Last week, the CEO of Goya—Robert Unanue—guest starred in a Donald Trump White House press conference in order to provide his support and overwhelming praise for the man who sees no problems with keeping Spanish immigrant children in cages and has allowed ICE to terrorize the Latin community freely with seemingly unlimited power.
“We are all truly blessed … to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder. We have an incredible builder, and we pray. We pray for our leadership, our president.”
What a super cool and totally not insane thing for Unanue to say about a wildly racist president who does not care if Spanish people live or die. Even using the term ‘builder’ to describe a president that wants to build a wall to keep Latin America out of the country is intentional and deliberate. Straight up middle finger to his own consumers.
Donald Trump has said that Spanish immigrants are rapists and murderers. The CEO of Goya is out here like ‘YASSSS, PREACH’. It’s gross.
Naturally, people had qualms with Unanue’s boot licking..
.@GoyaFoods has been a staple of so many Latino households for generations.
Now their CEO, Bob Unanue, is praising a president who villainizes and maliciously attacks Latinos for political gain. Americans should think twice before buying their products. #Goyaway https://t.co/lZDQlK6TcU
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) July 9, 2020
The backlash led to calls for boycotts and the sharing of recipes to replace Goya products. As it should. Companies do not get to financially gain from communities that they are actively disrespecting and demeaning.
But it’s 2020. Which means we now have a bullshit culture war over beans.
Ted Cruz—a man who is only Spanish when it behooves him politically—has entered the chat to turn the heat up on one of the least important stories in the current news cycle.
Goya is a staple of Cuban food. My grandparents ate Goya black beans twice a day for nearly 90 years. And now the Left is trying to cancel Hispanic culture and silence free speech. #BuyGoya https://t.co/Mhb7inVKWl
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 10, 2020
Ah yes, according to Ted Cruz, if you don’t buy Goya beans then you are “canceling” Hispanic culture and free speech.
Enough.
I don’t even want to point out that last year Ted Cruz called for a boycott of Nike after they backed Colin Kaepernick. The hypocrisy is obvious and it doesn’t even matter because there are no consequences to it.
Instead of holding Ted Cruz accountable for his nonsense, we are now debating whether or not we should eat fucking legumes. Cruz is a senator from Texas, a state that has run out of hospital beds because there are so many Coronavirus cases.
Our leaders don’t care whether we live or die. In fact, they’d probably for it if we were dead to save them the effort of pretending to care about us when they’re in an election year. Ted Cruz isn’t focused on containing COVID-19 in his state or providing financial relief to Texas residents who have lost so much during this pandemic.
Nope, he’s more focused on beans and being asked to come on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to ignite a culture war that has zero stakes. Do not engage in these garbage debates. Quietly don’t buy Goya beans and keep it moving.
These conservative debates are meant to keep us focused on whether or not we should kneel for a flag instead of the actual issue of racial injustice or whether or not we should buy beans as opposed to a pandemic that has killed almost 150,000 people.
Fuck Goya beans.