The Media Research Center has gleefully attacked companies that violate right-wing narratives like not hating LGBT people (Bud Light, Target). But when those companies have a reputation for catering to conservatives, they get treated differently. A June 2 post by Tom Olohan started out with righteous anger:
After Chick-fil-A drew attention to its diversity, equity and inclusion program, prominent figures across Twitter reacted to the news while leftist media exaggerated criticism or missed the problem entirely.
On Tuesday, May 30th, many Twitter users noticed that Chick-fil-A had created a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” page on its website and spread the word about Chick-fil-A promoting Erick McReynolds to Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the restaurant chain.
Following a quote by Erick McReynolds, the DEI page includes this line: “Chick-fil-A, Inc.’s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.” Twitter users from Michael Knowles, to Allie Beth Stuckey, to Jack Posobiec, Erick Erickson, and Charlie Kirk reacted to the hire, criticizing Chick-fil-A and DEI more broadly.
Olohan is misleading by claiming that Chick-fil-A wasn’t the one that “drew attention” to its DEI program — as he admits, it was “many Twitter users.” But having done this, he seems to want to distract from it:
Leftist news sources like The Hill exaggerated this criticism, uplifting smaller accounts calling for a boycott, while others like The New York Times and CNN aggressively missed the point on what DEI is and why conservatives object to it.
This uproar also led to many accounts sharing a video from 2020 where Chick-fil-A owner, Dan Cathy, shines the shoes of rapper Lecrae Moore, while telling white people to do likewise with a “contrite heart, a sense of humility, a sense of shame, a sense of embarrassment, beget with an apologetic heart.”
But if DEI is so evil, how can The Hill (which, contrary to Olohan’s assertion, is not a “leftist” publication) be exaggerating the issue? Olohan doesn’t explain. Instead, he called on vicious transphobe Michael Knowles to try and absolve Chick-fil-A fiurther:
Daily Wire columnist, Michael Knowles, agreed with the idea that creating a DEI department is a problem in and of itself. On his show Wednesday, Knowles told his audience, “The exact verbiage does not exactly matter. It’s all pretty much just gobbledygook anyway. The disconcerting thing is not the exact wording. The disconcerting thing is that Chick-fil-A has embraced DEI at all, and now while some conservatives are calling for a boycott of the openly religious, generally relatively conservative company, as far as I’m concerned this story has almost nothing to do with Chick-fil-A.”
Knowles went on to add that this incident demonstrates the ubiquity of liberal ideology in our culture.
Most conservatives who mentioned a boycott, spoke in opposition to it. Radio host Erick Erickson opposed a boycott, suggesting that adding a boycott of Chick-fil-A would discredit conservatives with the general public and before noting by omission that Chick-fil-A’s DEI page does not promote gender theory.
Actually, Erickson didn’t say that. Here’s what he actually said: “Y’all really gonna boycott @ChickfilA? When you start boycotting every business as “woke” the average American will think you’re full of crap,” adding that the company’s stated mission is to “glorify God,” later stating that conservatives need “discernment in your targets.” In other words, he was pointing out that conservative anger in general was discrediting them. But wouldn’t carving out an exception for Chick-fil-A also discredit them when it targets other companies for doing the same thing? (We caught WorldNetDaily doing this as well.)
And that attitude is why the MRC was completely silent when it was revealed that Cracker Barrel — another restaurant chain beloved by right-wingers — has embraced DEI and not hating LGBT people.
It seems that, despite Olohan’s headline, the media did not miss the point, and Olohan is the one who nmeeds to explain why he’s hypocritically giving certain “woke” companies a pass based on their past friendliness to conservative agendas.