Look, this might be a controversial take, but I don’t think Target ever gave a shit about Pride Month, but there were a lot of people who WERE about it so they hyped it and wanted to sell to those people.
It’s like the Superbowl. Does grocery stores give a shit about the Superbowl and who is playing? No, but they’ll stock up on themed shit and make displays and hype it up because it makes money to sell to the people who DO care about it.
Getting mad that Target carries Pride Month stuff is as ridiculous at getting mad that a grocery store is carrying Superbowl stuff when you don’t like football. Who gives a shit? Don’t buy it.
Getting mad that Target doesn’t carry Pride stuff in heavily conservative areas is like getting mad at a grocery store in the UK for not having a big Superbowl display. They don’t have enough people into that, so why would they promote it there?
Does Target have good (or at least not bad) policies regarding LGBTQ+ employees? Do they support LGBTQ+ groups? That’s what matters.
If Pride stuff doesn’t sell in hyper-conservative areas, it makes no sense to offer them there. That isn’t a reflection on LGBTQ+ pride or a position taken about it.
Yeah, except that even in the swamp gay people live (or kids haven’t moved away yet) and it feels nice for a change that their existence is simply appreciated instead of fought against, even if it is rainbow capitalism 101.
I agree with the part about big corporations not actually caring about it, and that both the decision to stock and the decision not to stock are made cynically by a company like Target.
What I don’t agree with is that getting mad about not having Pride stuff is equivalent to getting mad about not having Super Bowl stuff. Football fans are not an oppressed segment of society that has feared harassment and violence. There is not a constant threat of legislation aimed at harming their community. It’s also not important that football fandom is normalized by society at large.
So even if we were talking about the Super Bowl, if 5-10% of people in the UK actually were American football fans, and were under constant threat by UK society, then it would be completely understandable to get mad at Target for being cynical about even that! Indeed, I guarantee in those places where Target isn’t carrying pride stuff, there are LGBTQ+ people living there.
If Books Could Kill did a fantastic podcast episode a while back that dove into how completely fucking stupid the 2023 backlash to Target and Bud Light both were and how mainstream media really helped them along by refusing to report it with any depth or detail
Were they going to stock it in all stores to begin with?
Like, I assume that they don’t just use a fixed strategy to stock stores across the country. Even aside from regional fashion preferences, you’ve got varying climate as an input. Part of what they do as a retailer is gonna be recording what people buy and making optimal use of advertising and stocking space to sell to people, and in a computer era, I’d think that they’d be doing that at a more-fine-grained level than nationwide.
googles
It looks like Target pulled Confederate flag gear from their stores in the past too. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that they probably weren’t selling them in, say, their San Francisco locations, even prior to that. Similarly, I’m also guessing that they probably aren’t selling “pridewear” in rural Mississippi or whatnot. That isn’t even to deal with people getting grouchy about it being there…just that those items aren’t gonna sell well.
The confederate flag is just as bad as a swastika. It should not be tolerated at all no matter what backward hick shit hole the store happens to be in.
Please don’t call things you don’t like terrorism. Calls to boycott Target are not terrorism in the same way that calls to divest from Israeli companies are also not terrorism.
I don’t want to live in the V For Vendetta universe where anything the people in power don’t like is considered terrorism. I’m sure you don’t either.
And before you attack my character and call me a sympathizer - no. I’m gay. These ppl are stupid for getting mad about pride. But it’s not fucking terrorism.
The terrorism and terrorist labels are already selectively applied by people in power in a way that means little more than “people we don’t like”. Take for example how the west don’t consider organizations like the IDF terrorists, but do consider Hamas to be terrorists, despite their activities being widely protected under international law. Or consider how Yemen’s government has had the label applied and removed based on concessions given to the US.
I agree that those labels are flippantly defined but Hamas (while having a political wing) definitely has a terrorist wing. Palestinians deserve defending but Hamas isn’t worth your breath.
I’m not trying to imply a moral judgement here over whether or not Hamas is good or not. All I’m claiming is that as an indigenous group resisting foreign occupation, Hamas’ activities, including armed resistance, are protected under international law. And that the west considers them terrorists despite this shows that not violating international law itself isn’t grounds to be considered a terrorist or not. The point is the distinction is purely whether the west likes them or not.
Bro, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 by force of arms aimed at fellow Palestinians. It’s not just the west either, Hamas was born out of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by multiple countries including Eygpt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Putting aside everything that’s happened since October of last year, Hamas is made up of some really shitty, evil people. Their founding principles aren’t just freedom from Israel, the destruction of Israel, or even the killing of all Israelis. One of their missions, since the organization was founded in the 1980s, is to kill all Jews worldwide. Surely we can agree on that not being an organization worth our support.
I can support Palestines without supporting Hamas just like I can support Jews without supporting the Israeli state.
True. We can be honest about what this is too. Target isn’t supporting LGBTQ+ rights with this. They’re exploiting the community. If they really wanted to support, they’d donate the profits to HRC.
I think you are getting down voted because most here hate liberals more than they hate rightwingers, and your response was about as liberal as it gets.
Terrorism is an appropriate word here. Threats of violence to achieve political goals. They threatened employees with violence because the store chose to offer those items. I’m not really sure how much more clear cut it can get. Terrorism isn’t just killing people.
terrorism /tĕr′ə-rĭz″əm/ noun
The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation.
The practice of coercing governments to accede to political demands by committing violence on civilian targets; any similar use of violence to achieve goals.
The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response through the suffering of the victims in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.
A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.
The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.
You sound exactly like the people on /pol/ explaining how Palestine protestors and BLM protestors are terrorists. Same talking points as the average trumper.
If a cop takes one in the dome that is one thing. The problem is that conservatives like to gun down innocent people who did not make an effort to take on a ‘dangerous’ job.
Target received a lot of fucking death threats for pride last year - there have definitely been awful people in the pro-Palestine protests that have threatened personal violence but those people are rare and called out by other protesters.
The Target protests were predicated on violence - the Gaza protests are predicated on peace and only threaten economic damage. One of these things is terrorism and one isn’t.
Add comment