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Target Has Learned No Lessons
In one of the most costly public relations nightmares in history, a feel-good progressive PR blogpost from Target cost them tens of millions of dollars after Americans across the country decided to boycott the company when they declared that anyone could use the bathroom of their choice. It was meant to be a tip of the hat to the progressives but blew up in their faces as Americans declared that under no circumstances did they want to use a mixed-sex bathroom in public. This one blog post turned into years of negative headlines for Target and certainly damaged their bottom line significantly enough that the chain decided to start installing private bathrooms instead of walking back their policy and risking another backlash.
And now, they’re facing it a PR crisis all over again, once again at the hands of the transgender issue. A Twitter user with less than 2,000 followers complained that the chain carried the book “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier about the transgender craze taking hold of America’s daughters. In response to one complaint from one small Twitter user, Target pulled the book off its digital shelves:
Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We have removed this book from our assortment.
— AskTarget (@AskTarget) November 12, 2020
The move has created an enormous backlash and led to Shrier’s book catapulting to number #51 on Amazon’s books chart at this writing. (Disclosure: Abigail is a good friend and I blurbed her fantastic book, which I wholeheartedly recommend buying.)
Once again, Target has stepped in it, and completely unnecessarily. Conservatives see the company taking part in yet another campaign against Shrier to silence the work she’s done (she wrote a fantastic and chilling post at Quillette about the multi-pronged attack she’s faced at the hands of Silicon Valley).
Ultimately and ironically, the controversy will do wonders for Shrier, whose book is seeing yet another news cycle of coverage and catapulting her to a best seller. What’s chilling, she told me today as we chatted on the phone, is what this means for the books that get memory-holed without notice, and the journalists who see what has happened to her work and decide to remain silent, lest they meet the same fate. On Twitter, Bari Weiss gave voice to that fear yesterday,
The efforts to smear my friend @AbigailShrier and to disappear her book (hi, @Target) is despicable—and a sign of what’s to come. I regret that I didn’t speak up earlier on her behalf, that I also thought to myself: is this the hill I want to die on? https://t.co/eetpmpsYGp
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) November 13, 2020
This is why we need to make Target feel the burn of this Shrier decision, and why we need to hold to account those who have waged war against her and her book.
Published in General
Alright now I gotta buy this book even though I don’t really want it.
My wife used to shop at Target quite a bit but stopped after their “brave” stance on men in the ladies room.
On Amazon the book has a 4.5 star rating. A lot of the 5 star reviews are marked as “Verified Purchase” (people who actually bought the book) and almost none of the one start reviews appear to be from people who read the book, just angry activists.
Don’t worry about Target; I’m sure the incoming Biden administration will have a place for them in their glorious fascist future.
Target is reminding people why they voted for Trump 4 years ago.
I bought that book a couple weeks ago on the recommendation of a friend whose daughter is identifying as trans.
I haven’t finished it, but so far it’s excellent. I hope I can get all the way through before Kindle decides to delete it.
Amazon et al can never delete a paper book.
I know. I’m glad I have shelves full of those. But lately I’ve mostly bought via kindle, because my eyesight is bad enough that it really helps to be about to enlarge the print. It’s also handy when traveling.
But it is incredibly disturbing that they can just delete or amend texts electronically.
I buy dead tree media . . . and then I . . . (voice drops to a whisper) . . . “look around” . . . for the digital version for the sake of my eyes.
I’m actually in the process of scanning in a series of books that are not available digitally just so I can read them on my iPad.
A former boss of mine is now a senior executive at Target. Said former boss told us as he went to Target that part of the objectives of the then new CEO of Target was to bring “progressive” New York values to the “stodgy” midwest Target.
In other words, “I know, great idea! Let’s kill the golden goose! It’ll be good for everyone!”
In all the rom coms, the high-powered CEOs adapt to midwestern values for the sake of love! Maybe all that’s needed is to get these people laid.
(Good lord, did I just say that?)
OK now you’ve enticed me to the stories.
He did get laid, but it went the wrong way. He (my former boss) became divorced about the time he went to Target because his “mentoring” of women in our profession of his ethnic group was of his particular interest, and involved several sexual affairs with said mentees. After joining Target he flew back to New York every weekend for the social life that was “better” than what was available in Minneapolis.
“Progressives” are creepy. They’re either sexist horndogs or they’re basement-dwelling incels.
Don’t you love it? Rendering something unavailable makes it all the more desirable by folks who want to find out what the problem is. Every once in a while the lefties help us out . . .
But only by accident or out of their usual stupidity.
Or they start out as horndogs and then later in life move to the basement.
Do I detect a Biden reference?
Target is based in Minneapolis. ‘Nuff said.
Just purchased a Kindle version.
I see that Target carries books by and about notorious atheist Christopher Hitchens. If a Christian or a Jew who had a Twitter account objected do we think Target would remove them?
Only if they have at least 2000 “followers.”
I’ve heard https://twitter.com/AbigailShrier on many podcasts. She seems fair and intelligent and dedicated to describing a story she discovered honestly without any agenda. She isn’t anti-trans or LGBT phobic by any definition of the term. She is simply reporting on a phenomenon that has emerged that seems out of the experienced norms. As someone who has experienced exactly what she writes about in my extended family, I want all aspects of this issue discussed/investigated. Censorship doesn’t help anyone.
They probably don’t remember the phrase from loong ago: “ Banned in Boston!”
I hadn’t thought of that.
I considered that possibility, but it definitely fits!
Gay/lesbian/bisexual advocates hurt themselves badly by backing the crazy transgendered. They are people who have a delusional psychosis, not gender issues.
We don’t treat delusional psychosis by pandering to people who have it, but by treating them until the delusions go away. It’s no wonder such a high proportion of those people commit suicide. That’s the usual outcome of leaving psychosis untreated.
Could it be a question of degree, not of kind?
Just bought on Audible, I’ll have to put P.G. aside for a couple of days.
Speaking of Target, there was this strange puff piece in Bloomberg.
I absolutely support any business in making decisions that in their best interests but I am weirded out by the ‘how can we better serve the community’ response to having a store looted.
“Target hired a contracting company owned by a Somali-American woman and built some of those neighborhood requests into its blueprints. It also added shutters to the store that can come down in case of future emergencies.”
I doubt they’re going to break even on the community love by putting in anti-riot shutters, but whatever. I don’t have stock there.
I recommend against adopting the slurs of the radical Leftists and Wokeists, like “anti-trans” or “[insert]-phobic.” The sole purpose of these terms, as far as I can tell, is to delegitimize any opposition.
What sensible person would not be “anti-trans.” Trans is insanity. Literally — it’s a severe psychological disorder, when it is “genuine” at all. One would think that everyone would agree that a man wanting to castrate himself, or a woman wanting her breasts cut off, are bad situations.