Noor Adwan: Target finds waffling bad for business

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Target reported its first sales drop in six years on Aug. 16, a development some analysts attribute to controversy surrounding the retailer's May decision to pull some Pride products off its shelves following threats and harassment of employees from customers.

The dip wasn't solely caused by frustration about Pride — tighter spending by consumers worried by inflation was likely another factor — but if it was, it would be justified. Why should consumers reward with their hard-earned dollars a company that was so easy to fold to the demands of a loud and hateful minority?

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and 14 other attorneys general wrote to Target in June expressing similar concerns about what seemed like the company's willingness to give in to threats of violence.

"While we understand the basis for this action, we are also concerned it sends a message that those who engage in hateful and disruptive conduct can cause even large corporations to succumb to their bullying," they wrote, "and that they have the power to determine when LGBTQIA+ consumers will feel comfortable in Target stores or anywhere in society."

The Star Tribune Editorial Board argued in May that Target's decision merited praise due to its focus on protecting workers. But giving in to this small group of homo- and transphobes set a dangerous precedent: Now that this segment of Target's base knows violence and intimidation is the ticket to getting their demands met, what else will they try to accomplish?

The retailer's decision also affirmed one of the LGBTQ+ community's long-held suspicions about so-called "corporate Pride": That it's little more than a marketing tactic — one retailers will bail on as soon as the going gets tough.

Companies bailing on inclusivity at the first sign of controversy is no new phenomenon. Dylan Mulvaney, the transgender content creator who was the subject of months of online vitriol following her sponsored video featuring Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light, shared in a June video that the brewing company never reached out to her about the backlash. Nor did it publicly address the issue until Mulvaney's upload, after which it offered news outlets a generic statement that didn't seem to directly address the creator at all.

"For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all," she said in the video.

Similarly, to stock Pride products only to renege on that decision at the behest of outraged homo- and transphobes seems just as if not more harmful than never stocking them in the first place, as it sends a message that inclusion is an option rather than a duty. And, while big companies like Target and Anheuser-Busch have the choice to opt out of marketing and product decisions that rouse homo- and transphobes, it's important to remember that LGBTQ+ individuals don't have the choice to opt out of their identities.

I wholeheartedly agree with Ellison and his colleagues in that the correct course of action would have been "to double down on inclusivity, reject hate in all its forms and stand firm in the face of intimidation and discrimination," as well as to report threats of violence to law enforcement. Because waffling on your values isn't just bad ethics. It's bad for business.

Noor Adwan is a May journalism graduate from the University of Minnesota and Star Tribune Opinion summer intern.