America is at an ultimate Catch-22 right now. The more that companies, especially large corporations, snivel and knuckle under to Donald Trump, the worse he will make things. That’s the way bullies work. They only stand down when you tell them that you’re calling their bluff and you’re not afraid. But right now major companies like Amazon and Verizon are saying the dead opposite and cutting funding for Juneteenth celebrations.
Amazon, Verizon, and other major corporations have ended or reduced their support for Juneteenth celebrations this year, forcing events in major cities to be significantly scaled back, a Popular Information investigation reveals.
The corporate retreat appears to be related to the Trump administration’s demand that corporations end their support for programs related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). This pressure campaign has extended to any activity that recognizes the reality of racism in American history.
In Denver, the annual Juneteenth Music Festival was cut from two days to one day due to “a sharp decline in corporate sponsorships,” the Denver Post reported. The organizers of Denver’s celebration “declined to share the list of 2024 sponsors who are not returning for 2025” with the Denver Post.
But an archived version of the festival website reveals that Verizon, a “Silver” sponsor of the 2024 event, was not listed as a sponsor this year.
Last month, Verizon told Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr that the company was “ending its DEI-related policies…effective immediately.” It was part of Verizon’s effort to win approval from the FCC to acquire Frontier Communications, a broadband technology company, for $20 billion. Among other things, Verizon agreed to end “workforce diversity goals” and remove its “‘Diversity and Inclusion’ website.” The gambit appears to have worked. The day after Verizon sent the letter, the FCC approved the merger. In a release, the FCC said its approval of the acquisition “Ensures that Discriminatory DEI Policies End.”
Verizon also ended its financial support for the Juneteenth In The Streets Festival in Santa Clara County, California, according to an archived version of the festival’s website.
In 2020, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said the company “is fiercely committed to diversity and inclusion across all spectrums because it makes us and the world better.” (That statement has been erased from Verizon’s corporate website.) In 2022, the Verizon corporate website encouraged customers to “Go big or go home this Juneteenth.” Now, the company is unwilling to make even a small financial contribution to celebrate the end of slavery. Verizon did not respond to a request for comment.
Chevron, a Gold sponsor of Denver’s 2024 Juneteenth Music Festival, is also not sponsoring the event at all this year. Unlike Verizon, Chevron has not publicly renounced its diversity programs. Chevron, however, is the only American fossil fuel company permitted by the federal government to operate in Venezuela. CEO Mike Wirth has personally lobbied President Trump at the White House to maintain that status. The company did not respond to an inquiry as to why it ended its financial support for Denver’s Juneteenth celebration.
We can tell them. It’s because of this obsession with DEI. This is a right-wing backlash at a day and age in America when it was politically correct to endorse other cultures, the melting pot that does in fact make America great, not Trump’s MAGA blather. Juneteenth in particular, puts a focus on the horrors of slavery, but we live in an age where people like Ron DeSantis equate slavery as a trade school with room and board. It’s shocking that these corporations are knuckling under to Trump but it’s not surprising.
Yet these phucking money worshipping hypocrites aren’t REALLY against DEI. If they were, they would be overthrowing orangebob shitpants and ALL the incompetent traitors he has appointed. Like firing competent military commanders who worked their way up by honoring their military careers, while appointing a drunk woman abuser who was a Fox commentator. Don’t get in my face with your hypocrisy. I might be tempted to slap the expensive veneers off your teeth. May all your Leer jets smack into mountains assholes. Even if EVERYONE white in America was heartfelt sorry about our history of slavery, and WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW, nothing undoes 400 years of cruelty. Instead…America you elected a racist, a rapist, a thief, a traitor, a con man, and maybe the stupidest human on earth. Who needs Hell in the afterlife? It’s here.