ABC: alphabet people threaten Target, so keep the Pride merchandise or conservatives win

AP Photo/George Walker IV, File

ABC News has quite a take on the controversies surrounding corporations embracing Pride month to the extent that they face customer backlashes.

Using the trouble Target has faced since the controversy over pushing transgender-focused clothing in its stores, ABC has discovered that alphabet activists get very upset and throw tantrums if they don’t get their way.

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The conclusion they draw is obvious: give in to the transgender activists, who after all are responding reasonably to not being affirmed every waking moment of their lives.

 

The headline seems to suggest that the extremists in question are anti-alphabet activists and that the “experts” are warning that giving in to their demands would simply encourage more extremist threats.

In fact, the article itself strongly implies that the threats are caused by anti-Pride activists, but even ABC has to acknowledge that threats in question are actually coming from Pride activists, not people who are objecting to the selling of alphabet-themed products such as swimsuits made for “tucking” to children.

It’s an odd take: keep the Pride merchandise out, because the alternative is suffering from bomb threats from Pride activists.

Extremism experts and LGBTQ advocates warned that removing merchandise could be seen as a success by anti-LGBTQ extremists and violent protesters which could lead to copycat behavior threatening the already marginalized community.

Several Targets also received bomb threats over Memorial Day weekend related to the controversy, according to. The threats reportedly called for the return of LGBTQ+ items to the shelves, according to the local news outlet, which said it received the bomb threats.

“I think this will embolden alt-right actors, who now are going to believe that with social media campaigns and targeted actions against retailers that they can proceed in limiting visibility of LGBTQ people,” said Sophie Bjork-James, a professor at Vanderbilt University, who researches the white nationalist movement, in an interview.

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Notice how this article frames the issue: it seems as if the threats of violence are coming from “anti-LGBTQ” activists and white supremacists. It takes a bit to notice that the only documented threats–not vague suggestions that moms doing TikTok videos complaining about the merchandise–are from PRO-LGBTQ activists threatening the company with bombing if they do not put the controversial merchandise back.

In other words, “experts” are warning that responding to customer concerns about inappropriate merchandise gets alphabet extremists mad, and because of this people who oppose alphabet extremists might be emboldened to become extreme themselves.
At no point does it come up that, perhaps, alphabet activists threatening to bomb stores unless they get their way is, perhaps, an inappropriate activity? It is simply assumed that any deviation from the demands of these extremists is a bad thing.
It’s a remarkable argument: give in to the terrorists, lest the people who oppose the terrorists get the idea that they can indeed oppose the terrorists successfully.
Of course, the argument itself is utterly beside the point. The whole point of the article is to leave you with the impression that the bomb threats come from conservative extremists–something for which there is zero evidence. The evidence says the opposite.
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Yet “experts” tell us that the solution is to let the people making terroristic threats get their way.

“Target’s giving into this,” said Victor Asal, a professor at Albany and extremism researcher. “Other extremists will say ‘hey, that’s a great idea. We should do that.'”

Michael Edison Hayden, a senior investigative reporter at the Southern Poverty Law Center, believes extremists are making calculated efforts to redefine LGBTQ+ Pride as a “toxic” or dangerous thing.

Bomb threats, he said, are intended to scare the community and supporters into silence.

“It’s a real concern,” said Hayden. “Bigots feel emboldened largely because of mainstream politicians giving them a pat on the back,” referring to some conservative political and media figures who have recently resurfaced harmful stereotypes against LGBTQ+ people.

Remember this: the PEOPLE MAKING THE BOMB THREATS are the alphabet activists. Everything in the story is designed to make you think the opposite, but even within the story, there is indeed a line recognizing that fact. But everything else blames the threats on, not the people making the threats, but on those of us who apparently inspired them to be terrorists.

This is a typical line of attack: a terrorist blows something up, and the Left blames the victims. If only they were better people they wouldn’t be victimized.

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This is the supersized heckler’s veto, where people who “inspire” the rage of the Left are blamed for the Left’s bad behavior.

There is, as far as I know, not a single bomb threat against Target from a conservative who objected to the Pride merchandise. Yet it is the conservatives who are blamed because we should all just shut up and let the other side get exactly what it wants without objection.

No. We know who is responsible for all this. And it is not us.

Just leave the kids alone, and we are cool.

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