DEI policies<\/a>. This an optimal form of protest from the people when you consider the landscape of the capitalist society we live in. If you speak through your wallet — or rather, remain silent — companies will be compelled to respond.<\/p>\n“Blackout” boycott – here’s what to know<\/h2>\n
Be sure to mark February 28 on your calendars as the day to stay away from specific stores. People are calling for a boycott of Amazon, Target, and Walmart and are asking that people refrain from spending any money at these retailers for the entirety of Feb 28 in a one-day blackout.<\/p>\n
The upcoming 24-hour retail blackout has been gaining traction on social media as users continuously shared posts urging other users to participate in this boycott. In case of emergency or for essentials needed on this day, the posts also encourage consumers to support local small businesses rather than these big corporations with questionable values.<\/p>\n
There is no clear indication of who initiated the Feb 28 blackout but there have been several posts reshared and spread around on Instagram by a group called ‘The People’s Union’. This group is founded by Instagram user ‘TheOneCalledJai’.<\/p>\n
How did it come to this?<\/h2>\n
President Trump’s re-election to office enabled him the power to eliminate federal DEI programs. This sparked a chain reaction within the conservative think tank causing them to pressure companies to follow suit. The president, additionally, made a call for the investigation of DEI policies in private companies.<\/p>\n
These companies began facing pressures to lift DEI policies as a result of Robby Starbuck and his followers. This group — who are very much aligned with the political right — began pressuring companies like Ford, Walmart, and Harley-Davidson to axe its DEI policies. This move was further bolstered by Trump ordering federal agencies to investigate these policies and a growing number of companies are submitting to these pressures.<\/p>\n
Beer giant, Bud Light also recently faced massive backlash from the conservative right over the company’s decision to use transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a social media campaign — resulting in a boycott of the beer.<\/p>\n
Target had also removed its Pride displays from entrances after it was vandalized and employees were accosted. The retailer also revealed a smaller Pride collection last year and it was only available at select branches.<\/p>\n
The political left are taking a page out the conservative book by organizing this blackout boycott on Feb 28.<\/p>\n
David Primo, professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester in New York, blames “haphazard policymaking” for this ongoing DEI issue.<\/p>\n
People are pushing back<\/h2>\n
Instagram user ‘TheOneCalledJai’ has shared several videos relating to the blackout in which he affirms, “We are going to remind them who has the power. For one day, we turn it off for one day. We shut it down for one day. We remind them that this country does not belong to the elite, it belongs to the people and this will work.”<\/p>\n
“Some of you might say one day won’t make a difference and that’s exactly what they want you to believe,” he added. “If enough of us participate, they will feel it and if they don’t listen, we escalate.”<\/p>\n
It is also quite important to note that this blackout boycott coincides with Black History Month and Target is facing a separate boycott parallel to this as well.<\/p>\n
The alternate boycott began on Feb 1, as a result of the lifting of DEI policies and Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and founder of the Racial Justice Network said it “really felt like a slap in the face.”<\/p>\n
Nekima also shared that “Target was a beloved community that seemed to build its model around embracing diversity and being intentionally inclusive of having Black brands on the shelves, having beautiful Black History Month displays. For them to essentially bow down to the mandates of the Trump administration was unacceptable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies are an incredibly important implementation in the workplace, now more so than ever. These policies allow for the workspace to be a safe space, enforces mutual respect, and allows for company processes to be done through a broader perspective. Consumers have had enough and will now boycott several companies who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","share_position":"hide","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"custom","post_date_format_custom":"m\/d\/Y H:i","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"no-crop","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-715"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,12,11],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-retailers","tag-amazon","tag-target","tag-walmart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcn.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}