Continuing to Target Target

I wrote to Target’s CEO last week and got back a form letter from Target Guest Relations!
by Charlie Leck

My personal boycott of Target Stores has continued. In these last few weeks, we’ve spent a few hundred dollars elsewhere that we would normally have spent at Target. Last week, I wanted to let Target’s CEO know just how much money I usually spent in Target Stores in a year’s period, so I wrote to him.

August 10, 2010

Mr. Greg Steinhafel, Chief Executive Officer
Target Corp
1000 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55403

Dear Mr. Steinhafel:

I have been shopping at Target Stores for years. My wife shops there. My grown children, because they always shopped with me at Target Stores when they were at home, also shop at Target. I’ve regularly bought gift cards there for special occasion gifts and for holiday gifts – dozens of them every year and not at small denominations. Recently bought a flat screen TV there. My wife likes to stop at the Waconia, Minnesota Target Store on her way home from work to pick up necessities.

I’ve stopped shopping at Target and I’ve asked my kids to do the same. My wife is hesitant, but I keep imploring her.

I consider it my money that you gave to Tom Emmer recently. Certainly, it was a share of my money.

Tom Emmer lives out here near us. He’s not a good person even though he professes to be a Bible toting Christian. He doesn’t pay his bills and he speaks with a forked tongue.

My father was a retailer all his life. He always felt that those in retail businesses should be very personal and quiet about their politics. He was right, of course. Target should follow my father’s example.

I’ll resume shopping at Target only when you ask for that $150,000 contribution back. You’re not going to get any more of my money to give away to politicians of either party.

Sincerely,

Charles H. Leck

Somehow, and for some reason, I got two exactly duplicate letters back from Ana, in Target’s Guest Services Department. They were form letters, sitting there and ready to go as a way of answering letters such as mine. The letter didn’t deal with the subject of my letter at all – that Target was using my money to make political contributions. It dealt instead with the question of respecting sexual preferences and basic human rights.

“At Target, we are fully committed to fostering an environment that supports and respects the rights and beliefs of all individuals.”

This wasn’t good enough for me. I want to hear from Greg Steinhafel himself. Maybe he could forego his round of golf this week in order to take the time to write to me.

DON’T SHOP AT TARGET! Corporations shouldn’t meddle in politics no matter what the current Supreme Court says.

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