Black America doesn’t have to shop at Walmart

Walmart made big prom­ises after George Floyd’s murder. Now, under pres­sure from “anti-woke” ac­tivists, it’s axing its racial equity center and ditching DEI. Does the company still deserve a piece of Black America’s $1.8 tril­lion spending power?

by Liz Courquet-Le­saulnier

For New Pittsburgh Courier

Let’s be clear: Walmart needs Black America a heck of a lot more than Black America needs Walmart.

Wielding roughly $1.8 trillion in spending power this year, Black folks’ eco­nomic clout is undeniable. We get to choose where we spend our hard-earned cash during the holiday shopping season and be­yond.

But Walmart—one of many companies that made lofty promises about fighting systemic racism after George Floyd’s mur­der— just pulled the plug on its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Now, three weeks after Donald Trump’s election, they claim they want to be “a Walmart for every­one.” And the anti-woke bros on the right are trading high-fives, claim­ing they forced the retail giant to abandon its DEI initiatives.

Yes, DEI, the root of all so-called reverse racism in America. Because for some folks in this nation, DEI is code for anything that gives the appearance of supporting Black peo­ple, communities, or busi­nesses.

It’s not that Black folks thought the post-George-Floyd-murder racial reckoning would last for­ever. Our ancestors lived through Reconstruction, so we know better.

But back on June 12, 2020, just days af­ter Floyd’s murder, Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon emoted in a blog post about how the company’s goal was “to help replace the struc­tures of systemic racism, and build in their place frameworks of equity and justice that solidify our commitment to the belief that, without question, Black Lives Matter.”

McMillon pledged to examine every aspect of Walmart to ensure the company was preju­dice-free. He waxed poetic about a conversation he had with a Black wom­ microaggressions. He pledged $100 million to a Center for Racial Eqan employee about racial uity that would “address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African Amer­ican people in education, health, finance and crim­inal justice systems,” ac­cording to Walmart’s web­site. ­

Walmart, he vowed, was on a “journey in support of racial justice and equity.”

One thousand, six hun­dred twenty-eight days later, that journey is over.

The Center for Racial Equity? Closing. Racial equity training for em­ployees? Not today, Satan. Using the phrase “DEI” in corporate communica­tions? Axed.

Walmart now says it wants to foster “a sense of belonging.” Apparent­ly, as journalist Judd Le­gum quipped on Bluesky, “Walmart has solved rac­ism.”

Right-wing anti-DEI activists like Robby Star­buck are popping cham­pagne, claiming they pressured the company into ditching its “woke” policies. Starbuck, a for­mer music video director, regularly posts lines like “It’s a fact that DEI is an­tiwhite,” and “DEI IS rac­ism and deserves to die,” on X.

In a lengthy post on the social media platform, Starbuck insinuated that his conversations with Walmart—the nation’s biggest, most influen­tial retailer—led to this rollback, a move that will “send shockwaves throughout corporate America.”

“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in cor­porate America,” Star­buck posted on X.

Walmart touts itself as Black America’s biggest private employer and has long been a retail gi­ant in the Black commu­nity. A 2023 analysis by Collage Group identified Walmart as our favorite brand, due to the com­pany’s investments “in Black enrichment, and taking a stance on social matters.”

But here’s the other side of the coin: research re­vealed that Walmart stores in Black and Lati­no neighborhoods con­sistently get worse re­views for service quality. Walmart’s been hit with multiple discrimination lawsuits. Remember that $17.5 million class-action lawsuit? Yeah, the 2009 one where Walmart set­tled claims that it dis­criminated against Black folks trying to get truck driving jobs? That was a thing.

Just two years ago, an Oregon jury ordered Walmart to pay $4.4 mil­lion to a Black man after a White Walmart employ­ee racially profiled and harassed him in one of their stores.

A quick internet search nets plenty of other ex­amples of people suing Walmart over shopping while Black experiences, Black employees suing for being repeatedly passed over for promotions, and Black employees suing because they were being called racial slurs in the workplace.

Let’s call Walmart’s abandoning DEI efforts what it is: a slap in the face to the Black folks who’ve kept their regis­ters ringing for decades.

A company that caves to racist attacks coded as ‘anti-woke’ does not re­spect Black America.

This isn’t just about Walmart, though. Across corporate America, an­ti-DEI crusaders are at­tacking anything and everything related to lev­eling the playing field for Black folks, the Latino community, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. And companies are ner­vous about Trump 2.0, as well as a Supreme Court that’s overtly hostile to anything that smacks of affirmative action.

But here’s the kicker: Black America is not pow­erless. Walmart, like ev­ery other company, runs on dollars. And Black dollars matter—a lot. If Black shoppers took their spending power elsewhere, the fallout for Walmart would be seis­mic.

Starbuck, though, doesn’t think Black folks have a choice.

“I’m happy to have se­cured these changes be­fore Christmas when shoppers have very few large retail brands they can spend money with who aren’t pushing woke policies,” he gloated. Am­azon and Target, he said, “should be very nervous that their top competitor dropped woke policies first” and should brace themselves for losses.

Which begs a simple question: Should Black America keep shopping at Walmart when it seems Walmart might have for­gotten who helps keep its lights on?

“I think America has figured out that if you dish out racism and big­otry subtly one drop at a time and not in a direct overt manner the Black community is OK with it,” Isaac Hayes III wrote on X about the situation. “Kneel on their necks and kill one of them they get mad. Dismantle systems that level the playing field for them and they just ac­cept it and still continue to spend money with us.”

A company that caves to racist attacks coded as “anti-woke” does not respect Black America. It doesn’t deserve our loy­alty. Because loyalty isn’t free—and $1.8 trillion in purchasing power can go a long way somewhere else.