The Patriot Post® · Et Tu, Chick-fil-A?

Chick-fil-A made the news yesterday for something that seems to have begun way back in 2020. What gives?

The company promoted Erick McReynolds to VP of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, though he’s been a DEI official since 2020 and has been with Chick-fil-A for 16 years. In any case, social media users noticed it yesterday and hammered Chick-fil-A.

The beloved chicken-sandwich company has an entire page of its website dedicated to dressing up the noxious Marxist notions of DEI in flowery language about being “better together.” In fact, the site says, “Chick-fil-A, Inc.‘s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.”

That’s precisely the problem with DEI initiatives — they embed Marxist division, struggle, and ultimately hate into everything.

Yet Chick-fil-A is hardly alone and none of this is new.

According to Christopher Rufo, “Every Fortune 100 company has now adopted 'diversity, equity, and inclusion’ programming.” He acknowledged that “some of these programs are benign,” and companies often do it “out of pressure to conform.” Nevertheless, most of the time, it’s a method “to promote the most virulent strands of critical race theory and gender ideology.”

While DEI as an industry has been growing for years, as we noted back in March, USA Today reported that “DEI job postings increased 123 percent between May and September 2020.”

Hmm, what happened in May 2020? Oh, that’s right — the martyrdom of George Floyd, a black thug who died under the knee of a white Minneapolis cop. Derek Chauvin was found guilty on every count for Floyd’s death and is currently serving a 21-year sentence.

But that didn’t quiet the Black Lives Matter mob, which rioted and burned cities, as well as extorted corporations around the country. The race-baiting racket is a lucrative one.

Chick-fil-A has long been a particular target of leftist haters, primarily because of the company’s founding family’s stance supporting traditional marriage — well, before the company abandoned donations to organizations that support traditional marriage. Given that DEI has become a weapon of the Rainbow Mafia, it’s perhaps little surprise that Chick-fil-A adopted a DEI department as a shield. Perhaps Rufo is right, and this is “benign” and merely “out of pressure to conform.”

Then again, Chick-fil-A responded to Floyd’s death by fully jumping on board the “racial reckoning” bandwagon. Part of that 2020 shift was elevating DEI to “everything we do,” which is alarming.

Regardless of Chick-fil-A’s intent, DEI is rife with Marxist ideology, and it’s playing with fire at this point to even use the words the Left has so grossly redefined and misdefined.

The challenge for Chick-fil-A and for all Americans is to work together to achieve common goals, including tolerance of opposing views and free speech to express those views, while rejecting the Left’s incessant efforts to drive wedges and divisions between us. The words diversity, equity, and inclusion as properly defined can all be good things. Yet because of the Left’s radical efforts, we tend to prefer arranging the letters differently so the acronym spells DIE.

On a final note because boycotting Chick-fil-A has already entered the conversation, we’ll note a fundamental difference in Right and Left. The Left boycotts companies to either force submission to and embrace of its agenda, or to destroy any business that resists. The Right boycotts so companies will stop politicizing everything at the behest of the Left. All conservatives want is companies that serve everyone without hating some of us.

Either way, conservatives are portrayed as the bigots — worthy of being boycotted because we’re intolerant, or intolerant because we’re boycotting. And the Left is much better at boycotts than the Right. The fundamental motivation has a lot to do with it. Hatred is, after all, a powerful motivator, and the Left is driven by hate.