On the first day of the new presidency, an executive order was signed that revoked discriminatory prevention practices that had been in place since President Johnson signed them in 1965.
This executive order purposefully creates barriers to opportunities for millions of people and shreds decade-long progress made toward diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since then, a series of executive orders against DEI have been signed by the President: from taking away public education resources that cover race theory and gender diversity, to baselessly blaming DEI policies for the recent airplane crash in Washington DC.
In today’s culture war against ‘DEI’ which attempts to demonize vulnerable and underrepresented communities under the name of ‘radical’ ‘far-left’ or ‘woke’, the unprecedented end of DEI programs in the federal government and federal contractors is a significant pushback of decades of progress that have been made when we talk about fairness and justice in the fashion industry.
But in order to fully understand the bigger picture, we need to comprehend what diversity, equity and inclusion stand for.
Now, there are several definitions to these concepts, but those that truly encompass the context, purpose, and value of each word are those that Lily Zheng proposes in their book DEI deconstructed. Lily Zheng is a bestselling author, expert on DEI, FAIR Strategist, and Consultant. Let's look at the definition of diversity.
Diversity: The workforce composition that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalized populations, trust to be representative and accountable. Diversity is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequities and meet the unique needs of all populations. (Zheng, 2022)
Under this premise, Lily Zheng states that diversity is not just about bringing up a company’s diverse hiring numbers (the most widely used strategy of diversity). Instead, it is about acknowledging the diverse workforce that you are working with. This acknowledgment is what shapes the culture of the company and either holds it back or helps it move forward.
Diversity is crucial in the fashion industry to truly represent the needs of consumers by stakeholders, individuals and workers. Misrepresentations, misjudgements, and most dangerously, a lack of fashion supply that is not targeted to underrepresented communities creates feelings of loneliness, rejection, and unworthiness. How does it feel walking into a store where they don’t have clothes that are your size or that match your style? How would you feel if this experience was the same as you walk into any store across the United States of America? The message that people don't belong and must be excluded is what the executive orders against DEI are pushing across our clothes, our books, our hiring practices, and our way of interacting with each other.
Equity is the measured experience of individual, interpersonal, and organizational success and well-being across all stakeholder populations and the absence of discrimination, mistreatment, or abuse for all. Equity is achieved by eliminating structural barriers resulting from historical and present-day inequities and meeting individuals’, groups’, and organizations’ unique needs. (Zheng, 2022)
An organization can be diverse but lack equity because in order to have equity in an organization, every person must have the opportunity to thrive and succeed without being mistreated or discriminated against.
Zheng’s definition speaks about eliminating structural barriers to address unique needs. These barriers could be physical, with 17.1 million Americans having difficulty walking unassisted. These barriers could be language barriers, as 13.7% of Americans speak Spanish at home as their first language. These barriers could be cultural, religious, geographic, financial, racial, and the list goes on and on. It is crucial to address these barriers because if we cannot acknowledge they exist in the first place, we cannot work to tackle them to accommodate workers. The executive orders prohibit any efforts to address these structural barriers that can help individuals, groups, and organizations meet their unique needs.
Inclusion is the achievement of an environment that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalized populations, trust to be respectful and accountable. Inclusion is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequalities and meet the unique needs of all populations. (Zheng, 2022)
This definition connects people and the relationship they have with their environment. In order for inclusion to happen, people must feel trust, respect, and value in the environment where they are. These values are critical in a workplace where creativity and new ideas happen. Brainstorming, sample making, sketching, and presenting ideas are steps in the fashion process where people are the most vulnerable. How can we allow them to be vulnerable if there is no trust or respect in these environments?
The concepts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have been taken out of context, magnified, and vilified overlooking the social and economic impacts that these efforts have had and will stop doing as these efforts continue to shut down.
Fashion History is Diverse
A Fashion industry without diversity equity and inclusion is a fashion industry that refuses to open doors to color, culture evolution and collaboration. Despite what mainstream textbooks suggest, throughout history, fashion has always been diverse. Textiles coming from Asia merged with embroidery techniques from Latin America and Africa. Embellishments from India juxtaposed with English embroidery.
The industrialization that came from Europe could not have triggered the fashion industry that we know today if someone had refused to diversify trades, businesses, and fashion to exchange materials, ideas, techniques, and silhouettes.
Companies taking a stand
It is crystal clear that fashion is political and the fashion industry that we live in is taking a stand. Over the last years, we have seen some big corporations, superficially, and misleadingly attempting to suggest that they would stand for diversity. They showed to Pride parades to deliver coupons, presented Black history collections in February, and promoted them on social media. But when we look further at their efforts of diversity, equity, and inclusion that reflect the definitions discussed above —efforts that would involve diverse leadership, fair working conditions or charity actions that go beyond the parades, there was little to none.
Target was once a great example of a big corporation able to address DEI with strong Black History Month collections created by Black artists and Pride Month collections designed by LBGTQ+ artists. However, Target rolled-back its DEI efforts, raising questions about how genuine where their philanthropic contributions fighting racial and LBGTQ+ injustice. Walmart, Amazon, Meta, McDonald’s, Ford and Lowe’s are some of the corporations that decided to rollback their DEI efforts.
This rollback of DEI programs within private companies comes as the executive orders suggest potential legal actions against private entities with DEI programs. A fear of DEI programs being prosecuted is making private companies take ‘preventative’ measures.
On another note, there are companies who continue to defend their values of diversity, equity, and inclusion and pledged to continue defending them. Among these companies are Costco, Aldi and Ben & Jerry’s.
What can consumers do?
In the fashion industry, consumers determine trends and the paths to which fashion move towards.
It is not worth consuming fashion at stores that won’t hire people who look like us and who don't know firsthand our experiences, our culture, and our bodies.
It is not worth consuming fashion at stores that saw social and racial justice as a fashion trend from 2020 to 2024 and dispose of it as soon as a new President walked in.
Consumers have the power of the purse and we can raise our voices with our consumer choices through a joined and organized fashion boycott against those corporations.
What is a boycott?
A boycott is a non-violent form of protest against a product, person or organization. It is an abstention of consuming their products for moral, social or political reasons.
In order for a boycott to have a significant impact on big corporations it must be planned and executed not just in a short period of time but as a permanent lifestyle of consumption. Think about your grocery runs, your go-to bookstores and coffee shops. It is about creating permanent habits to transition away from those companies that no longer reflect values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
A boycott may not have an immediate impact on corporations, but there has been a big momentum on social media and encouragement to form coalitions and bring people together to switch consumer habits and focus on supporting those businesses that support underrepresented and marginalized communities.
Here are some good first steps to initiate your boycott journey:
Unsubscribe from their email list.
Buy Black brands from them online (and nothing else). (Target has a rich variety of Black owned brands that don’t deserve to be punished.
Unfollow on social media
Do not click their online ads
Do not visit their physical stores
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