Had no idea a boycott was happening.
It couldn’t come at a worse time for the company
Neither could their capitulation to Trumps bigoted rhetoric.
I got a lot of flak and eye rolls from my liberal friends a few years ago when I, as a queer woman, would criticize their Rainbow Capitalism. But Target is not an ally, they never were. They are simply a corporation that got some easy publicity in liberal spaces by showing the bare minimum decency.
Fair weather allies, aren’t.
Target is under more pressure than companies like Walmart, John Deere or Tractor Supply, because Target went further in its DEI efforts, and it has a more progressive base of customers than those competitors.
This is wild move for a company on its arse anyway.
Just to build on this. No publicly traded company is an ally to any group but its shareholders.
That’s why it’s our responsibility as consumers to align their shareholder interests to doing the right fucking thing. Boycotts and other consumer action are part of their calculations on what the shareholder interests are, so a large population of informed consumers who vote their conscience with their wallet will provide pressure to do the right thing.
So we must become the shareholders?
Boycotting them since Jan. 1. 😎
Is that when they dropped DEI?
Because that’s when I stopped shopping there. Didn’t need to wait to be told and have no plans to end the boycott after 40 days or anytime. Not sure if bringing back DEI would change my mind. They played us.
Using gift cards is OK if you’re boycotting a place, right? I mean, Target already has the money and you’d just be helping them out if you didn’t buy anything with them.
I’m a school bus driver and I always get a lot of tips (Christmas and end of year) in the form of Target gift cards. BTW yes, I agree that tipping school bus drivers is fucking weird. We already get paid and it’s not like we’re going to drive the kids into a tree if we don’t get tipped.
Those are Christmas gifts. The parents are just showing appreciation for you already not driving their kids into a tree, not bribing you lol.
No, it’s definitely bribes lol
We already get paid and it’s not like we’re going to drive the kids into a tree if we don’t get tipped.
You might not do it, I however am always looking for revenue streams. If it’s for profit, it can’t be illegal.
Looks at the health insurance industry
In my old community the bus driver was part of our community, we knew her and she was amazing. She knew the kids, she welcomed them by name every morning and she made sure they got to school safe AND ok.
The last bit is the most important part. She deserved a “tip” but in reality as someone who was part of my extended “raise my kid family” she “earned” her card and Starbucks gift card (mostly cuz she drank 7-11 coffee and I liked razzing her)
Our current bus driver is a contractor who couldn’t give a fuck about anything except when he has to be at the stop and when he is allowed to leave, exactly where the “nah you’re too far away from the bus stop fuck you’d kid” line is.”
It’s not always weird, but can be.
Not really. The explanation is somewhat complex.
Although target already has the money once a gift card has been purchased, they will not recognise the money as revenue until you use the card.
Suppose my lawn mowing guy charges $50 each time he mows my lawn, and he comes 12 times a year. In January I just transfer him $600 because I don’t want to muck around with smaller payments all the time.
When he calculates his “revenue” for January, should he include the whole $600? It would be more accurate to set aside the $550 he hadn’t really earned yet, and recognise that once he actually does the work.
There’s more geaky accounting stuff I could say, but in summary if you want to send a message to Target management, refrain from using gift cards during the boycott.
They don’t get to record it as revenue, but they do get to sit on the cash, earning interest etc on it. Companies loooove gift cards. It’s free money.
For a company health perspective, it’s better to use it so they’re at least put the cost-of-goods. Best option would be to sell the gift cards to someone who was going to shop there anyways.
I’ll allow it.
Can we add bigger offenders like Wal-Mart and Amazon?
Join me, I’ve been boycotting them for years.
That is the part that pisses me off so much about this. Yes. Target capitulated. Yes, Target needs to be told that’s not good.
BUT WALTONS FUND THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION!
This can’t be said enough, yet we can’t get a days boycott on them for fucks sake!
Exactly why Walmart should be PERMANENTLY BOYCOTTED!
I haven’t stepped foot inside a Walmart since I was 6.
Greatest thing of moving out of its hometown is actually having choices.
Looks like the Federalist Society is connected, too. It’s like the Who’s Who of Homogeny, Exclusion, and Inequity. Somebody give me an L-word so we can call them what they are.
I’m not doing the whole “Everyone I don’t agree with is a Nazi.” I mean, very specifically, this is the strategy used by unaccountable, ultrawealthy people to wield their power recklessly for an extremist movement that they’re going to lose control of. It just happens to be the best-known, contemporary archetypal, right-wing-flavor of the revolutionary bait-and-switch.
People need awareness, motivation and organization. If you can help with that, go for it.
I’ve been outcyring that Walmart has been the one of the major architects of the downfall of the working class my entire life.
But people who have choices just respond it’s cheaper…
Right? And why not just boycott all pubkically traded companies forever? 40 days doesn’t do much
I’m definitely with you on that in spirit. I would starve if I actually practiced that across the board. I figure if we start from the top down, maybe we can get the co-ops to come back. Our neighborhood co-op grocery closed down not too long ago, and all that’s left are national chains.
I think it’s fair to commit to reducing your purchasing from these large entities significantly. By design, these companies have made it basically impossible to get certain products except from them, so do what you need to do in those cases. But you can get a lot still from alternatives.
I’m a huge advocate of what I call “soft boycotting.” You don’t have to all or nothing this stuff. If a million people reduce their spending on a company by only ten percent, that’s just as much damage as ten thousand people dropping them entirely. And it’s a lot easier to get a million people to reduce their spending by a little than it is to get ten thousand people to go cold turkey.
Remember, perfect is the enemy of good. A small action taken is worth far more than a big action only imagined.
Yeah co-ops are amazing, I’m always astounded when I find cities that don’t have any
Better than these one day protests that LITERALLY do nothing. At least a 40 day boycott would hit a fiscal month, vs a single day outlier protest.
Because if you propose that, no one is actually going to do it.
Doing something is always more impactful than shooting for everything and ending up doing nothing. This is a great example of a smartly thought out mass movement; it has a specific goal, and a clearly defined set of terms. Remember, you can always expand or extend. It’s far better to get a small thing moving than try to build a big thing that you never finish.
100%, perfect is the enemy of good. But it makes little logical sense to give any of these corporations any money or data
If you’re on the highway, need a coffee, and Starbucks is the only thing around, buy the Starbucks.
If Amazon is the only place you can buy that thing you need, buy it from Amazon.
There are plenty of times when the bad option is the only good option. If we teach people that boycotts have to be all or nothing - if we get into this mindset that a single latte means you’re an evil monster who supports genocide - we just engineer a state of despair.
But if we encourage people to reduce rather than cut out, we set an easily achievable goal. And that means it’s a goal that a lot more people will strive for.
If you want to cut out every big corporation entirely from your life, that’s an admirable personal goal, but not one that seems easy or achievable to most people.
Why they are called monopolies
Further, a lot of dirt poor people literally rely on Walmart because Walmart was successful at gutting every other business out of their already dirt poor areas. That was literally Walmart’s business model to undersell the competition until they were the only game in town, it’s how they got so huge so fast. Large swathes of the South are like that. There’s a reason they teach their employees how to sign up for food stamps.
Also, 40 days is long enough that some people are going to change their shopping habits on a more permanent basis. Creating even a longer impact on Target.
I don’t get why anyone complains about fixed term boycotts anyway. You can just add another 40 days if Target doesn’t get the message. It’s not like you’re signing a contract or something. Boycotts are a negotiation, and in negotiation you always leave yourself wiggle room.
People love to get into this “Only the biggest possible action and nothing else” mindset, and then never actually take any action at all.
The one day ones are fairly pointless, but 40 is good. Give it a month and if nothing changes then you have a bit more time to try to extend it.
There is supposed to be a weeklong boycott of Amazon this month, I forget the exact date.
March 7-14
don’t know why, don’t care, let’s do it
Capitalist media certainly isn’t going to explain it either. Poor Target!!! \s
Boycotting Target and Walmart.
There’s a boycott? I just don’t shop there because it’s the same crap as everywhere else for more money and a worse experience.
I know right I can just buy it on Amazon /s
Unsarcastically but sadly, yes. It’s the same items, with the same supply chain and the same issues. But it’s at a lower cost to me. Frankly, as things get tight, we’ll all need to make decisions between our ideals and our bank accounts. I assume that most of us will lean toward preserving the bank account and reckon with our ideals later.
Yeah unfortunately I know exactly what you mean. You do what you have to do to make it.
Nah Amazon is cheaper and a better experience. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of reasons not to shop at Amazon, but price and shopping experience are above Target.
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Shop at Aldi if you have one locally or Costco.
Aldi is not US based and Costco has been the least evil of the big chains. But definitely Aldi first.
https://fortune.com/2025/01/31/aldi-scrubbed-careers-website-of-all-dei-initiatives/
Aldi did the same thing this boycott of Target is about. So no, not Aldi first.
Aldi did donate to the innauguration fund tho if i recall correctly
I suspect you’re missing the wood for the trees there - are there any local vendors or farmers markets?
Yes, they are undeniably more expensive, but it is satisfying as fuck paying slightly over the going rate to poke some big company in the eye, even if it is barely felt at the individual level.
Without sounding accusatory or negative in any way, it’s important to remember that this may be coming from a position of privilege. There are folks who won’t be able to participate in this boycott. It’s for those with the means to do so.
No I appreciate being checked. It’s always good to be given multiple views on things and I appreciate your view. Thank you.
Well, I wouldn’t assume that the local vendors and farmers are less likely to be supporting Trump.
Oh good I’ll continue to not shop there
Remember there are bots even on Lemmy to push the narrative that we have no power. Billionaires aren’t scared of a couple less dollars, but they are TERRIFIED of us figuring out we can organize. Let’s not fight each other let’s fight the oligarchy!
these short boycotts won’t fuck them on dollars, but there is a potential benefit: just in time economics and these long slow prediction-powered supply chains cannot handle this shit.
We only have power when a large enough group of us does something. Anything else is publicity.
I urge you to see beyond that. Of course there are people (influencers likely?) you’re thinking about that jump on band wagons, but every movement does and they play an important part even if you don’t like them. Free advertising!
I agree with Botanicals. Whether you truly have an impact or not…I guess we’re arguing semantics…but simply vote with your wallet. 🙂 There is little excuse when options abound! If someone engages in behavior you really don’t like, boycott their ass. Don’t buy their product or service. If they didn’t make money, they’d quit their shit or go bankrupt. “No raindrop is responsible for the flood.”
Look at the Bud Light boycott. Granted, enough of the people doing the boycott were uninformed consumers that bought something else owned by ABInBev, and still gave the same company their money. But others went all the way. The campaign itself was still effective, as Bud Light sales TANKED. Product went BAD. The company lost LOTS OF MONEY. They lost prominent shelf space that they will probably never get back, but who knows, never is a big word.
You have power, little raindrop. You do.
I quit eating meat because I care about animals, I limit my driving to as little as possible to lessen my impact, I use open source software exclusively, I only buy repairable tech… I’m doing what I can to lessen the suffering I, an individual, inflicts and it’s made no difference. Animals still being killed, Earth still dying, corpos still raking in record profits, people still losing their homes, jobs, lives… I understand the need to feel like you and your choices matter. That’s how people cope with all this. I’m m not like that. I see things as they are and not as I hope they might be one day if we can just not shop at Target.
What a great example!
I had no idea either. But I also haven’t been to target in about 6 months and I’ve been boycotting pretty much everywhere else since last year. I haven’t even done online shopping since October and it’s been kinda nice going to actual stores again. Was gonna get a Costco membership next so I don’t have to use Kroger. Unfortunately, the nearest Costco to me is about an hour away. Fortunately, I like driving.
I think this is the smart thing to do right now. I applaud.
This reads like an Improv exercise and I LOVE IT! Unfortunately I can only get so hard.
Start paying cash so payment processors don’t get their fees and they can’t sell your info.
well that’s easy, I haven’t shopped there in years. They’re inconvenient, overpriced, low quality, rarely have what I’m looking for. Why would I shop there?
Dear capitalist media… Target is being boycotted for being racist. And no, Target is not the victim.
These headlines ffs…
It’s CNN. They’re a heavily biased pro-Israel pro-capitalist align-with-whatever-regime corpo news service. They should just be ignored by all at this point.
Wait, Target’s racist?
Already been boycotting target
My partner and I had our first children (twins) about a year ago. They’re great.
Before then, I rarely if ever went to this type of store. We don’t have a local Target but we have K-Mart which I think is comparable in Australia.
Honestly I think we’ve done pretty well at buying most of what we need second hand, and then selling it on once it’s no longer required. We also get toys from a local toy library which is amazing.
That said, I’ve sadly become a semi-regular K-Mart shopper because I require some of the cheap plastic junk they sell. A good example is shoes, I can buy a pair of shoes for the kids for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.
The thing is, everything about the store is repulsive. It’s basically a plastic shop. They sell plastic. Even the clothing and shoes is polyester and nylon and plasticised rubber. Also, since we’re here, if I’m really honest about it I would have to assume that the person who made my kids shoes is probably being exploited. That sucks.
Anyhow, I don’t really have a point, just having a whinge and acknowledging that target / kmart is definitely the worst part of having a child.
Similar here. We used to be great at avoiding the corporate stores until we had a kid. Convenience and selection wins when you’re overstressed and sleep deprived.
I think we’ve done great at rolling back to local-only shopping this year. No Amazon, no target. Costco still gets out visits, but overall we’re being much more thoughtful about who gets our money and we’re spending significantly less also.
Why are people boycotting a company that tried and took a step back due to backlash instead of supporting them when they tried?
The article certainly outlines a few reasons:
- Target “embraced” the idea of rolling back DEI policies more than many companies, furthering its weird cultish “belonging to the bullseye” internal culture.
- Target’s customers are more progressive than Walmart, John Deere, or Ford, so more of them actually care about what the company is doing.
- Target previous embraced DEI more than other companies. Them previously doing so and then promptly shedding it seems that their corporate culture is one of quarterly gains rather than giving a shit about anybody. While that’s true for pretty much all publicly traded corporations, see point 2.
Target throwing themselves at
Rainbow Capitalismis one pile of evidence that points at their movement being on the whim of the dollar as opposed to strong corporate ethics
I shopped there nearly exclusively because of what they had been doing. Now that they’re embracing fascism, I’m not.
Source on embracing fascism? I jumped from Amazon to Target because Bezos and friends were sitting together at the inauguration.
They dropped their DEI policies and their initiative to buy from black owned businesses the instant trump was elected.
You’re right to boycott Amazon too, obviously, but Target is also complicit.
