https://apnews.com/article/walmart-dei-inclusion-diversity-34b06922e60e5116fe198696201ce4d9
Again this crusade is marketed as protecting the children from sexualized content. What do they call sexualized content? Chest binders for teenage girls and drag queens! Neither are sexualizing for children. Drag queens can run the gambit from guys dressed as grandmothers to guys dressed as sexy sex workers. It depends on the venue, and minors are not allowed in adult entertainment events. That is already the laws. But to the fundamentalist any guy dressed in anything thought of as women’s attire is sexualizing and a threat to children. Why? Kids don’t care if a man wears pants or a dress. And chest binders are not sexualizing nor confusing. They are a medical assistance tool. If a girl identifies as a boy and hates her body, he needs to hide or remove the sign or his boob development. Would these people be so outraged at binders if it was a boy with gynecomastia, which is when boys grow breasts, uses a bind to feel better about themselves? No it is because the person transitioning is trans that outrages them. We are losing the discussion on this topic because we are let the vocal outraged right set the narrative such as all drag is sexual and confusing kids, and anything trans is forced on kids sexualizing them so it also confuses them. Remember when they said gays recruit boys by molesting them so they would turn gay? That was easily shown to be ridiculous. We went on the offense then and won. We need to go back on the offense and show the haters are repressively backwards in their thinking who don’t understand the changing evolving society. Hugs
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FILE – A Walmart logo is displayed outside of a Walmart store, in Walpole, Mass., Sept. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
Updated 11:10 PM EST, November 25, 2024Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists.
The changes, confirmed by Walmart on Monday, are sweeping and include everything from not renewing a five-year commitment for an equity racial center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent gay rights index. And when it comes to race or gender, Walmart won’t be giving priority treatment to suppliers.
Walmart’s moves underscore the increasing pressure faced by corporate America as it continues to navigate the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions. Emboldened by that decision, conservative groups have filed lawsuits making similar arguments about corporations, targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programs and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups.
Separately, conservative political commentator and activist Robby Starbuck has been going after corporate DEI policies, calling out individual companies on the social media platform X. Several of those companies have subsequently announced that they are pulling back their initiatives, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply.
But Walmart, which employs 1.6 million workers in the U.S., is the largest one to do so.
“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X, adding that he had been in conversation with Walmart.
Walmart confirmed to The Associated Press that it will better monitor its third-party marketplace items to make sure they don’t feature sexual and transgender products aimed at minors. That would include chest binders intended for youth who are going through a gender change, the company said.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer will also be reviewing grants to Pride events to make sure it is not financially supporting sexualized content that may be unsuitable for kids. For example, the company wants to makes sure a family pavilion is not next to a drag show at a Pride event, the company said.
Additionally, Walmart will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts. The company said it didn’t have quotas and will not do so going forward. It won’t be gathering demographic data when determining financing eligibility for those grants.
Walmart also said it wouldn’t renew a racial equity center that was established through a five-year, $100 million philanthropic commitment from the company with a mandate to, according to its website, “address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African American people in education, health, finance and criminal justice systems.”
And it would stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual benchmark index that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said in a statement.
The changes come soon after an election win by former President Donald Trump, who has criticized DEI initiatives and surrounded himself with conservatives who hold similar views, including his former adviser Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has challenged corporate DEI policies. Trump named Miller to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration.
A Walmart spokesperson said some of its policy changes have been in progress for a while. For example, it has been moving away from using the word DEI in job titles and communications and started to use the word “belonging.” It also started making changes to its supplier program in the aftermath of the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling.
Some have been urging companies to stick with their DEI policies. Last month, a group of Democrats in Congress appealed to the leaders of the Fortune 1000, saying that DEI efforts give everyone a fair chance at achieving the American dream.
D’Innocenzio writes about retail, trends, the consumer economy and hourly workers for The Associated Press.
Scottie's Playtime 
Well, really. As if men don’t wear whatever brand their version of Spanx is. Some men are far more, or at least equally, as vain as some women.
I know that’s not the point; this will allow WM to not hire qualified people because somebody somewhere will think the applicants might be LBGTQ+, or because their skin is dark. Our Walmart allows their associates to put their pronouns on their name tags. My guess is that will stop, as well. And the self-checkout will likely reappear, as the qualified applicants are not hired, and customers can’t wait for the unqualified but perfectly cis-white-straight people who can’t do the jobs.
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Hi Ali. I wish I could heart the first part of your part like they do on texts or on Twitter. As to the hiring you are correct. I wish corporate greed was not the overriding factor of the corporate structure. I think we can only keep trying to make society better by making discrimination and bigotry as costly for them as possible while making acceptance / tolerance profitable. Hugs
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Well, I think Walmart, always late to the party of being decent to people and especially their employees, have little to lose as to clientele, anyway. Those who shop there do it because they’re a——s anyway, and like to shop in an a—— place. I go there maybe 2x a year because occasionally there’s that item that no one else in town sells, and I figure it’s better to go to Walmart than to drive out of town to a bigger place with more options. (Emissions and gas usage seems to be worse than just sucking it up.)
But I also recall a couple of checkers over the past few years who included “They/Them” on their name badges, which was cool. But oh, well. sigh
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Hi Ali. Well I agree a lot of Walmart shoppers are clueless idiots. But in my area Walmart’s are full on the days that seniors get their Social Security payments. Because the only way to make ends meet now for those living in my area making below $50,000 is to shop for the lowest prices for stuff possible. So it is the older people who struggle to shop or their kids who are horrible to deal with. Ron has five stores he goes between shopping, looking at the sales fliers on paper and online. One of those is Walmart. I hate going with him to our local Walmart’s. The people are clueless, often rude, often simply obnoxious in the narrow aisles. Often people will bring kids and not watch them, people come in families with several adults who will block entire aisles, so you can not move down them and have to go to a different one and come back to it from the other side. And the worst part if you ask them to move so you can get by they react like you have offended them greatly. I do feel sorry for the women alone with a child or two in strollers trying to shop by themselves with no help. However in our area, the Walmart is one place if you are careful you can save a lot of money off your grocery bill. However having said that … Be careful of the meat stuff. Ron won’t buy fresh meant from Walmart, nor will he buy their pasta because it tends to have bugs in it. Hugs
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