McDonald’s Wanted Us To Have Sex With Their Cheeseburgers

Why DEI is important in advertising and marketing

Photo of a cheeseburger, Benoît Prieur, CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, via Wikimedia Commons

During the “racial reckoning” in 2020, many major U.S. corporations put diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in place, promising to create workplaces that reflect what the U.S. is — a multiracial, multicultural country. These DEI policies are what conservatives have been whining about recently, but their complaints are not new. They started wailing about DEI when it emerged from affirmative action in the 1960s. They have worked decades to do away with affirmative action and DEI policies. Unfortunately, they were successful in 2023 when the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in colleges.

Now, prompted by Donald Trump’s win for the presidency, companies are eliminating DEI policies, citing the 2023 affirmative action ruling. Trump has the magical ability to turn individuals and entire corporations into invertebrates — enacting DEI initiatives in a country built on white supremacy takes courage, especially when white nationalism is invading the country. But these corporations decided to break the promises made in 2020, bowing down to the white supremacy that was exposed in that year.

Corporations only stand to lose by ending their DEI initiatives. They will miss out on talented, intelligent, hardworking…