The Dictatorship

Target’s new smile policy disrespects its employees — and the shoppers who left

Published

8 months ago

November 13, 2025

Target’s new smile policy disrespects its employees — and the shoppers who left

Target, the retail store giant, which had enjoyed a favored status among Black shoppers because of its practice of helping advance the careers of Black entrepreneurs, has been largely avoided by Black shoppers this year after announcing that it was ending its vaunted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Now that its shares have plummeted more than 30% year to date, what is the beleaguered brand doing? Ordering its employees to smile.

You laugh, but the musicians kept playing while the Titanic sank, right?

How embarrassing for a company named “Target” to miss the mark so badly.

USA TODAYafter speaking to Target brass Monday, reported that the store’s new 10-4 policy “requires employees who are within 10 feet of customers to smile, make eye contact, wave, and use friendly, approachable, and welcoming body language” and employees within 4 feet of customers “must personally greet the guests, smile, and initiate a warm, helpful interaction.”

“We know when our guests are greeted, feel welcomed and get the help they need that translates to guest love and loyalty,” Adrienne Costanzo, Target’s executive vice president and chief stores officer told the newspaper in a statement.

How embarrassing for a company named “Target” to miss the mark so badly. The Minneapolis-based retailer isn’t suffering lower sales because its employees have a reputation for being rude or unhelpful to customers. Sales are suffering, at least in large part, because the company disrespected a significant portion of its customer base. “Until you do right by me,” Celie tells Mister at the end of the movie “The Color Purple,” “everything you even think about gonna fail.”

Before he stepped aside in the summer, then-Target CEO Brian Cornell penned an op-ed for Essence Magazine, in which he claimed, “This year, we will complete our commitment to invest $2 billion in Black-owned businessesmore than doubling the number of Black-owned brands on our shelves. Through our Accelerator program, we’ve supported more than 500 entrepreneurs, helping them scale and succeed in retail.” Cornell also wrote that Target was “completing our $100 million investment in Black-led community organizations.”

But the person who spearheaded the Target boycott — the Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of Georgia’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church — told PBS that Target hadn’t provided any documentation to support its claims and that it would “continue to hemorrhage” if it didn’t. Between January, when Target announced that it was ending its DEI policies, and the Aug. 22 publication of that PBS interview, Target’s stock price had fallen 28%. Since Bryant’s prediction that Target would “continue to hemorrhage,” the stock price has fallen another 7%.

The likelihood that the smile policy won’t stanch Target’s bleeding out, isn’t the biggest problem.

But the likelihood that the smile policy won’t stanch Target’s bleeding out isn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that when Target employees aren’t happy, their employer will be forcing them to project happiness — and giving certain meddlesome customers a new reason to tattle on employees who don’t smile.

“When a customer is unhappy, it really makes your heart race, that was my experience,” Allison Wiltz told me Wednesday. She’s a psychology Ph.D. and freelance journalist who previously worked as a server, as a bartender and as a manager in restaurants. “There are some people who can be a little mean to service workers, and so it does kind of give the customer another tool to say, ‘Well, you know what? I’m about to make your day even worse.’”

In an op-ed Wiltz wrote in 2022, “”https://momentum.medium.com/why-you-should-never-make-black-employees-smile-at-white-customers-20875b7cc889″>Never Make Black Employees Smile At White Customers,” addresses a history of Black employees being forced to smilingly absorb racist abuse. She also points out in that piece the sexist expectation, particularly from men, that women smile at work.

During our conversation Wednesday, Wiltz pointed out that a 2019 report from the National Center for Health Statistics found that in 2019, “18.5% of adults had symptoms of depression that were either mild, moderate, or severe in the past 2 weeks.” Wiltz is right when she says, “They shouldn’t lose the ability to make money or provide for themselves or their families just because they can’t muster up a smile.”

Also in 2019, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published a paper called “Perceiving happiness in an intergroup context,” which Wiltz summarized as finding that “white people struggle to identify genuine smiles on Black people’s faces.” A consequence of Target’s new policy, then, could be, Wiltz said, that “white managers may actually think that a Black person isn’t trying to be genuine and smile when they really are.”

Neither customers nor managers are wrong to appreciate good customer service, but mandating smiles isn’t the way to accomplish that.

“I had a friend cry before because of this,” Wiltz said. “She was working at the restaurant, and this woman was trying to make her smile.” As tears began to form in her friend’s eyes, Wiltz said, the customer continued to complain, “She’s not smiling at me!”

“I said, ‘Ma’am, has she done anything wrong? Has she brought you everything you need? Did she say anything disrespectful?’”

The woman couldn’t point to any problems with the service. “And I said, ‘We’re just gonna have to let it go. I’ll wait on you from here on, but I’m not about to make her smile.’”

Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for BLN Daily. He was previously editor-in-chief at the Louisiana Illuminator and a columnist and deputy opinion editor at The Times-Picayune.

The Dictatorship

California voters to decide billionaire tax measure in November

Published

8 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

California voters to decide billionaire tax measure in November

Jun. 25, 2026, 10:25 PM EDT

California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.

The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.

“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.

A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.

“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.

Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”

“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.

Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.

Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.

California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.

The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.

The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.

But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.

The Dictatorship

Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte’s first week as intel chief

Published

8 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte’s first week as intel chief

Jun. 25, 2026, 7:15 PM EDT

Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.

What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.

One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.

In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”

And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.

“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”

But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.

They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.

“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.

He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”

“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.

“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”

The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.

But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.

“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”

That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.

Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.

One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.

One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.

“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.

The Dictatorship

Barack Obama says Trump gives him a ‘room in his head’

Published

8 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Barack Obama says Trump gives him a ‘room in his head’

Jun. 25, 2026, 5:37 PM EDT

Former President Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for obsessing over him while serving in the nation’s highest office.

“I obviously, you know, have a room in his head. A suite in his head,” Obama said an an episode of the podcast “All The Smoke,” posted Wednesday.

“Look, first of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said, or what my predecessor did,” Obama told the two hosts, former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”

Trump has a long history of publicly insulting the former president, often invoking Obama’s middle name, Hussein.

Trump has also heavily promoted the false and racist “birther” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born in Kenya rather than the United States.

Earlier this year, Trump drew criticism after sharing a racist artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social account depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The video was later deleted, and Trump did not apologize.

Before launching the war against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28, Trump repeatedly criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 diplomatic agreement primarily negotiated by Obama that also limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for sweeping economic sanctions relief.

More recently, Trump trashed the newly debuted Obama Presidential Center in Chicago as a “very unattractive building” and “total disaster,” adding that when his presidential library opens, it will be “on time, on budget, best location in Miami.”

Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama criticized leaders who fixate on their predecessors, characterizing their priorities as misplaced.

“If you’re doing the job right, everyday, you’ve got five, ten things that are real hard. And you have to be constantly focused,” Obama said.

“The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure, ‘What’s he done today?’ Constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who’s not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”

Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.