Black farmers' association calls for Tractor Supply CEO's resignation after company cuts DEI efforts

Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 396 points – Black farmers' association calls for Tractor Supply CEO's resignation after company cuts DEI efforts
apnews.com

The National Black Farmers Association called on Tractor Supply’s president and CEO Tuesday to step down after the rural retailer announced that it would drop most of its corporate diversity and climate advocacy efforts.

The resignation demand emerged as Tractor Supply, which sells products ranging from farming equipment to pet supplies, faces a deepening backlash over its decision, which itself came after conservative activists spoke out against the company’s work to be more socially inclusive and to curb climate change. 

In a public announcement last week, the company said it would eliminate all of its diversity, equity and inclusion roles, end sponsorships of “nonbusiness activities” like Pride festivals, and withdraw its goals for reducing carbon emissions. Critics of the new position argue that Tractor Supply is giving in to hate and harming its customers by abandoning crucial principles.

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You can decide this move with two answers: Who are their customers, and what happened last year with Bud Light.

Just so y'all are aware they moved to Yuengling beer as the choice of racists and bigoted people. So please don't buy it unless you really really don't give a fuck about CEOs mocking boycotts.

Dang, now we can't make jokes about Anakin killing all the Yuenglings

Phew. I was afraid they'd move to Sam Adams or something since they fetishize the Founders so much, and I'd have to give up something I actually like.

I used to like Yurngling before 2016 or whenever when their politics came out :(

Twas a decently cheap beer you could get on tap, but no longer for me

Seriously? Yuengling, is that Chinese beer?

Lmao, people asking that gets me every time. Wild name that I don't know why they named it that, but it's actually America's oldest brewery, it's on the east coast.

It's named after the founder, who was a German immigrant named Jungling.

Immigrant names were often spelled how they sound by barely literate immigration agents.

So Jungling is pronounced Yewng-ling and became Yuengling.

The current CEO (Dick Yuengling Jr) is a nepo baby piece of shit Trump lover.

And for those wondering, it's just a very slightly better version of Bud and only then if it's really fresh. After two weeks on the shelf they're equally shitty.

I was in Texas for my first time ever and had my first ever Yeungling (it isn't available where I live). I didn't know it was now the choice for the bigots. But I do know: it's really not a great beer.

Neither is Bud (/Light), but at least that doesn't taste like a malty homebrew.

They could have just as easily dropped the DEI efforts and then not made a giant fucking Press Release about it.

Then they wouldn’t be pandering to the bigots.

It's so easy to shop somewhere else, might as well.

In many rural areas it's not though. Tractor Supply might be the only feed store for miles, and I don't mean go 5 miles to the next town. I mean it's over a hundred to the next closest feed store, which happens to be another tractor supply.

Sounds like a good time to break their monopoly

Cool. Who plans to do that? Do you have the ability to open multiple stores in such areas?

Maybe they do, why so negative? Do you think breaking some hypothetical monopoly would be a bad thing or something? Is your last name Supply by chance?

Maybe they do, but they haven't done it, have they? I know I can't do it. Can you? It's not 'negative' to know that it hasn't been done and no one is doing it. It's just a fact.

Is that your situation? I live pretty rural, but there's a Walmart, Lowe's, or home depot pretty much the same distance as tractor supply, and that's probably the situation for most of the US. I also buy online. Mom and pop feed stores are all over the place.

For me, it's real easy to go somewhere else.

Thinking about this more, I just don't think it's true. I can't find a spot on Google maps where tractor supply is the only store for miles. In America, you can drive to many shitty corporations to buy stuff, no matter where in America you are.

It's even easier to not be a racist.

Typical sndmn woke platitudes, offending me by minding their own business

Edit: oh shit, y'all are really serious about needing that "/s"

Good. Fuck DEI

Why? Why do you think that?

Just a troll. Don't take the bait.

Most of the programs exist to avoid lawsuits. They don't actually help much of anything. And before people jump down my throat I'm not against the idea of what DEI claims to fix in corporate America. I just know from the level I've worked at multiple companies that leadership doesn't really care. DEI is another box to check for the shareholders to feel good about themselves.

So tl;dr DEI is mostly pointless. Leadership allows people to talk about DEI because talk is cheap and ineffectual. But they shit their pants of we try to unionize and force change. So stop focusing on DEI and start focusing on unionization.

I just know from the level I've worked at multiple companies that leadership doesn't really care. DEI is another box to check for the shareholders to feel good about themselves.

I'm confused, are you saying places with DEI policies don't actually hire more black or gay employees and just pretend like they do, or that they do hire more diverse employees but the management don't really care about that and are just hiring more diverse employees because they think that protects them from lawsuits?

Some of both.

Great talk I skipped to an important part of which will likely explain better than I am. Whole video is worth watching if you have time. https://youtu.be/deYUUfak08Y?feature=shared&t=7m54s

But in essence, leadership will say they care about DEI. But then doesn't set any goals or timeframes. Then what I've seen a few times is the responsibility for the initiatives get pushed to lower level people who have no authority to bring about much of any change. Leadership gets to pat themselves on the back while doing nothing.

Going to watch the video but my experience has been that the programs do nothing to influence advancement opportunities and negatively impact hiring actions. What it does do is make it nearly impossible to move on from a diversity employee. Just last year my former employer finally had a black woman retire and was able to hire a full time engineer in her place. She was a UNIX administrator for a couple decades, got pissed when the organization started replacing end points with windows and Linux and once NIS was replaced spent the last 20 years of her career coming into work, putting her feet up on the desk and reading a book until she left to go home, nothing for her to do, they didn’t have UNIX anymore and she wasn’t going to touch anything else, not even the Linux systems. I mean good for her, I don’t give a shit about my former employer, she was very friendly and intelligent and I enjoyed stopping by and hanging out with her during breaks sometimes but she would have been gone in a week at most if she wasn’t a diversity employee. That is the most extreme example I have directly experienced but it is an entirely different conversation, bordering on impossible, if a diversity employee needs let go so what ends up happening is hiring a diverse employee is almost like putting your career on the line that they succeed whereas a non diverse employee that is hired and isn’t performing can been given a 30 day PIP, 30 day final written warning, and then part ways.

Its stupid but its the only culture america has except fucking chickens.