Target employee: Pulling queer products from shelves will escalate violence nationwide | Opinion
Walking into El Dorado’s Target where I work, off of White Rock Road, there is a sense that the values our company strives to represent have been pervasively diminished, even here in a deep blue pocket of California. The Pride display is still up, right in front of the store’s entrance, but it has been visibly reduced and toned down. Rainbows abound, and Pride symbols are there if you look for them, but many of the products have been packed up and placed in the back.
Our Pride display sits as if it’s afraid to be there. But it shouldn’t be, because queer people in our country remain persecuted and marginalized. And now we have given our enemies the greatest gift that they could imagine: evidence that this persecution works.
Target management saw that there was more than grumbling this year over the company’s Pride merchandise when conservatives across the country became angered and then emboldened after seeing annual Pride rainbows sprout up around them. Online, threats circulated — angered individuals threatened to destroy displays and “hunt down” LGBTQ+ individuals and allies.
Alarmed, Target decided to pull some of its Pride merchandise from shelves. But by giving into conservative pressures inside of Target, opposition to Pride may escalate into violence.
Opinion
Target has historically been a champion of LGBTQ+ communities. For a decade, the company has celebrated June as Pride month by putting our advertisements and merchandise specifically for members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community.
Target’s Pride displays have never appeased all of their customers. No display can possibly interest every shopper. And that was OK, until this year. Now that violent threats have entered into the discussion, suddenly the voices of those upset with Pride displays and merchandise matter.
Let’s be clear: It’s not on account of political pressures, angry posts on social media or the fear of lost customers that Target has given into these demands. Plainly and clearly, Target has made the announcement that it will accede bold demands backed by violent threats.
Target says that it’s protecting its employees by giving into these demands. But how are queer and trans Target workers supposed to feel? What will happen next year when Pride displays go up and a small but vocal group of protesters who have perfected the art of pressuring large corporations into doing what they want come out of the woodwork?
With every success won by actual or threatened violence, why should we expect the result to be anything except more violence?
Mere days ago, bomb threats were made against Target stores in Utah, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The threats, which were emailed to local news outlets, stated, in part, that “Target is full of cowards who turned their back on the LGBT community and decided to cater to the homophobic right wing redneck bigots who protested and vandalized their store,” according to USA Today.
This seems inevitable: an escalation in violence.
When we kowtow to violence, we give in to anger. Target is not more safe now. In fact, everyone is less safe.
Target must undo its decision while they still can. Unless they do, violent threats will continue to be accepted as a valid form of activism, putting our communities — and, specifically, our trans and queer neighbors — at greater risk.
Tyler Raymond is a Target employee in El Dorado Hills that lives for his writing. More of his work can be found at https://boldkingarvinix.wixsite.com/rebelwithoutananythi .
