A Rap Message to Target: Anti-Gay Donations Will Make You Lose Customers

A Rap Message to Target: Anti-Gay Donations Will Make You Lose Customers

by Michael A. JonesJuly 30, 2010 @ 08:30AM PT

The endless talent and creativity of people within the LGBT community, including straight allies, never ceases to amaze me. Take a look at mother/grandmother Randi Reitan's video the other day, which sent a message to Target over their $150,000 donation to a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate, Tom Emmer, who holds extreme anti-gay views. Her point: I love my gay and lesbian relatives more than anything I could ever buy inside a Target.

Now comes another video, this time a rap song parody done to Lauryn Hill's "Lost Ones," by artist Sean Chapin. He's got a message to Target (and to Best Buy, too, which also gave $100,000 to support the same anti-gay candidate), and it goes something like this: your anti-gay donation to a candidate you think is good for business may look like it'll help your corporate bottom line, but it's going to turn off LGBT customers and straight allies like you've never seen before.

"You might win some, but you just lost one," Chapin raps, suggesting that Target and Best Buy both sold their corporate souls to people who want to keep gays and lesbians second class citizens, in order to take care of their bottom line. Chapin concludes: "When it's all done, did you really gain some?"

That's got to be the question on all sorts of Target executives' minds today, since the company had a sustained week of disastrous public relations that only BP might be able to relate to. Was it really worth it, Target, to give $150,000 to a candidate (Tom Emmer) who wants to keep gays and lesbians from being parents, who wants to keep gays and lesbians from getting married, and who pals around with ministry groups that advocate discrimination and violence toward the LGBT community?

http://gayrights.change.org/