I probably shouldn't have let my irk over how people see the target situation override my tags on the sesame street post - no matter what I say, I 1000% agree sesame street has been a way better advocate than target. That will never change.
But based on what I remember last year, target also isn't "bottom of the barrel, earned its place to be Specifically called out as one of The Big Corporate Cowards" and whether I worked there or not the skew would piss me off bc either people have impossible standards of activism or it's just easier to not bother researching from your cushy seat of morality, taking edited article headlines and watered down rumors at face value and thinking since you'd clearly have the perfect plan for how to handle things, you'd have done better.
It wasn't the social backlash. It was NEVER the social backlash. Target's response was due to Literal, Actionable Threats Of Violence. And they did not turn their back entirely on the cause, such as it is when it's a corporation.
Yes, they recalled the kitschy shirts and glasses and slap bracelets. Yes, some (SOME!) of their locations removed the section entirely for the year (< important clarification!)
Would you, the activist, rather they keep the dumbass $3 socks out to goad a potential active shooter to keep good on his threat?
Is that really how you want your activism to be seen?
Brought the pride section back this year, now that there aren't active threats of violence to their staff and customers
Again, never even fully recalled it across all their locations in the first place
Saying more than I probably should here, but whatever you think their security Could Have done? They probably legally Couldn't.
Even so, I don't think much injury prevention can be done about a crazy with a gun no matter how well-trained your security is...
...Unless. you evaluate inside yourself and realize, hey. Maybe pretending to ditch the cheap sunglasses for a year so the bigots aren't foaming at the mouth... is a sacrifice worth employee and customer safety. Wild concept, I know.
On an internal employee level, they have only become more vocal about their support since last year. (Trust me, I should know, I have to sit through the inclusivity training videos 4 times a year.)
They've had the pronouns on your name badge and chosen name option for a while, but they now Openly point it out and push the option when you're hired, as opposed to just keeping it a quiet option they don't really want anyone to take.
And for the record on last year - articles about the violence got retroactively written to downplay the extent of the situation. If what you saw and read was about generic "backlash" and didn't see anything about it being threats of violence? Your info source was Biased.
Before the recall was even fully kicked and news got around on social media, employees talked. Word got around Why the recall was taking effect - it was the best way to de-escalate potential violence and murder.
Tl;dr - Target wasn't Sesame Street. It will never be Sesame Street. Their activism is late and anything they do cannot be separated from the concept of appealing to what's profitable.
But for fuck's fucking sake. If them responding to active shooter threats with Temporarily removing stupid shirts puts them on the same level as companies who will immediately and more permanently drop support for less to you, you seriously need to reevaluate your activism.
I don't want to be at risk being hit or shot or god knows what else in my workplace just because you think continuing to sell shirts is Good Activism. The people should matter more, and how Target handled it? Showed the people mattered more. Especially since again they didn't permanently abandon anything. Fuckwads.
