Target struggles after end of DEI program and boycott, with foot traffic down 8 weeks in a row.

[u/Healthy_Block3036]

https://fortune.com/2025/04/01/target-dei-demise-boycott-foot-traffic-down-eighth-consecutive-week/?itm_source=parsely-api

[u/Vexamas]

Again, respectfully, I think the issue is just speaking past eachother. I think it boils down to the way this chain of comments that you've come into were using the word "Actionable" within context. Actionable here being not just "Doing something" but "Proving something", by definition, having metrics and making that quantifiable.

You're preaching to the choir and, for lack of better words, performing your virtues which again, unless you want me to screenshot the conversation and circle every time I've agreed with you and said I think the cause is just, I don't know how else to go beyond that.

I really wish you would have read the rest of the chain before going through this back and forth, but I'll provide, what I hope, is the 'ah-ha' moment:

My last anectode, a personal protest that I had a voice in: I was working at a software company based in MN while George Floyd was murdered and resulted in the explosion of protests. The public protests were basically things to the effect of Defund the Police and End Racism, which again, are non-actionable. However, because those events happend in MY city, I rallied my developers and pushed to management that we demand an actionable response to show solidarity. I demanded we'd have a day that our team would 'give back' to the community, specifically the neighborhood where the event happened.

Not only were we given that day, because it was a black and white actionable demand, because it was widely seen as victory and a huge morale boost, the company even provided each team financial budgeting to do that exact thing.

We, the workers, provide money in the form of work, to the company, which is no different than we, the consumer, provide money in the form of purchasing products, to the company,

The difference again, is in the actionable.

What I'm advocating for is something to the effect of this:

We, as a movement, say to Target: "If you want our marketshare back, you have to donate your month's losses to DEI efforts." This is actionable. To say "They have to hire people that deserve to be hired, especially if they're marginalized" is ceding a world that you believe target doesn't already do that which they do, which is the entire problem with nebulous inactionable demands.

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And i honestly don't get why you can't comprehend this.

The issue, frankly and honestly, is you're confused why I don't understand the difference between green and brown, and you're talking to me like I may be colorblind, when in reality, the entire conversation is about dogs and cats, and had nothing to do with color.

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We've deviated so far from what my intent was with this chain that I'll leave it here. Again, I'm on your side, you're arguing like I'm DEFENDING Target, but I'm not - I'm wishing that we as a society were smarter and understood the power of unifying under actionable causes for the betterment of society.

I hope you have a lovely rest of your weekend!

[u/wtfreddit741741 → u/Vexamas]

In your insistence for actionable goals, I feel that you are severely underestimating the power of the narrative.  

Your company gave you a day of "giving back to the community".  And that's great.  But those protests also drew attention to an issue that had long been swept under the rug.  They changed people's perceptions of the police, they actually brought about significant consequences for the cop (for literally the first time that I can ever remember in my 50+ years on this earth!!), and they brought about small changes in policing in certain cities (such as bodycams, more social workers to intervene rather than arrest, etc).

And not a single one of those things would have happened if the public was not visibly and vocally outraged.

In my opinion, the most vital part of those protests was not so much having specific actionable goals, but rather removing police from the pedestal that society had placed them on and causing an entire nation's perspective to shift.  Because an outraged populace put pressure on government officials to make police more accountable.  (And yes, here is where you again go back to "but accountable how?)

My point is that the how and what are less important than controlling the narrative.  Giving a voice to the voiceless. And that the narrative is where the actual power lies.    

But we can agree to disagree - or to not understand each other. And I wish you a good day as well.