Walmart to phase out DEI initiatives amid escalated attacks from conservatives
Walmart to phase out DEI initiatives amid escalated attacks from conservatives
Republicans: the party of freedom, my farking ass.
DEI departments have only ever been corporate lip service. The actual laws around equal opportunity employment are the critical things to try and defend against the GOP supermajority.
Yeah, but they're also kinda canaries in the coal mine. If corps don't feel pressured to do this lip service (which I will fully admit is almost always meaningless in and of itself) that's a bad sign for society in general.
It also says they are deplatforming third party sellers from Walmart.com that are selling LGBT merch, which does seem to affect actual people promoting equality. The anti-LGBT activists already pushed the stores to stop carrying merch at physical retail locations, and now they are booting them off the web as well.
Interestingly, the linked CNBC article in OP's link says this is mainly the work of one anti-gay/trans activist, Robby Starbuck. He seems to single out a company and attack their equality programs publicly to take them out one by one. Never heard of him before. It's crazy to think one loudmouth can have so much pull over such huge companies.
DEI departments exist to protect the company from DEI problems.
HR departments exist to protect the company from human problems.
Companies don't care about anything but profit.
To be fair, that IS why they exist, after all. That's why it's important to have regulations imposed by whatever authority so that they ALL have to honor certain minimum expectations of decency - you can't reasonably expect any business to have expenses geared towards doing "the right things" that their competitors don't also have to abide by. This is part of what the government is there for, and these assholes insist upon removing those guardrails just to squeeze out another few million dollars they don't actually need.
So why are leftists not attacking these companies back harder? If all it takes to change is a few tweets and right wing complaining it shouldn’t be hard to be more harmful to ignore.
I think the problem lies in the very heart of what it means to be conservative or liberal. Conservatives tend towards group-think because they're either bullies, or the bullied. Liberals - by the very definition of the word - are a much more widely varied bunch that understand & respect other people's right to have a difference of opinion. Therefore it's much more difficult to achieve a unified front on the left than it is on the right. This is why the right dominates our lives so much despite being in a relative minority.
The left has never been as good at cancel culture (boycotting) as the right. At their core, the left are just people just trying to get by while the right actively try to be offended, which is why they're the ones who actually try to legislate how others live.
The right will actually boycott shit. Most on the left will go about their business.
We already advocate for the complete abolishment of such institutions and could've told you a thousand times over they only do shit like this if it's profitable. They don't care. They never care. Let's not waste organizing time and energy doing something that will only ever be temporary. Don't change corporations, abolish them.
The right wing complaining works much better because they're advocating for what the company already wants to do.
Because doing the right thing takes extra money and effort. Walmart is happy to drop this effort because it's cheaper.
First, they'd have to be white leftists. Then they'd also need to have money. Last, they'd have to be doing what establishment leadership already wants to do. Really, it's just the last bit - good luck with that! lol
DEI programs are expensive. They would've cut them years ago if they didn't think it bought good PR. It was always just marketing, as these programs aren't mandated by law
Attacks?
Did you even read the article - particularly the part (and a further linked article) about that asshole Robby Starbuck (name now forever ruined for me)?
Got to love how politicians, journalist's, and corporations just keep bending the knee to these twats.
I think they have found that supporting liberal values doesn't increase sales and causes death threats from conservatives.
Money. Money changes EVERYTHING. - Cyndi Lauper