Category: Bigotry

Peace & Justice History for 12/3

December 3, 1833
Oberlin College was founded in Ohio. It was the first college to enroll men and women on equal terms, and to accept African-American men and women on equal terms with white students.
December 3, 1965
An all-white jury in Alabama convicted three Ku Klux Klansmen for the murder of white civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo.
 
Viola Liuzzo
The mother of five from Detroit was shot and killed while driving a young black activist, Leroy Moton, back to the town of Selma following a protest march to the state capital in Montgomery. It was later learned that another Klansmen in the car, Gary Thomas Rowe, was an FBI informant.

Klansmen Collie Wilkins, Eugene Thomas and William Eaton at their trial

About Viola Liuzzo  Detroit Historical Society
Learn more Zinn Educational
A serious blogger considers a book about the FBI’s involvement 
December 3, 1969
Files were destroyed at eight New York City draft boards in protest
of the Vietnam War.
December 3, 1984
In the early morning hours, one of the worst industrial disasters in history began when American-owned Union Carbide’s pesticide plant located near the densely populated city of Bhopal in central India leaked a highly toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate into the air.
Estimates of the fatalities vary widely, but of the approximately one million people living in Bhopal at the time, 2,000 were killed immediately, at least another 8,000 within a short time, and hundreds of thousands were injured, many still suffering today.
The U.S. blocked extradition of Union Carbide officials facing criminal prosecution in India. Union Carbide has since been purchased by Dow Chemical which continues to refuse responsibility for the incident or its victims, and has yet to clean up the site.
Contemporary news report on the incident
bhopal.org 
December 3, since 1992
The International Day of Disabled Persons was declared by the United Nations. “The annual observance of the International Day of Disabled Persons … aims to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities . . . .”
2020 Theme: Building Back Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World. 
more info 
December 3, 1997

An international treaty banning land mines was signed by 122 countries. It comprehensively prohibits the use, production, trade or stockpiling of antipersonnel mines. Buried landmines kill about 15,000 people every year worldwide. The dangerous and time-consuming process of removal would take centuries at the current rate of landmine clearance.The United States and approximately forty other countries have yet to sign the treaty, and fifteen countries continue to produce land mines. The Pentagon requested $1.3 billion for research on and production of two new landmine systems—Spider and Intelligent Munitions System—between fiscal years 2005 and 2011, but Congress has resisted funding the programs under pressure from nearly
500 U.S.-based organizations opposing the weapons.
Comprehensive information from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines
 Recent U.S. policy on land mines:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december3

LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

and neither are allies!

Good morning! Time to go to work, if we don’t want to go back. First, it is time to call and write our Congress critters to let them know we want no human thrown under the bus in the Republican rush to pick on people they think are less than or “other.” Their majorities in our federal legislative houses are thin; razor thin; so if we will let those legislators know what we want, enough of them will see to at least stemming the damage. They have their ways; plus, the Dem minority numbers are big enough to toss rocks in the works, especially with a few Republicans. For more on this, please see this Substack that Janet passed to me:

https://juliaserano.substack.com/p/planned-action-for-lgbtq-and-allies

For the click-adverse, here’s the snippet from which I’m working here today:

I am but one person and cannot speak for our entire community. But here’s what I propose in the spirit of Queer Nation, who in the 1990s carried out myriad protests under the same banner but with no singular leader or directive.

I propose that on Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024 (the first day that both the House and Senate are back in session), all of us who are invested in this issue and have a platform (whether it be a blog, newsletter, column, podcast, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) publish a piece with the shared title: “LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back.” Yes, I know, it’s a cheesy title, but it holds Democrats accountable to their own talking points and makes it clear that backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights is nonnegotiable for us.

What you write or say or express in your op-ed or article or video or podcast etcetera is up to you. I encourage you to make it personal and feel free to tailor it to your audience. My only request (other than all of us using the same title) is that you implore people to contact their Congressperson and Senators (and perhaps even local politicians) and tell them that 1) you will not tolerate any backpedaling on LGBTQ+ rights whatsoever, and 2) if they fail to strongly stand up against these attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, then you will take your vote elsewhere next election. (snip-More)

https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm , and https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative are where we can write and call our Congress critters. WordPress keeps capitalizing and separating that wonderful compound word, not me, btw. Anyway, there is that. It can be a thing, and it should be, and we can make it a thing. More on that in the Substack linked and snipped above.

So, as to allies going back. For myself, if my friends are somehow rolled back, I will have to resist in different ways than I did in the past, except for the bothering of Congress critters, which continues apace. The past was fun and dangerous and sometimes more fun because it was dangerous but none of us got hurt or even threatened with arrest, unlike some places we read about in history and more recent times. I wrote a whole thing about those experiences, but it seemed to overshadow this, so some other time. Meanwhile, I’m going to schedule this, then copy it to my Substack, then letter blast some Congress critters, then Go To Bed. I’ve stayed up late most of the long weekend, but that doesn’t work well for me, so.

I encourage Scottie and Randy to post something with this title, and to make a call or send an email if they have time. I encourage any other blogger who reads this to please post something with this title, and also to bother your Congress critters about treating people the way they want to be treated, and opposing bills and resolutions that divide and “other” We the People. I hope we all have a great day, and get something done! And, thank you Janet, for passing this along!

Republicans feel emboldened to do the worst things possible

NPR took a hard right turn from impartial reporting years ago.  Maybe some time around 2005.  All studies show the main stream media has a right bias overall.  But nothing but complete agreement with and capitulation to them will ever please republicans now.  Also notice in all the talk of slashing government programs and services to save money none of the subsidies to corporations along with SpaceX and Tesla.   Hugs

https://twitter.com/JoeMyGod/status/1834245057152475175
https://twitter.com/JoeMyGod/status/1786049777504837719
https://twitter.com/JoeMyGod/status/1719761881378717958
Trump Taps “Herd Immunity” Doctor To Lead NIH

Dr. Bhattacharya, who is not a practicing physician, has called for overhauling the N.I.H. and limiting the power of civil servants who, he believes, played too prominent a role in shaping federal policy during the pandemic.

Trump just picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health.In 2020, Bhattacharya pushed anti-COVID lockdown theories that were promptly dismissed as crankery — fringe policy prescriptions that would have led to millions of unnecessary deaths. http://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/u…

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) 2024-11-27T02:45:10.287Z

"Everything You Need to Know About Donald Trump’s NIH Pick" – @walkerbragman.bsky.social brings receipts. He's bad, really bad:

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) 2024-11-27T02:26:59.508Z
Cultist House Candidate Randy Fine Threatens Muslim Reps: “The Hebrew Hammer Is Coming, Bombs Away”

Fine resigned from the Florida Senate on Monday shortly after Trump posted an endorsement, urging him to run for the US House.

He has appeared here many times for his vicious anti-LGBTQ actions and threats of violence.

From my Saturday post…

Randy Fine, the sponsor of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, appeared here last month when he was held in contempt for flipping off a judge during a virtual hearing about an election lawsuit.

Before that he appeared here when DeSantis vetoed funding for a “woke zoo” because it wouldn’t host a fundraiser for Fine.

Fine also appeared on JMG in May 2022 when he tweeted what many interpreted as a threat to assassinate President Biden. That tweet remains online.

Before that, Fine appeared on JMG when he called for felony charges after Florida Democrats staged a sit-in over the racist US House map submitted by DeSantis. 

And before that, he appeared here when he threatened to defund a Florida Special Olympics event and called a local school board member a “whore” because she’d been invited to its fundraiser gala and he was not.

Fine was a sponsor of the bill that stripped Disney’s self-governing status. His family owns annual passes to the “woke” theme park giant. In April 2023 he declared, “Damn right, we ought to erase” LGBTQs.

In 2022, he arranged for a Florida town to honor a war criminal who was convicted of executing four Iraqi prisoners.

Fine is also a sponsor of Florida’s bill criminalizing drag shows in view of minors. Of note, his wife runs a self-described “sultry” burlesque show that would violate her husband’s law.

https://twitter.com/VoteRandyFine/status/1861442851705360871
WaPo: Trump Team Plots To Defund Dem-Run Cities
Musk Doxxes Federal Civil Servants He Wants Fired
Musk: “Delete” Consumer Financial Protection Agency
Ohio Gov Signs Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill Into Law

So no it will be illegal for these “ladies” to use the men’s restroom.

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WaPo: Trump Team Plots To Defund Dem-Run Cities

Paxton Sues To Shut Down Austin Homeless Shelter
NC Gov Vetoes Bill That Strips Power From Successor
Trump Taps “Herd Immunity” Doctor To Lead NIH

Erasure

Randy sent me this.  This is what I have been talking about.  I hope you will take the time to watch the short one and the 3:31 minute video.  Not the most riveting I admit.  But it is designed for little kids.  Did you spot any mention of the sex of the penguins?  In all the book there is only one small hint and little kids won’t notice it.  I went looking for it because I wanted to know how so many people were sure the penguins were a same sex couple.  One word, one made up word not even in the writings or spoken in the video.  Hint it is on the cover of the book.  The name of their home and where they baked the cakes.  Pengrooms.  One other clue is the rainbow colored boards on the tree.  Yup for that the book must never be seen or read ever.  It is a sin, a horror for kids to see or hear.  It is a cute little kids book.  Randy informed me that enough people contacted Amazon about the fake negative comments that they were removed.  

See it is not about protecting kids, it is not about sexualizing kids, it is not about confusing kids that these people fear and hate.  It is about acceptance and tolerance of something different from them that they don’t agree with.  To them there is no live and let live.  There is no you do your thing and I will do me.  To them the world and all in it must be just as they are, do as they do, believe as they believe.  And most important worship who they worship.  They demand a bland world where only the things they celebrate are seen and heard, where their way is superior to all others.   

It is about removing all mention of LGBTQ+ from society.  It is about removing everything not straight cis from media of any type.  The misnamed one million moms who is one lady with a computer and a printer along with a few thousand followers on social media complains bitterly about any commercial that has even the hint of a same sex couple in it, even a hint.  It is hurting the children see.  The goal is making sure LGBTQ+ kids, and yes there are LGBTQ+ kids, don’t see or know anyone like themselves anywhere.  It is so they don’t feel accepted.  They feel they must hide who they are and tell no one.  They want those kids who are born different and feel that difference to be deep in the closet and stay there, never to come out and be happy as their true selves.  These groups pushing this hate want no anti-bullying programs as they want kids who are different to be picked on, harassed, and beat up.  They do not want them accepted by their peers, teachers and fellow students.  No they want them beaten up.  I know this because one of the co-authors of the Florida don’t say gay bill said it was why he helped write the bill.   That gay kids, that trans kids could be accepted by classmates and treated fairly drove him to tears.  Yes tears.  I saw him weep as he spoke of those kinds of kids finding acceptance in the classroom.

One guy using social media has already gotten a dozen big name companies to roll back and remove their DEI programs and support for the LGBTQ+ including pride merchandise and parades.  Because he and the others like him threaten these companies with the threat of accusing them of harming kids and trying to hurt their businesses they give in.  One guy is spearheading this but there are others.  They are driven to remove us from society, in this guy’s case so his god will love him and give him an afterlife.   We need to stand up against this guy and these haters.   We have to do that.  We must not let them drive the country back to 1950 not even to 1980.  We must remain visible and fight for the rights of all of us.  We don’t drop a letter here or there from our community to please the haters.  We have seen in history they never stop with just the one group, they work to get rid of them all.  We must get vocal, we must fight back.  Hugs

Peace & Justice History for 11/30

November 30, 1215

Pope Innocent II, in a papal bull (or major sacred pronouncement of canon law), ordered that Jews, “whether men or women, must in all Christian countries distinguish themselves from the rest of the population in public places by a special kind of clothing.” The rule was interpreted as requiring a badge on clothing as determined by each country. In England, for example, the tablets with the 10 commandments were used.

Read more 
November 30, 1967
Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnesota) announced that he would run on an anti-Vietnam war platform against President Lyndon Johnson for the nomination of the Democratic Party. McCarthy, though a contender to be Johnson’s running mate in 1964, had since become increasingly disenchanted with U.S. policy toward Vietnam, and opposed the war in his campaign.


McCarthy on the campaign trail

“I am not for peace at any price, but for an honorable, rational and political solution to this war; a solution which I believe will enhance our world position, encourage the respect of our Allies and our potential adversaries, which will permit us to get the necessary attention to other commitments . . . and leave us with resources and moral energy to deal effectively with [the] pressing domestic problems of the United States itself.”
Read more, see photos  Jo Freeman
November 30, 1993
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act became law. It provided for a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and for the establishment of a national instant criminal background check system to be used by firearms dealers before the transfer of any handgun.The law was named for James Brady, President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, who became a paraplegic after being shot in the assassination attempt on Reagan. Following his recovery, he and his wife, Sarah, became leading proponents of controlling the proliferation of handguns.

James Brady watches President Clinton sign the bill
November 30, 1999

Tens of thousands of activists, students, union members and environmentalists demonstrating for global justice shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Seattle, Washington. International media coverage ignored both the blockade and the police riot (and an enormous labor-sponsored rally and march), focusing instead on minor property damage committed by a few dozen self-described anarchists.

photo Elaine Brière

What the protests were about 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november30

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs transgender bathroom ban bill into law

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs transgender bathroom ban bill into law

I am sorry but how does this protect any student or adult … it also includes higher education.  Notice this part … About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  That is in a country of 337 million people. 

This is only a hate bill based on the absurd idea that trans women want to assault girls.  Notice it is always trans girls / women they talk about never trans boys or trans men.  It is a made up problem that never happened so they have to destroy a small minority of people’s lives to prove a point of their bigotry.  I am so sick of this posturing on the part of republicans trying to do to trans what they couldn’t do to the gays 30 years ago.  It is the same tactics and hate they promote.  If you want to know the real cost listen to the trans students who quit school because they had nowhere to go to the bathroom, or the trans students who were given approved bathrooms so far from their classes that they missed some and got bad marks for simply needing to pee before the class started.  These bills have real world consequences for young people in every state.  It is not just the bathroom issue but it makes a trans person a target even if there is a “trans bathroom” assigned.  It means any student using it is outing themselves to the ones that want to target them for abuse.   

Again this solves no problem but does promote hate and bigotry … and it is driven by religious bigotry because of the fundamentalist belief that their god created them male and female only.  They are demanding we run our society, or 2024 understands on the book written by religious leaders 2,500 years ago.  Think about it, these people had no idea of everything we take for granted today, yet the fundamentalist who demand we ;deny rights to trans people do it based on that book of people who did not even understand germs!  These bills are designed to promote a religion and a religious view of life / morality in the public life.   I am an old gay man, this still affects me.  Because bigotry against one group’s rights is bigotry against all people’s rights!  If these people get the right to exclude trans people from bathrooms what is next?  Gay people on the same idea that we are a threat?  Or hell watch about the old segregation idea that blacks are a threat to whites in bathrooms?  See this is the same playbook.  This is not different from black people shouldn’t be in white people’s bathrooms.   Hugs

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law banning transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match up with their gender identity.

The law requires people at Ohio K-12 schools and universities use the restroom that aligns with their gender assigned at birth. It also bans students from sharing overnight accommodations with people of the opposite sex from their assigned sex at birth at K-12 schools.  

This does not prevent a school from having single-occupancy facilities and does not apply to someone helping a person with a disability or a child younger than 10 years old being assisted by a parent, guardian or family member. 

The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.

A lawsuit is expected to be filed against this. The Ohio Capital Journal interviewed a Cleveland attorney over the summer about potential legal challenges with the bill, such as who would police such a policy? 

Several transgender Ohioans, allies and educators called on DeWine to veto the bill. The Ohio Capital Journal recently talked to a family who plans on moving out of Ohio because of anti-transgender legislation at the Statehouse. 

The bathroom ban (House Bill 183) was added to a bill that revises College Credit Plus (Senate Bill 104) in the eleventh hour of a House Session at the end of June before the lawmakers went on an extended break.

The Ohio Senate concurred with the changes made to S.B. 104 during their first session back from break. 

State Reps. Beth Lear, R-Galena, and Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, introduced H.B. 183. State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced S.B. 104. 

About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The American Medical Association officially opposes policies preventing transgender individuals from accessing basic human services and public facilities consistent with gender identity.

Slightly more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in Ohio considered suicide in 2022, according to the Trevor Project. 

About a third of LGBTQ+ students were prevented from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender and slightly more than a quarter were stopped from using the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to Ohio’s 2021 state snapshot by GLSEN, which examines the school experiences of LGBTQ middle and high school students.

 Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives his 2024 State of the State address in the Ohio House chambers at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday afternoon. (Pool photo by Barbara J. Perenic, Columbus Dispatch.)

 

Forty-two percent of transgender and nonbinary students were unable to use the bathroom that aligned with their gender and 36% couldn’t use the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to the Ohio GLSEN report. 

Transgender youth who can’t use the bathroom that aligns with their gender are at a greater risk of sexual violence, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Pediatrics.  

Other states with transgender bathroom bans

Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Florida, and Utah have laws that ban transgender people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity in schools. 

Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Tennessee’s laws have all been challenged. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocked Idaho’s law last year.  

North Carolina made history in 2016 by becoming the first state to ban bathroom access to transgender people. The law was quickly appealed in 2017 and settled in federal court in 2019, but the state ended up losing hundreds of millions of dollars as the NBA All-Star Game and NCAA events were moved out of state. 

Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on X.

 

I am so frustrated

I got up at 4 am.   All day I have been setting up posts and helping Ron make a grand TDay dinner.   But as I went out to help him, I came back to find my blogging computer had restarted.  No problem, as I have a setting that simply reloads the pages from the last 3 days.   But … No.  For some reason I can not explain everything I had done for the last 3 days was wiped out.  I can’t explain it.  If it happens again I will have to dump the computer.  But really I can not think of anything that could have caused it.   But I will try to resurrect the important anti trans post I was writing.   Hugs

Texas AG sues to shutter ‘nuisance’ homeless center

Texas AG sues to shutter ‘nuisance’ homeless center

This is the hyper Fundamentalist Christian who is radically against trans people and the entire LGBTQ+.  He has made it his mission in political life to push bigotry and hate to anything he thinks the Christian god hates while trying to promote Christianity as a state religion at every turn.  So here he is trying to shut down a homeless shelter.   Really what Jesus would ask his followers to do, right?   No this is not based on religion or faith, this is about profit and who gives him money.  He pushes religious stuff because his main benefactor and political protector is a billionaire fundamentalist Christian preacher who thinks the government should force every person to be a Christian with his views.  And what about the homeless shelter … Well local business don’t like the look or the congestion so more donations to remove them … Get the point.  The point is the wealthy people who support this … Ultra Christian simply don’t like the poor around.  They want them to go away and never be seen.   Hugs.

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Paxton accuses the Austin, Texas, charity of facilitating drug use and violent incidents near an elementary school.

 / November 26, 2024

In this June 22, 2017, file photo, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to shut down an Austin, Texas, homeless center, calling the charity a public nuisance.

The Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center says it’s the largest provider of homeless services in Travis County. According to its website, the center provides a number of services, including physical and mental health care, substance abuse care, harm reduction, housing interventions and benefits enrollment. The center has received over a $1 million from the city of Austin, according to Paxton’s complaint.

“In South Austin, a once peaceful neighborhood has been transformed by homeless drug addicts, convicted criminals, and registered sex offenders,” Paxton says in the complaint, filed in Travis County District Court. “These people do drugs in sight of children, publicly fornicate next to an elementary school, menace residents with machetes, urinate and defecate on public grounds, and generally terrorize the surrounding community.”

In his complaint, Paxton notes the center’s location across the street from an elementary school. The Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on the lawsuit that the school has been forced into lockdown repeatedly due to violent behavior from people receiving services at the center.

Paxton also takes issue with the center allowing a clean syringe distribution program on its property, which he says amounts to facilitating drug use. Part of a “harm reduction” philosophy, clean syringe programs aim to help people who are already using intravenous drugs do so more safely. In Texas, such programs operate in a legal grey area, as they are not authorized by the state and Texas law criminalizes the possession of drug paraphernalia.

“Drug activity and criminal behavior facilitated by this organization have hijacked an entire neighborhood,” Paxton said in a statement. “By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students’ health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down.”

Paxton seeks an injunction requiring the center to close for a year and prohibiting it from conducting operations within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or youth center. But in a statement, the center’s executive director Mark Hilbelink said the services will continue.

“It is regrettable that Attorney General Paxton took this route, especially during the week of Thanksgiving, but Sunrise intends to keep offering services to people in our community who need them,” Hilbelink said in a statement. “We are committed to being a good neighbor. We will continue to work, every day, to support Joslin Elementary School, our neighborhood, and our entire community.”

He also noted the center is a ministry of Sunrise Community Church and is therefore protected by the First Amendment, the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“These laws have been tested in court on multiple occasions, always with the same result: churches are protected to do work that is an expression of their religious practice,” Hilbelink said.

Say it loud and proud again please!

EYup: Exactly Right …

Ten Bears has made me Jealous.  I wish I had found this first.   But to give credit I think he can do more with it.   If you don’t know ask him his work out regiment.  If anyone who claims to be male thinks their bigotry can out male his actual being … I hope they never tell that to him face to face.  I was in the military and even in my best fitness I don’t think I could have kept up with his regimen.   Hugs

Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies

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)

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By  ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
Updated 11:10 PM EST, November 25, 2024
 

Walmart, 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.

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ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
D’Innocenzio writes about retail, trends, the consumer economy and hourly workers for The Associated Press.