Dylan Fitz '05
As you continue to read, close your eyes and imaging a typical night at the street. After flashing your prox and walking through the front door, you and your friends scan the dance floor and quickly head downstairs to the taproom. Squeezing through the crowds and being groped by random people, you finally make your way to the bar and check what’s on tap. Beast or Coors? Your salivary glands begin to excrete beer drinking saliva because, on the surface, this may appear to be an easy decision; Beast isn’t very good and any break from it is usually universally praised. However, as the devil and the angel on your shoulders reach for beers, you pause and begin to think more deeply about the choice. “May I please have a Beast,” you proudly say. Suddenly, the music stops, the tap stops flowing, all conversations halt in mid-sentence, and hearts throughout the world skip a beat. Amazed, your friend asks, “What are you thinking? Who chooses Beast?” You take a deep breath and prepare to respond.
Well, Coors is run by awful people. They are racist, sexist, anti-union, anti-environment, and every time you buy a Coors beverage, your money goes to right wing groups supporting these and other beliefs. When one takes the time to learn about the history of the Adolph Coors Company, the terrible actions it has taken, and the horrible groups it still supports, there are reasons for everyone to hate Coors and stop buying or drinking it.
Coors’ leadership is racist and has a long history that includes blatantly racist comments. As awful as it sounds, William Coors actual said to a group of blacks in 1984 that, if they thought it was “unfair” that their “ancestors were dragged here in chains against their will…I would urge those of you who feel that way to go back to where your ancestors came from, and you will find out that probably the greatest favor that anybody ever did you was to drag your ancestors over here in chains, and I mean it." But why does Mr. Coors think Africa is such a bad place? Contrary to common sense, science, and all rational, Williams Coors explained that Africa lacks “the intellectual capacity to succeed, and it's taking them down the tubes.” I first learned about these comments before I had ever had a beer and I decided not to ever drink Coors. This racism was repulsive enough, but, as I proceeded to learn more about Coors, I found even more reasons to boycott the company.
Coors has a history of breaking unions and not allowing unions to exist at their plants. For example, in 1977 a strike began as a way for workers to protest the polygraph test given to employees that included questions about their religion, political beliefs, and sexual orientation. Coors responded by working to break the union and it took until 1987 for Coors to settle the issue with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. At one point, Coors succeeded in breaking an amazing 19 unions in 20 years. In addition, the San Francisco Examiner exposed in 1984 that Coors blocked federal safety inspectors from examining working conditions and workers died as a result. Although Coors feels that unions are no longer useful, this example demonstrates just one reason why unions are a vital component of our society.
The third wrong that Coors has done (or the Third Right as they would argue) involves their ties to conservative groups. Joseph Coors co-founded the Heritage Foundation in 1973. Since that time, Heritage has been a leading challenger of civil rights, affirmative action, and arms control, to name a few issues. Through the “Mandate for Leadership” in 1981, the Heritage Foundation proposed that tax cuts for the rich and huge cuts in social programs were needed, and they have recommended the same things to the current Bush administration.
As if that wasn’t enough, Coors has an even longer record. Coors has supported various legal challenges to affirmative action, including financing for the first legal challenge to affirmative action in a 1990 Colorado case, and William Coors campaigned against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even in its early years, Adolph Coors allowed company land to be used for KKK meetings and cross burnings. This demonstrates the pervasiveness of radically conservative thought throughout the Coors family. These views are shared between Adolph, William, Joseph, Jeffrey and the rest of the family and the trends are clearly manifested throughout their statements, actions, and donations.
Ironically, although Coors advertises itself as making beer from clear mountain spring water, they are a huge pollutant. The company has been cited for pollution on multiple occasions and has been consistently investigated and charged with various charges. In one case, Coors has polluted Clear Creek so much that, as the National Toxics Campaign noticed, they are helping cause unusually high rates of low birth-weights and childhood cancer.
Although Coors has recently tried to improve its image and downplay the importance of these examples, there is little evidence that Coors has improved as a company. Peter Coors has tried to move the image of the company beyond its troubled history and responds to questions about its past with comments like "Oh, you went way back in the files. You've got 20-year-old information; that's an ancient issue." However, as Gretchen Friemann notes, although Coors has added employee groups for gay workers, Jeffrey Coors called homosexuality an “infamous crime against nature” in a legal complaint against gay marriage in 1996. Coors has been forced to do things like provide sensitivity training for employees, but there has not yet been enough change because the beliefs of the Coors family have yet to change. They have commercials with the likes of Bill Russell, a legendary black basketball player, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t racist. They say that their beer comes from mountain spring water, but they still pollute. Instead of providing sensitivity training to workers, Coors should provide sensitivity training to the high-ranking members of the company.
The national boycott of Coors has, by hurting sales over the years, forced Coors to make changes and donate to various women’s, civil rights, and gay and lesbian groups, but they are still a very right wing corporation that supports awful groups and stands for beliefs that degrade society as a whole. The gains that have been made demonstrate the effectiveness of a consumer boycott against Coors and provide hope for the gains that further boycotting can accomplish.
There is a choice when buying drinks. Instead of purchasing Coors products (including Coors, Coors Light, Killians, Keystone, Zima, and Blue Moon), use your power to challenge this horrible company and make sure that you do not give any money to the racist, right wing groups that Coors supports. Besides, the beer isn’t even that good anyway.