My husband is cancelling his too. I won’t be watching your Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC either.
I’ve signed the online petition urging you to "Dump Donald Trump," which has 652,620 signatures as of today which your CEO Terry Lundgren has decided to ignore—for now.
The petition's opening statement is:
Macy's: Donald Trump does not reflect the "magic of Macy's." We urge you to sever ties with him. Macy's says it has a strong obligation to be "socially responsible" and that "actions speak louder than words." Indeed. It's time to act.
I've made a phone call to your corporate office in New York, at 212-494-3000, and left you a message.
I realize you are a corporation. The current Supreme Court says corporations are people.
But they are wrong, which is why I support Move to Amend. People have hearts and souls. You are simply about the bottom line and your profits.
So I've decided you aren't going to profit from me.
I want to separate cold cash from the myth and magic woven around your image.
The myth of Macy’s is part of my life. You are a store that symbolizes my birthplace of New York City. Your Herald Square location is a major tourist attraction.
Macy's Herald Square NYC
I won’t go to see your holiday windows this year.
The year I was born, 1947, a movie that is now a classic was made. Miracle on 34th Street. As a child I watched that film, laughed and cried and believed a little bit in magic. I remember being taken to Macy's to see Santa Claus and sitting in his lap. I remember holding my grandmother's hand and pressing my nose up close to the windows and daydreaming about toys that might be under our tree Christmas morning.
You've twisted those memories. You are running a Christmas commercial on television which includes a thinly veiled birther joke, punchline provided by Trump.
How tawdry can you get and how low can you go?
That 34th street myth is only one part of the Macy's image. For children, it also includes your gigantic Thanksgiving Day parade. Millions of kids watch the giant floating balloons each year, in person and on television.
But one bloated gasbag, known as "The Donald" (not the Disney duck) should be deflated.
I could have just signed the petition and gone on about my daily business. Petitions like the ones I've signed to get Lou Dobbs off of CNN, and ones directed at the sponsors of racists like Glenn Beck and to stop Rush Limbaugh.
But in my wallet is a red piece of plastic with your logo on it. Black Friday is drawing near and I just got an email from you urging me to come into your store and shop.
I won't do it. Not this year.
So stamp my account cancelled, and I hope someone in the customer service division will pass this message on.
I'm boycotting you.
It's a tradition that's as American as apple pie.
Our American Revolution was launched with the help of a boycott of British goods.
Led by vocal orators such as James Otis and Patrick Henrythe colonists began a massive boycott of British goods causing colonial imports to fall from £2,250,000 in 1764, to £1,944,000 in 1765.
(Continue reading below the fold.)
Boycott
"A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons. It can be a form of consumer activism."
According to etymologists the term is derived "from the name of Captain Charles Boycott, the land agent of an absentee landlord, Lord Erne, who lived in Lough Mask House, near Ballinrobe in County Mayo, Ireland, who was subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880."
I'm no stranger to boycotts.
As a civil and human rights activist I've participated in quite a few over my 65 years on this planet.
Woolworth’s was a place my family wouldn’t enter, as long as their lunch counters remained segregated and sit-ins were taking place.
My parents and I supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
I refused to buy, or eat "scab grapes" to support the United Farm Workers (UFW) struggle.
The Anti-Apartheid movement, incorporated boycotts and corporate divestment.
Most recently, Chik-Fil-A will never get my patronage.
Oh, and by the way, Macy's: I'm aware that your CEO Lundgren is part of a powerful coalition of corporate vampires who are going after my Medicare and Social Security.
I've signed a petition against your "fix-the-debt" scam.
I realize that Black Friday is a big deal for merchants, and our economy. Though I usually buy family gifts from local craftspeople, and some who are not so local like those listed in the Kos Katalog, I plan to pop into my local mall and see what JCPenney's has to offer. In my local Hudson Valley Mall, they are right around the corner from the Macy's store. I don't have a charge account there, but I'm headed off to open one. Thanks to Ellen DeGeneres.
There are people who say, "Oh, just ignore bigots, racists, sexists and homophobes who are simply seeking the media spotlight."
I don't agree.
Bigotry should be challenged whether it is around the water cooler, at home around the dining room table, or spotlighted by media coverage. As long as networks, newspapers and corporations give individuals like Donald Trump a field in which to sow hatred, I'll raise my voice, and fight with my cash, to stop it.