Target previously funded an organization that pushes for the demilitarization of the U.S. military and advocates for shutting down Mt. Rushmore, the retail giant’s webpage shows.
Target used its nonprofit foundation, the Target Foundation, to fund NDN Collective in 2022, according to the foundation’s official webpage. NDN Collective seeks to close Mt. Rushmore because it is a “symbol of white supremacy,” NDN President and CEO Nick Tilsen said in a July 2020 press release. The organization has also pushed to demilitarize the U.S. military “for the violence, destruction and negative impacts that U.S. imperialism has had on our lifeways,” Tilsen said in a separate press release.
NDN Collective insisted the “sacred Paha Sapa (Black Hills) to be returned to the Lakota people” when it called for the closure of Mt. Rushmore in 2020.
“Mount Rushmore is on stolen Lakota land and its very existence is a symbol of white supremacy,” Tilsen said. “In opposing the ongoing desecration of our sacred land and asking for return of Lakota lands where Mount Rushmore is situated, we’re not saying anything that our parents, grandparents and great grandparents haven’t already said – The Lakota have opposed Mount Rushmore since the very beginning.”
Fireworks explode above the Mount Rushmore National Monument during an Independence Day event attended by the US president in Keystone, South Dakota, July 3, 2020. (SAUL LOEB / AFP) (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The Target Foundation has also funded a grantee that says parents must teach their white children to “see color” and argues capitalism helps promote racism, according to Fox News. The outlet did not name the alleged grantee. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Nehls Rips Target, Calls On Retailer To Remove All LGBT Merchandise For Children)
Meanwhile, the corporate giant has worked to “accelerate” its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) funding following the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020.
Diversity Chief Kiera Fernandez has demanded “white women” get to work to fight systemic racism, the New York Post reported.
Target pulled some Pride month items from its stores in the wake of significant backlash over some products, including baby clothes with LGBT themes. The retail giant has lost roughly $10 billion from its market cap since the pushback began.
Target and Kohl’s have also both made sizable donations to GLSEN, an LGBT activist group that promotes gender ideology and child gender transitions in schools.