4w ago

Walmart pulls back on DEI efforts, removes some LBGTQ merchandise from website

www.cnbc.com Walmart pulls back on DEI efforts, removes some LGBTQ merchandise from website

The big-box retailer, the nation's largest, joins a growing list of companies feeling the heat from conservative activists.

Summary

Walmart is scaling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts amid conservative backlash and changing cultural pressures.

The company removed LGBTQ-themed items, stopped sharing data with advocacy groups, and phased out supplier diversity programs and its Center for Racial Equity, created in 2020.

Walmart also rebranded its diversity roles, though it will continue funding events like Pride parades under stricter guidelines.

Activists opposing DEI policies, like Robby Starbuck, have praised these changes.

37 comments

Walmart isn't my friend? It isn't a friend of the working class? A friend of marginalized groups? Wow, I'm just so shocked that it only pretends to be these things for prof-- Just kidding, fuck Walmart. Arguably in the top 5 worst extant companies to ever come out of the US and a parasite on communities everywhere. Needs to be boycotted as much as practicable.

Thanks for the heads up OP. Everyone reading probably knows someone who works there or has worked there themselves. Everything they do sets a weighty precedent for workers, to put it mildly.
its former chief diversity officer role is now called the chief belonging officer
... these petty assholes.
I wish this news bit had at least mentioned Walmart's White Christian fundamentalist roots. Or how they destroy local businesses and source overseas for their 'free market,' their anti-union activism, low wages, shit healthcare options, well-documented sexism and racism in the workplace, etc. In 2020, Walmart president and CEO Doug McMillon was an advisor to Trump. Walmart's political spending in 2024 alone should've been at least a footnote. Context matters so much.
- The anti-union shit is insane. I know there are laws forbidding anti-union propaganda at the workplace; but every Walmart back room I've been in has been fucking plastered with anti-union bullshit, as well as anti-union videos being shown as part of the training.
  
  Their anti-union work is legendary. Walton inspired frikkin Bezos.
  That they can talk about "pulling back on DEI efforts" in the news bit and not mention that most of Wally's workforce is women and PoC? News in a vacuum.
  They haven't "stepped back from diversity, equity and inclusion efforts after feeling the heat from conservative activists." Walmart IS the Conservative activist in this situation.

Preemptive obedience at work.

This decision was no doubt motivated by the exact same question that made them put that merchandise up in the first place: "what will result in us earning more profit?"
- I'd like to see hard data on whether or not being "anti-woke" generates more profit. I've never seen evidence that it does.
  
  It's the perfect excuse to cut back on funding expenditures and increase cronyism, and that's all the justification that they need.

I was in one recently and one of the workers was wearing a rainbow cape with the Walmart star thing on it. I thought it was neat. Now I worry for this person.
- Unrelated, but I was shopping in a local Walmart a couple years ago, and they had one of their employees (who I assume was either a choir kid in high school or in a choir program at college) singing close to the front of the store. He sounded really good, I just thought it was weird Walmart was doing that. I think it was for some fundraiser or something.
  
  You probably got it right the first time in thinking that the kids was in an actual program to support his singing, and he's going to practice no matter how weird he's perceived, because, let's face it... It's Walmart

"changing cultural pressures"
Right
- Really, that’s what these businesses are good for: a barometer of social pressures and cultural views.
  A poll can be twisted whichever way, pundits on TV can say whatever they want, but at the end of the day a company will do what makes it the most money. It’s the truest measure of what the majority of society thinks.
  So if being LGBTQ friendly gets them more money, they will, and if being nasty to LGBTQ people gets them more money, they’ll do that.
  Them pulling LGBTQ stuff back is far more a condemnation of society than of the company.
- More like Trump making bigots bold.
  Bigots need to be put back in the closet where they belong. The world was better when you didn’t have republican harpies shrieking shit like “your body my choice”, and the N-word in public.

well now I'll have to continue never shopping at walmart.
- I've been avoiding them for decades now. What they do to labor, what they do to suppliers, now this. And to top it all off, it's just a really unpleasant place to shop.

If I weren't already not shopping at Walmart, I would be excited to begin not shopping at Walmart in response to this. Can't win 'em all.
- The Walmarts near me pushed all the local businesses out like 2 or 3 decades ago, but now they are shutting some of the stores down... so now the closest Walmart is like an hour away.
  Luckily some of the business is returning, but for every useful business that opens, another vape shop opens.

Need to bring People of Walmart back since the white trailer park trash is going to be the only ones shopping there now
- Sexual orientation transcends class divides/labels like that…
  
  Haha. Very good point. In that case, we'll still see a myriad of naivete
- Go to one in a rural area and that’s always been the clientele
- "Trailer park trash" are surprisingly open people. A friend of a friend is part of a pretty small anarchist community within a trailer park. I think a HOA would typically be much more of an issue for queers.
  
  Don't misunderstand. Living in a trailer park doesn't make you trash

Walmart: “We side with fascists! Shop here!”

I still got my Frog and Toad shirt before they were pulled off the shelf.
They so were. Come on.
- Oh Arnold Lobel has confirmed it. He was closeted until 1974 himself.
  Here's a shirt for ya:
  https://www.etsy.com/listing/1356555778/frog-and-toad-are-gay-shirt
- Nah they were just really good friends who lived together and did everything together and ...
  Holy shit

37 comments