Goya CEO proves you can fight city hall in Outrageville, other CEOs need to step up to the mob, too
Goya's CEO just gave America a master class on how to stand up straight in the C-Suite
Goya CEO Bob Unanue is proof that you can fight city hall in Outrageville and live to tell the tale. Other CEOs should take notes on his lesson in Proud Patriotism before the Twitter mob has more say in the board room than they do.
For those of you who don’t subscribe to the Cancellation of the Week Club, Unanue’s immigrant-founded food company became the subject of a boycott after he praised President Trump during last week’s launch of the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative at the White House earlier this month.
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Goya had just donated one million cans of food to help Americans struggling during the coronavirus pandemic, the latest in a long line of benevolent deeds that includes Hurricane Relief in Puerto Rico and food deliveries to Venezuelans suffering under the Socialist Maduro regime.
But within minutes of saying he prays for our president and our country, Unanue was labeled an “un-person” in the eyes of the hive-minded, firing squad we call cancel culture and his company of 4,000 predominantly Latino employees was marked for death.
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So began the #Goyaway Campaign, which was one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard, and I say that as someone who was once offered season tickets to the KNICKS.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez lead a brigade of others on Twitter (I call them the "Blue Checkmarks") who vowed to never eat Goya products again, tweeting “Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling how to make your own Adobo.”
"Hamilton" creator Lin Manuel Miranda joined her on the banned-wagon but their cooking lessons were quickly overshadowed by a master class on how to stand up straight in the C-Suite.
When faced with a celebrity-lead Twitter Backlash, most CEO’s immediately issue a pandering apology and promise to “listen more” and “educate themselves” before jetting off to a private island.
We've read so many forced forgiveness pleas in the past few months I'm pretty sure there's a Groupon to have them written at this point.
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But to his enduring credit, Unanue refused to backtrack, calling the boycott a “suppression of speech” during interviews on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.
His defiance inspired a conservative “BUY-COTT” that’s sent Goya products flying off shelves around the country. Odds are it will also lead to a spike in cookbook sales because many of my Goya buying, mid-western relatives still haven’t figured out how to make American food, let alone Spanish.
Unanue’s decision to stand his ground is not just a win for Goya it’s a win for all Americans because it rejects the identity politics that prioritize tribalism over the individualism that makes this country great.
And it couldn’t come at a better time.
Nobody, let alone another CEO, should want to live in a country where the CEO of a billion-dollar company that was founded by immigrants can be canceled because he dared to think for himself and support said country.
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Nor should we want to further embolden a mob that is so blinded by hatred for this president that they’ve lost the self-awareness that would otherwise tell them how reckless and misguided this boycott looks in the eyes of rational people.
Think about it.
The left wants you to believe that President Trump is racist towards Hispanics. So they’re going to shut down Goya, one of the greatest Hispanic success stories in the history of the world, to show that they’re NOT on board with someone who harms Hispanic people? All because they can’t stand that that the company's Hispanic CEO supports the president?
If you were confused by that passage, it’s only because you were paying close attention.
The left likes to call themselves the tolerant side, the champions of women and minorities, and they certainly are if you happen to vote their way. But if you dare stray from the flock you’re not just a black sheep, you’re a wool coat, sheared of your dignity and sent off to a remote field to graze alone in shame.
Because at its core, identity politics is not about empowering minority groups, it’s about selling them on a level of victimhood that can only be avenged by electing Democrats.
Which is why Unanue was referred to a “moron” in one op-ed and accused of seeking something called “white acceptance” in another. He’s a threat to the tribal mentality that fuels the mission and he must be destroyed.
But rather than caving to a mob that pushes divisive terms like “white privilege,” Unanue chose to stand up for the American privilege we all have, regardless of color, class, or creed.
He knows that like millions of immigrant families who came to this country before them, the Unanues achieved a level of spectacular prosperity that would have been unimaginable in the country they left behind.
He knows his ancestors didn’t let political groups define their value based on where they came from, they embraced where they were, in a land of freedom and opportunity that remains unrivaled in the world to this day.
In the end, Unanue chose to support President Trump for the same reason he worked closely with the Obama administration: Being an American should always take precedence over being a Republican or a Democrat, and for that reason, all presidents deserve our respect because as they go, we go.
Sadly, the Twitter mob and many of our nation’s CEOs have yet to embrace that simple truth. Perhaps they just need a little more seasoning.
Jimmy Failla is the host of "Fox Across America" which airs weekdays from 12-3 on Fox News Radio / Fox Nation / FoxNewsRadio.Com. Follow him on Twitter @jimmyfailla.