Duo Angelorem

I remember when there was this LiveJournal community where you could just ask about anything you needed for your novel - medicine, professions, vehicles, how things function in country X - and people who knew something about that would answer.

It wasn’t just threats—employees were attacked and in one store the pride display was actually set on fire. Headquarters had to make a decision real goddamn quick and they decided on the recall (which varies by store seemingly bc mine only pulled kids’ merch and the dollar spot stuff, but I know someone in a diff store who says her store pulled all of it). They didn’t target (no pun intended) specific designers or brands, it was a blanket recall. I don’t know what they’re planning going forward (again, I’m store-level) and I’m absolutely pissed abt it, but I understand why they made this decision even if I don’t agree with it. Yes, it’s cowardly and we’re correct to be pissed abt it, and HQ knows ppl are pissed and they’re not arguing with that—HR team leads in a lot of stores are making sure to check on and support us workers, especially us queer workers. The HR lead at my store has been making sure to tell all of us (queer and straight alike) that his door is open to anyone who wants to talk and/or vent. They’re not doing it just bc they were looking for an excuse to stop selling pride stuff. They had to do something immediately to protect store-level employees while giving themselves time to figure out what to do in the longer term. Target’s supported the queer community for at least a decade now, and they’ve been ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. I’m hoping they develop a more robust policy for protecting us and customers, like the company as a whole is real lax abt kicking ppl out when they’re being dicks and I hope they change that—this isn’t the first year we’ve had ppl complaining abt the pride merch. It is the first year people have committed arson abt it, tho.

Again, I don’t agree w this decision—it’s cowardly as fuck and it feels like conceding to these assholes who’re coming in and attacking ppl. It’s only going to embolden them, just like a bully on a playground. They’re gonna think they won. But in terms of protecting workers and customers and having stores not be on fire, it’s prob the only thing HQ could have done right away. Remember, this shit has only gotten this bad really recently—it wasn’t nearly this bad even this time last year. Until the past couple years the needle was swinging more towards acceptance, and I’m not sure anyone predicted it would get as bad as it is this quickly. Honestly I think HQ got caught w their pants down and they panicked. Hopefully they’ll get their feet under them and sort out a better response soon.