Zain Dababneh blog on Rojas

In the Rojas reading, she introduces this concept of “the cop in the head-internalized capitalism,” in which she discusses how modern capitalism can co-opt and coerce certain non-profit organizations in order to sell some sort of message to the public. The issue with this is that since we live a capitalist society, everything always has to be profit driven, even with “non-profits.” She explains this by using the “smoke and mirror” image. Many non-profits have short-term oriented goals, and because of this, somethings make look good on the outside, but it truly has no impact or no real people power behind it, as Rojas puts it. To quote Rojas’ father, “Clearly, they are paying you to keep you from challenging the system, to make sure you are accounted for” (205).

What Rojas is trying to get across when she talks about non-profits taking corporate money is that we have to be critical of but not dismissal of non-profits, but to also pay attention to how corporations can use their money to keep organizers and activists in check. To refer to the previous quote from Rojas’ father, it is alluding to the fact that these massive corporations have so much power because of how much wealth they accumulate, so they are able to make sure activists that rely on their money are not able to question certain aspects of the system.

These corporations are basically holding these people hostage. In today’s world, people rely on money in order to live, so when a corporation threatens a group to send a particular message, that non-profit does not have the power to question or deny their requests. In a capitalist system, those with money have the power, and the people below the “winners” most of the time do not have a say, are always accounted for and are always in a slippery slope since they rely on corporate money, which is what Rojas is discussing in this part of the reading.

When Rojas was discussing how corporations can manipulate information in order to push a certain agenda to make some sort of profit from it, it (eerily) reminded me of the notorious Pepsi advertisement with Kendall Jenner. To shortly summarize, the Pepsi ad showed a bunch of diverse millennial's attending some protest, which was never specified. It looks as if everyone is having fun protesting, until they reach the police, who look ready to attack to these protestors, which eerily represents many “Black Lives Matter” protesters encounters with the police. It was not until Kendall Jenner appears out the crowd, handing a cop a can of Pepsi, and everyone starts celebrating again, this time, with the police. Of course, this came with mass criticism, and Pepsi pulled the ad. In response, they said that “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize...We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.” I believe this is what Rojas meant by how corporations can

take an action and than manipulate it to fit their profit-driven agendas. All Pepsi cared about at the end of the day is how much money they can get from this advertisement. To refer back to the “smoke and mirror” image that Rojas presented, one can clearly see how corporations can funnel money into certain things in order to, 1) push agenda that they truly do not believe in, and 2) make money off of people’s struggling and activism. I think what Rojas is trying to get across is to be critical of non-profits who are funded by corporate America. Although Pepsi is not a non-profit, it clearly shows how they used an opportunity to make money off of the massive protests happening all over the United States which, most of the time, are led by community organizers and activists who are dealing with very serious problems and issues within the community and who also have to deal with these systems of power and violence that abuse so many people, with the police being one of them!

Something I want to discuss in class is how do we make movements and organizations stray away from these huge corporations that clearly only care about making money and not the issues these people are fighting for? Obviously, people need to make money to survive in the world, so taking corporate money is super appealing, especially for full-time community organizers and activists, but we all know corporations only care about how much money they are making, not the struggles many people face.

 This is the greedy dollar taking over the world.