Economic Pressure Doesn’t Win Hearts and Minds

[suzifrommd]

Economic Pressure Doesn't Win Hearts and Minds

By Suzi Chase
4/13/16

https://www.susans.org/2016/04/13/economic-pressure-doesnt-win-hearts-minds/

Since the passage of virulently anti-LGBT legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi, economic and social pressure has been brought to bear on those states to backtrack. PayPal and Deutsche Bank have cancelled plans to expand in North Carolina, costing the state hundreds of jobs. Popular recording stars Bryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen cancelled concerts. There is talk about the NBA possibly moving next year's all-star game, now planned to be played in Charlotte.

Indications are strong that similar pressure prompted Indiana's change of heart when they passed an anti-LGBT law and then hastily repealed it last spring.

Why am I having a hard time celebrating these goings-on?

[AnonyMs]

Cynical as I am, I don't really agree with this article.

My guess is this simply politicians trying to gain power at the expense of others. Its a tried and true tactic thought history. You can't educate them; they know what they want and its power.

They're not interested in pressuring North Carolina or Mississippi to change.

They could do this quietly if they didn't care at all, with the added benefit of not upsetting any politicians.

But not by twisting their arms economically. It is the last resort of bullies to threaten those they cannot win over by persuasion.

Winning matters. History is written by the winners.

When this is won, the means don't much matter. Twenty years from now their children will have grown up in a more tolerant society and it will become the norm. It will be much harder to shift it all back.

With any luck their political opponents will take an opposing stand, use it as part of their campaign, and trans people will gain far more rights than they would have otherwise. Even better if they lose and don't dare try it again.

[cindianna_jones]

With any luck their political opponents will take an opposing stand, use it as part of their campaign, and trans people will gain far more rights than they would have otherwise. Even better if they lose and don't dare try it again.

This is why I'm thrilled the bathroom bills are making their ways through the state legislatures before the election. I think the plan was to pass a bunch of them and put it to the national vote to bring out the voters for the GOP this fall. I doubt that is going to  happen now and the Dem's will still have all the ammunition they need for the ads.

[itsApril]

I really disagree with the point of view expressed.  Political action, strikes, boycotts, and all forms of economic and social pressure are time-honored methods of bringing about social change.  If African Americans had just relied on moral persuasion to end racially segregated seating on the city buses in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s, they'd still be sitting at the back of the bus.

The African Americans of Montgomery had tried moral, religious, and ethical appeals for years without any appreciable success.  But when they boycotted the segregated buses, they forced the public transportation system to the edge of bankruptcy.  Only then did the city back down and end segregated seating on the buses.  Today, we look back on the Montgomery bus boycott and practically everyone agrees that the method was brave and honorable, and that the outcome was correct.

Bigots are currently in charge of the State of North Carolina, and they're using their power to defame us and take away our rights.  Honestly, they don't even believe we have the right to exist.  Any lawful and peaceful measures are proper to secure our rights.  Governor McCrory may go to his grave as a hater and a would-be tyrant.  I don't care.  His children and grandchildren will know better.

[Tysilio]

I really disagree with the point of view expressed.  Political action, strikes, boycotts, and all forms of economic and social pressure are time-honored methods of bringing about social change.

I agree with this. Economic boycotts can be effective, and I think that the actions of the corporations and entertainers, putting their own financial muscle behind this cause, have a lot of potential to drive home -- especially to politicians -- that while these hate-and-fear laws may play well with some of their constituents, they are completely out of touch with mainstream America (not to mention much of the rest of the world).  The fact that we've been without power for so long, and that power has often been used against us, shouldn't blind us to the fact that sometimes it can be a force for good.

"Grab them by the balls and their hearts will follow." (Berthold Brecht)

[WorkingOnThomas]

I actually don't care about 'winning hearts and minds'. I care about my safety, and my constitutionally protected rights. I don't need everyone to like me. Sure, it would be nice if everyone could become a wonderful, tolerant, embracing human being, but at the end of the day, it isn't going to happen. I've lived in Mississippi. It isn't going to happen. So I'll settle for forcing states to stop passing unconstitutional and discriminatory legislation. Playing nice is not going to effect change.

[Squircle]

Using the kind of terminology that the anti LGBT crowd are using, such as equating the actions of these companies to bullying, is really the last thing I expect to read on a prominent transgender website.

These companies would be negatively affected by the laws because they are inclusive firms who employ a large number of LGBT people. They are responding to an aggressive and restrictive law that would affect them as people and as a business, rather than telling people to do something a certain way or else as is claimed in this article.

[Deborah]

You will never win their hearts and minds.  They are religious zealots.  How well is that winning of hearts and minds going in the Middle East with that other set of religious zealots?  For that matter how well did it go for the Romans in 68 AD with that third set of religious zealots?

All you can do is punish them where it hurts the most and for an American Christian that is in their wallet.


Sapere Aude

[Asche]

I actually don't care about 'winning hearts and minds'. I care about my safety, and my constitutionally protected rights. ... I'll settle for forcing states to stop passing unconstitutional and discriminatory legislation. Playing nice is not going to effect change.

QFT.

Two thoughts:

1.  It's all very good to worry about the cis folks' "hearts and minds," but I remember the Civil Rights era.  I remember that there was a lot of shilly-shallying among the white folks about how equal it was okay to let black people be.  They were okay with civil rights only as long as it didn't mean anything had to change.

Then came the "long hot summer."  (Actually, several of them.)  All of a sudden they started to envision a down side to not changing -- they imagined all those rioters they saw on TV boiling out of the ghettos and onto their manicured lawns.  By a strange coincidence, it was about then that you started seeing the white folks agreeing to real changes.  (I'm no fan of violence, but as far as I could see at the time, nothing less was getting the attention of those who ran things and those for whose benefit things were arranged.)

Maybe now the fence-sitters in NC, the ones who so far haven't resisted the bigotry because they didn't see any down side to it, will now find that their leaders' bigory costs them something.  The boycott means that they have a personal stake in doing something about it.

2.  There is still open racism.  But in contrast to the early 1960's, when I was a child, the respectable people won't have anything to do with you if you say overtly racist things in public.  If you're a politician, it costs you votes.  Even the racist dog whistles are risky.  It's no longer "what everyone does."  And those who went along with racism because "that's what everyone does" are less likely to do it now because it isn't what "everyone" does any more.  And their children are growing up in an environment which is teaching them that explicit anti-black racism is not something normal people do.

IMHO, this is an improvement.

[suzifrommd]

I actually don't care about 'winning hearts and minds'.

There are only two ways to win our rights.

One way is to force people to give them to us. The other is to win them over.

Forcing it on people only works while we have the advantage. When they the advantage shifts, we lose.

Winning people over guarantees steady progress. Once people understand and agree, they're on our side for good.

Between the two, I'd definitely favor winning people over.

[Eva Marie]

There are only two ways to win our rights.

One way is to force people to give them to us. The other is to win them over.

Forcing it on people only works while we have the advantage. When they the advantage shifts, we lose.

Winning people over guarantees steady progress. Once people understand and agree, they're on our side for good.

Between the two, I'd definitely favor winning people over.

I agree with your last line, but when the other side has taken an intractable position and is fighting extremely dirty it is no longer possible to win them over using dialog and education - they simply aren't listening - it's time to try other means. One very good mean is economic pressure, and thats being applied right now in North Carolina. Just wait until the title IX lawsuits start.

As someone else said above people are generally complacent until an issue affects them directly. The legal issues that the lawmakers have enacted for us affect almost no one in the cisgender world so they tend to be unaware of and don't really care about what we are facing. Losing jobs, losing tax revenue, and lawsuits getting filed does raise the overall visibility of the issue - when it begins hitting their wallets people will sit up and take notice.

Other minority groups have tread this path in the past - they had to fight for their rights using whatever means was available. We are on that very same path.

[Tysilio]

Also, economic pressure can work another way in cases like this: simply by making people aware that this is happening and that it is unjust. I'm sure that everyone in NC knows about this issue, but most of them probably don't know more than the stereotypes and misinformation they're being fed.  I doubt that the majority of NC residents would care enough to learn more than that without boycotts and other forms of protest. If actions like these cause people who haven't thought much about transgender people to learn more, some of them (the Gov. of North Dakota comes to mind here) may change their opinions as they realize that we're more like them than not -- just fellow human beings trying to survive in this world. As with most such issues, the extremists are likely a small minority; the majority just goes along without thinking, and may well have winnable hearts and minds once they realize that what they've been fed isn't necessarily the truth.

[ErinS]

There are only two ways to win our rights.

One way is to force people to give them to us. The other is to win them over.

Forcing it on people only works while we have the advantage. When they the advantage shifts, we lose.

Winning people over guarantees steady progress. Once people understand and agree, they're on our side for good.

Between the two, I'd definitely favor winning people over.

I'm ultra-right wing, from Mississippi, and most of my family and friends are of a complementary political bent. Despite that, they've all been really awesome about my transition, the worst reaction being something like "I don't understand it at all, but it isn't my life it's yours" then proceeding to use my new name and pronouns. Probably the best one being an evangelical super conservative gunsmith friend of mine that has been the most enthusiastic and publically supportive after being the one I had pretty much written off before hand.

So I simply don't buy the assertion by many that right wing folks are inherently hostile to lgbt people, because they're usually not if approached correctly. And the correct way being the polar opposite of standard SJW bullying tactics, which I'm watching turn neutral people into opponents in real time.

For an example, a few weeks ago a contestant on American Idol from Mississippi was asked about the religious freedom laws there, and she basically said although she was raised Christian and lgbt was against what she was taught, she still loved and supported her lgbt friends. To me that sounded like an eminently reasonable response, but it sure didn't to a bunch of lgbt SJW types and she was savaged until she finally apologized and retracted the statement. That is totally thuggish behavior, and under no circumstances can I support that because it feeds directly into the narrative that lgbt people are a bunch of bullys that insist everyone has to celebrate and approve of their lifestyle and will destroy anyone that disagrees.

Both the original Charlotte ordinance and the state law in response are silly and unworkable, but of the two I have to say I support the state law more. At least it only applies to state facilities and is unworkable in practice, whereas the Charlotte ordinance attemped to interfere with private businesses and had an actual convicted child molester involved with supporting it, which is stunning idiocy when anyone knows the complaint most often raised is the possibility of encouraging child molesters. So as a result we now have a reactionary state law and public opinion polls showing a 20 point swing against transgender people using the restroom of the gender identity.