at Starbucks.