How To Grow A Spine (In Business)
You really just have to decide to do it, though it helps if you have enough of a customer base of sane people to support your choice.
The story (yay!): Trader Joe's pushes back against the cancel culture mob, won't change their labels.
Yes, it's from Infowars, but I liked how Kit Daniels, who wrote it, put things:
Trader Joe's resisted claims that its ethnic food brands, such as "Trader Jose" and "Trader Ming", are racist and said the company makes decisions based on customer purchases and feedback."We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist. We do not make decisions based on petitions," Trader Joe's stated. "...Decades ago, our Buying Team started using product names, like Trader Giotto's, Trader José's, Trader Ming's, etc. We thought then -- and still do -- that this naming of products could be fun and show appreciation for other cultures."
"For example, we named our Mexican beer 'Trader José Premium' and a couple guacamole products are called 'Avocado's Number' in a kitschy reference to a mathematical theory," Trader Joe's continued. "These products have been really popular with our customers, including some budding mathematicians."
The petition only generated a few thousand signatures, and it's quite possible that Trader Joe's sells more than that of its ethnic food items a day.
In other words, the company is allowing its customer base to make decisions instead of a mob consisting of people who may not even shop at Trader Joe's anyway.
More companies need to follow their lead.
H/T Jay Jay Hector
I understand they have an exclusive deal with Ming the Merciless, and breaking that contract would be very painful.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 31, 2020 8:23 AM
I had always thought "Trade Jose" was a silly affectation. Who knew it was racist?
Of course, with the definition of "racist" changing by the minute and at the whim of the accuser, such silliness was bound to be racist sooner or later.
Conan the Grammarian at July 31, 2020 9:23 AM
Things to keep in mind:
1) the woke mob has no sense of humor
2) everything is racist, even going to the park or swimming or wood paneling. Hell they are tearing down statues of abolitionists and black civil war soldiers
3) the woke mob expects you to be cowed by the mere accusation of racism/whatever, even from a single person
4) the power of the woke mob is solely due to bosses giving in and firing people or changing products. If they stopped giving in, all this would stop immediately.
5) there is some crazy person out there who can be offended by absolutely anything. For example, the only way to build a skyscraper is up but feminists have been calling skyscrapers phallic symbols of the patriarchy for 50 years. go ahead, show me another way to do it. They think "in the black" (an accounting term for profitable) is racist. they insist Cleopatra was african and mis-portrayed in movies but she was greek. the list is endless.
cc at July 31, 2020 12:07 PM
This is a great outcome for this story. Furthermore, I'd bet that a handsome majority of the petitioners were white people, naive both financially and socially, with little experience of marketing and even less of ethnic minorities.
CC understates the case. The wokies aren't merely humorless, rejecting ironies and nuances to which they are blind: They demand that the world be made comprehensible for them.
If they could figure out things that other people figure out, they would.
There's not much you can do for people with neither awareness nor humility. And brains are hard to come by! You & I will probably never be truly smarter than today, no matter how much information comes along.
But every one of us can become more humble about our blind spots.
Crid at July 31, 2020 8:30 PM
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