Friday, I made my last and final trip to Target (except for picking up my prescriptions at the CVS inside the Target). My husband and I have chosen to honor the call to boycott Target because of its public rollback of DEI initiatives in response to the White House pressure campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion measures. DEI programs are designed to open previously closed opportunities to women and minorities and to make the workplace a welcoming place for everyone. Other companies have also succumbed to the same pressure and have found themselves on the list of vendors to avoid. But it’s a difficult ask and I doubt removing convenient shopping options is good for consumer wallets in the long run. However, in the short run, it is imperative that we collectively make a point. I just wish black folks weren’t at the center of this boycott because we were not the only beneficiaries of DEI initiatives.
Few Americans recognize that DEI initiatives benefitted women, poor people, veterans, LGBTQ people, religious minorities, people with disabilities, in addition to people of color. Beyond opening up employment and promotion opportunities to people who were often excluded from the applicant pool, DEI initiatives gave us everything from private nursing rooms for new mothers to gender neutral bathrooms for transgender individuals, to a wider range of make-up skin colors on the shelves, to reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. At many school and workplace cafeterias, DEI simply made hot sauce and salsa available. But as I stated in previous posts, white men viewed opportunities for others and the expansion of comfort as a threat to their established culture and their exclusive entitlement to the best employment opportunities. I predicted the backlash.
So, now we need a course correction of our own. First, we need to educate the public as to what DEI actually is and who benefits from it. Second, we need to make it clear that plane crashes or wildfire disasters are not the result of DEI, but “human error” and that no race or gender or sexual orientation is exempt from making mistakes. Third, we need to make it clear that we refuse to condone the “good ole days” when white men hired and promoted their friends without regard to qualifications. Forth, we need to loudly praise the competence of those doing their jobs well and call for the removal of folks who are not. Fifth, job candidates need to be ready to sue for employment discrimination whenever it clearly exists. Sixth, employees need to ban together to demand working conditions that meet their needs and be ready to protest or strike if needed. Seventh, consumers need to request products that suit their needs and at the same time support the workforce by boycotting companies that are reverting to unfair hiring practices and poor labor conditions. And finally, we need brave whistleblowers to sound the alarm when things aren’t fair or equitable, going to independent media outlets because corporate and social media have bowed the knee to this Administration.
The war against freedom, fairness, decency, and equitable treatment throughout this country is now in full swing. It is going to take all of us working together to win this war against white “Christian” nationalism and the myth of white male supremacy. We must win in the courts, so please join me in donating to civil rights organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Democracy Forward, and the ACLU. We must also win in the court of public opinion using the creative arts and the art of persuasion. We must relentlessly pressure Republican lawmakers to return their loyalty to our Constitution (not Donald Trump) with phone calls, emails, letters, and protests outside their doors. We must pressure social media outlets to post our concerns by flooding their platforms with our opinions on current affairs instead of posting photos of our trips, food, and cats so they have no choice but to allow posts of consequence to be seen. Right now, they are burying these posts, but if there are too few trivial posts, they will be forced to post other things because their advertisers require eyeballs. The same is true for television media. Turn the channel when they normalize the current dangers or decline to report the actual news.
Quick story. I walked into my nail salon this past Thursday (a few days ago) and Fox News was on the television. I told the owner that I refuse to watch Fox News because they engage in lies and fearmongering. I informed her that Fox had to pay millions of dollars for lying to their viewers. I reiterated that I wouldn’t watch a news program that knowingly tells lies. Without my specifically asking, she immediately had an employee turn to something else. The customer sitting beside me whispered, “I agree” and then thanked me. I replied that I was no longer going to tiptoe around the truth of what is happening and that our collective timidity is what got us to the dangerous and ridiculous situation we are in today.
We must face the reality that the people who are destroying lives are not timid. They are loud and bold and willing to lie, rewrite history, cheat and steal. They are ruthless and cruel. And they have demonstrated since January 20th that they are willing to disregard the Constitution and break laws to do wreak havoc on the nation, our allies, and the environment. Thank goodness they have also shown us just how incompetent they actually are.
The point is that we learn from physics that an object in motion tends to stay in motion until a stronger force stops it. Together, through collective and sustained action, we must be that stronger force.