Starbucks abandoned pride at least partially because people were getting assaulted. I agree about performative capitalism but it’s a little different.
I’m sure there could be some level of implied safety in the reasoning, but a local Starbucks was shut down “due to violence near the location” and when the staff were interviewed by local news about the closure they made 2 points: a) they had no idea what “violence” corporate was talking about b) it coincided with multiple stores being closed due to the possibility of unionizing, which that store apparently had been discussing.
Starbucks pulled back Pride right about the same time as Bud Lite taking a sales hit for supporting LGBT. Target did something similar. Seems a little too coincidental, but that’s just my opinion based on the factors at play.
The thing about it, though… all the pride merch, lattes, beers were not because the corpos care if your lgbtq and being disenfranchised and harassed and all that.
They just wanted to sell more merch and lattes and beers. “Slap a rainbow on it- they will eat it up!” Was literally their thought process.