Boycott McDonalds

First of all, I'm assuming that Jay-Z's boycott of Cristal is basically over. As far as I know, Jay has yet to release an official statement since his initial announcement that Cristal would no longer be served at the 40/40 Club, or, um, at Jay-Z's house.

Most likely, Jay-Z realized this entire incident was caused by bad reporting at AllHipHop and has decided to back off to save face. He'll keep his head down for another week or so while this all blows over. If he hasn't already, he may even go back to drinking Cristal.

I heard that shit was good.

I wasn't too hot on the idea of boycotting Cristal back before I realized it was bullshit, but I do kinda like the idea, come to think of it, of the hip-hop community boycotting something. What better way to display our economic might and political force without actually doing anything.

One of the main reasons a lot of so-called hip-hop activism has failed up until this point is because it all hinged on people doing something, i.e. marching out in the street, voting for the Democrats and what have you. The genius of a boycott is that you don't for real have to do shit.

It was suggested recently, albeit in a spam email, that one way we might be able to stop the oil industry from driving up prices is to pick one chain of gas stations and boycott the shit out of it. As far as I'm concerned, this was brilliant because it sent out a message without requiring much effort.

I wonder if such a protest wouldn't work for hip-hop. For example, what if the hip-hop community decided to stop eating at McDonalds? It wouldn't cause anyone too much hardship because you could always get a burger somewhere else, but it would definitely send out a message.

The thing about the Cristal boycott was that the vast majority of the hip-hop community didn't have any real way to participate. We could help spread the word, but you can only stop drinking Cristal if you actually drank Cristal in the first place.

On the contrary, I can't imagine very many hip-hop kids not eating at McDonalds. The very communities hip-hop is borne out of are veritably riddled with golden arches. I bet even rich rappers who can afford otherwise, like Jay-Z, sometimes get a hankerin' for those fries.

He is, after all, still black.

McDonalds purposely targets black communities with its advertising and its uber-popular Dollar Menu. It's even been suggested by some that McDonalds sells the $1 Big and Tasty at a loss to purposely spread heart disease in the black community.

Just think: A hip-hop led boycott of McDonalds could "ether" the biggest fast food restaurant in history.