In a ground-breaking move this week‚ Americas biggest private employer is changing its corporate direction. Robby Starbuck – a well-known social-media figure with 700k followers – helped push Walmart to drop its DEI program and stop selling specific items
The retail giant will remove diversity equity and inclusion terms from its materials; this decision comes right before the years biggest shopping event (Black friday). Starbuck has already made his next targets clear: “we have our eyes on Amazon and Target“ because theyʼre “acting crazy out there with wokeness“
Companies smaller than Walmart are now going to be looking at this from a different vantage point where they go ʼOk even Walmart couldnt fight back against thisʼ
Target faced similar issues about six months ago when their stock dropped $12-billion (their biggest fall in 20 years). The company got sued for what critics called a “radical agenda“ including some controversial products like:
- Special swimsuits with extra coverage
- Clothing with specific political messages
- Items that some found religiously offensive
The Free Enterprise Project (FEP) has been working behind-the-scenes on this shift. Stefan Padfield‚ FEPʼs director says theyʼve been “softening defenses“ of companies for years – looking at different types of executives: true-believers opportunists useful-idiots and cowards
Their next possible target might be Starbucks which spent $100-million on racial equity programs a few years back. The coffee chain also made headlines when it changed worker dress-codes and released special-edition cups