Rashad Robinson,The Guardian Fri, Nov 8 6:00 PM GMT+7
Photograph: Eric Gay/APWhen you live in a racist society, even something as simple as a chicken sandwich may not be just a chicken sandwich.
enjoy itmillions to anti-gay political groups, including the known hate group Family Research Council, run by Tony Perkins. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Perkins has spoken to an avowed white supremacist organization and railed against the growth of Islam in America. When running the Senate campaign of his mentor, Woody Jenkins, he paidshade at each other on Twitter. In a new ad last week, Popeyes even trolledreviewreport in Jacobinnotes that Popeyes continues to pay its diverse workforce poverty wages, just $8.32 an hour for cooks. Its parent company, Restaurants Brands International, made $5.35bn in revenue in 2018. But when a hard-fought organizing campaign resulted in a higher minimum wage in Ontario in 2016, RBI respondednot taken steps to reduce its contributions to deforestation through its supply chain, which relies heavily on things like palm oil.
Other corporations have tried to trade on wokeness far more explicitly than Popeyes. Nike got praise from many for its 2018 ad featuring Colin Kaepernick, the blacklisted black quarterback frozen out of the NFL for daring to protest against police violence against the black community. At the same time, the company is moving backwards on its accountability on exploited sweatshop labor. In 2017, Nike refused to submit to independent monitoring of its overseas factories by the Worker Rights Consortium. Starbucks made headlines in 2015 with an ill-received campaign that encouraged baristas to talk about race, then made different headlines
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