As a State Representative, I normally get announcements from corporations regarding some aspect of their public policies that they believe I should know about and perhaps should pass along to my constituents. I think you should be aware of what I received from McDonald’s recently.
Here is the letter:
Good Morning:
I hope you are well! I am reaching out to share a McDonald’s supplier diversity announcement that went live yesterday.
Last year, McDonald’s shared an aspiration to use our global scale to accelerate overdue societal change in a meaningful way for the diverse communities in which we operate. At that time, we also shared a promise to drive progress in diversity, equity and inclusion – to better represent those communities, to accelerate cultures of inclusion and belonging, and to dismantle barriers to economic opportunity.
Now we’re proud to announce that McDonald’s and over 20 of our largest U.S.-based suppliers, took an important step forward by joining the company’s new Mutual Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (MCDEI). This pledge, which you can read more about here, invites companies that do business with McDonald’s to commit to being accountable to progress in their own business. While the pledge starts with our U.S.-based partners, the ambition is for full implementation across McDonald’s value chain by 2025.
McDonald’s has a rich history of supplier diversity dating back to the mid-1980s when we proactively addressed diversity in our supply chain for the first time. While our record on supplier diversity may be strong, we are excited by this next step that will drive even greater collaboration and intentionality.
McDonald’s USA is also committing to increase purchases from diverse-owned suppliers(1) by nearly 10% by 2025 representing approximately a quarter of our U.S. spend. With its commitment to increase spending, McDonald’s USA is building on its strong foundation with the 385 diverse-owned businesses from which we purchase goods and services today.
We know that working together, we will more closely and purposefully drive progress. When our suppliers join the MCDEI, they hold themselves accountable to goals like:
- Implementing an overall DEI strategy, including annual training for employees to be better DEI practitioners and leaders.
- Increasing overall representation and underrepresented talent in leadership and in staffing to the McDonald’s business as well as accelerating their use of diverse suppliers.
- Investing in innovation with new partnerships and programs designed to make a measurable difference in talent pipelines, succession planning, and in the communities where our suppliers operate.
- Creating a process for accountability to track progress, share regular updates and best practices on effective programs and measurement.
We commit to reporting annually on our progress and that of our signatories to learn from the variety of experiences, address gaps and scale progress. Our partners have nuanced DEI goals relevant to their priorities and functions, and our approach is designed to be highly tailored so we can provide support where it matters most.
We will continue to keep you updated as we embark on the phased rollout of the MCDEI and as we work to meet our diverse supplier spend goals. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me for further details.
Again, thank you for your continued support. Please feel free to share on your social channels.
Sincerely
Rachel Kaprielian (rachel.kaprielian@gov.mcdonalds.com)
U.S. Government Relations and Public Policy/New England
McDonald’s
(1) McDonald’s USA defines diverse-owned business as those owned by women and/or Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous, Veteran, LGBTQ+, and disabled persons.
My question back to Ms. Kaprielian was this: “So are you now implementing quotas based on race? Are you now making supplier choices based on race instead of quality and cost of supplies? That would be racist.”
This is where these corporations are headed. They are building a quota-based supply system that discriminates based on color and gender and sexual orientation. Forget about the quality, price, or reliability of supply products… we just need to know if the owner of the supply company fits a specific color, gender, or sexual preference. Competition be damned, they’d rather buy supplies based on the owner’s “personal criteria” rather than “product criteria”.
This is what you get with your burger and fries…. and a Coke that wants you to be “less white”.
McDonald’s says to a straight, white, male, potato farmer that his potatoes can go rot in the ground even if they are superior and less expensive than a farmer who has some sort of “diversity criteria” attached to them.
McDonald’s policies are totally racist, sexist, and prejudicial and they want their suppliers to promote that as well, by encouraging them to adopt their own DEI training and policies.
Their policy, which they claim is employed to “dismantle barriers to economic opportunity” doesn’t do that at all… in fact it creates barriers if you don’t fit their DEI criteria.
Their claim of “equity and inclusion” is total nonsense as it strives to exclude some people and give preference to others.
The utter hypocrisy should be plain to see and it is astonishing that they are giving themselves a pat on the back for being discriminatory.
Maybe it’s time to look at where you are spending your dollars, and maybe we start to seek out companies that do not consider skin color, gender, and any other “woke virtue signaling” criteria that are thrown at consumers.
Maybe it’s time to boycott these national brands that seek to cut out certain segments of society from participating in the marketplace as suppliers.
The irony is that while companies like McDonald’s are shunning a segment of society with their DEI policies, they certainly want them to drive up to their window and buy their products.
What if we just stopped doing that?
