Hello everyone, I’m back after a massive outage affected multiple companies, including my domain host, leaving Could Estate Media out of action. I could not even access my Substack dashboard because it’s linked to my custom domain. I apologise for the delay, but as I’m sure you can appreciate, this was well and truly out of my control! Anyways, here is the newsletter I wanted to send yesterday morning. Better late than never I guess….
What would you do if you were a multi-millionaire who had a track record of fighting for social justice and speaking up for the Palestinian cause, and a company like, say, McDonald’s, offered you its millions?
Would you explain to McDonald’s that you’re not interested in taking blood money from a company that supports Israel’s genocide? Or would you accept money that you didn’t need (because you’re already rich) and quietly delete your social media posts showing solidarity with Palestine? The latter is what Stormzy stands accused of.
The British rapper has attracted criticism from those who were previously friends or supporters, such as former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who described Stormzy’s relationship with McDonald’s as “hugely disappointing”. Social media users were more scathing with images like this doing the rounds:
Stormzy reportedly signed a £4.5 million deal with McDonald’s, a company that has sent IDF soldiers free meals during the Gaza genocide. The very least you would expect from a supporter of the Palestinian cause would be to not promote such a company, but here is Stormzy doing just that.
Shortly after the McDonald’s deal, fans noticed that an Instagram post Stormzy had shared in support of Palestine had disappeared from his page. The rapper claims the post was simply archived rather than deleted, but whatever the truth, this is not a good look.
Stormzy stands accused of deleting other similar posts and we can’t be sure if these deletions were part of the McDonald’s deal, but regardless, you don’t make a deal with McDonald’s.
Even if it were not for the genocide support, McDonald’s is a terrible company that treats its workers horribly and sells food that is not much better than poison. I should know, I used to work there when I was younger, and get free meals. You don’t want to know what eating McDonald’s every day does to your body. I had to stop eating that crap because I could feel the grease oozing out of my every pore and I felt constantly sick. Who the hell would promote such poison?
If you’re a person who has spoken up for Palestine and you then endorse McDonald’s, you are misleading your millions of young fans. There could be those who want to support Palestine who mistakenly think McDonald’s is okay because Stormzy said so. Many might start thinking it’s cool to put artificial crap that somehow passes for meat into their bodies.
When you’re living as comfortably as Stormzy, it’s so easy to choose to become a force for good and yet he has chosen the opposite. He has chosen to cause harm for money.
I’m far from being a millionaire rapper, I’m just a working class writer, and yet, in the unlikely event that McDonald’s came to me with its cheque book, I wouldn’t promote its poison for all the money in the world, and I certainly wouldn’t abandon the Palestinian cause. Some things are worth so much more than money.
Personally, I don’t promote anything, other than occasionally things that further the cause of social justice. I promoted Matt Kennard’s books, for example, and before you ask, I didn’t take a penny or ask for any favours in return! I have even refused to promote my wife’s small business to my readers because I don’t want to piss them off! I’m certainly not about to start promoting evil corporations. Could you imagine an ad for McDonald’s being embedded into a Council Estate Media newsletter. That’s literally never gonna happen.
The saddest thing is Stormzy could have been our Macklemore. He could have used his platform to fight for the Palestinian cause in a way that would have been good for his career and good for Palestine. This could have easily been a win-win. Instead, Stormzy sold his soul, following in the footsteps of Cardi B, Offset, Michael Jordan and Mariah Carey - celebrities who definitely did not need the McDonald’s money.
It seems to me the only thing that would make Stormzy u-turn would be a fan boycott that cost him more than what McDonald’s has paid him. It might therefore be time to add Stormzy to the BDS list.
If even a figure like Stormzy can change his tune when Zionists open their cheque book, it’s not hard to see how AIPAC was able to buy almost every US politician, is it? It’s not hard to see how pro-Israel lobbyists managed to corrupt almost every British politician. Sadly, we live in a world where money talks and those who speak up for justice are either silenced, marginalised, or bought. This is how injustice perpetuates…
The buttons were over my head
The buttons were all black and white
The buttons were all marked McDonalds
Now the buttons are over your head:
Send this brilliant engaged and very wealthy man back to the continent that so desperately needs his vast talents.