Content warning: transphobia.
Welcome back to another episode of “what inane thing are conservatives frothing at the mouths about today?”
It seems like our country’s best and brightest brain-worm hosts are up in arms because the fast-food chicken restaurant Chick-Fil-A did the extremely basic task of hiring a Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. And that fact alone has set a whole lot of conservatives ablaze.
Now, I know you, a reasonable person, are reading this and thinking to yourself, “Wait, a multi-billion dollar company hired a position akin to a head of an HR department and they’re mad about it?” And to answer that question, yes, of course they’re mad! Fox News and conservative internet personas have made it impossible for a lot of people in this country to be able to see the word “diversity” without bursting into flames or tears, whichever comes first.
But trust me, somehow, it gets worse. And so, so much dumber.
Chick-Fil-A backlash to absolutely nothing
According to the company’s website, Chick-Fil-A’s new Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Erick McReynolds, is committed to “ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business. These tenets are good business practice and crucial to fulfilling our Corporate Purpose.” It truly seems like McReynolds’ entire job will be to make sure the restaurant chain is a pleasant place for their workers and customers, which I think is the baseline for any company to do.
But, as if on cue, conservative political strategist Joey Mannarino tweeted out a response to the hiring writing, “We have a problem. Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?” This response on its own would be enough to make anyone roll their eyes and consider Mannarino to be just another right-wing grifter hack, but it was a follow-up tweet that made me and many others go, “Huh?!”
“It’s only a matter of time until they start putting t***** semen in the frosted lemonade at this point,” Mannarino wrote, completely nonsensically.
I wish I could’ve recorded my reaction to reading that statement that Mannarino made TO HIS PUBLIC TWITTER for the world to see. How rotted could your brain be to think diversity = semen being put into food? It’s a level of stupidity that is both baffling and a bit impressive because who thinks like this?!
Naturally, many people on Twitter started rightfully clowning on Mannarino and others who agreed with him because this entire situation is stupid for so many reasons. One of the biggest is because Chick-Fil-A has been a darling of the far-right since they’ve donated to anti-LGBTQ charities for years. But, it doesn’t matter that they’ve been huge bigots for decades, as soon as conservatives think you went “woke,” they’re ready to burn your business and life to the ground.
Below are some of the best responses to the absolute buffoonery happening on the timeline right now:
Once again, people like Mannarino have proven that they will absolutely crumble in the face of anything challenging their fantasy of a strictly straight, cis, white, Christian existence. Anything that hints at a world outside of that bubble—even if it has nothing to do with them!—is “woke propaganda” that needs to be stopped. I would say that these people need jobs, but this is a job for them! Being a bigot is a 24/7, 365 position that gives you the benefit of losing your friends and family and becoming Twitter’s laughingstock of the day.
(featured image: NBC)
