Chick-fil-A Has Been Going Woke for a Long Time

Chick-fil-A CEO Cathy cleans a black man’s shoes to show repentance for supposed white racism in 2020

“Chick-fil-A, Inc.'s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.” —Chick-fil-A website

Chick-fil-A has chickened out and is all in on woke DEI or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Those of us who paid attention to how the company donated to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in 2017, and to what the CEO did/said in 2020 to support radical leftist race narratives, are glad the rest of the world is catching up to us in an understanding of how the once traditional Christian company has changed.

Chick-fil-A isn’t the company it once was—but that didn’t suddenly happen in 2023. It’s been a gradual process. It’s nice, and even praiseworthy, that Chick-fil-A still closes on Sundays and that its restaurants are often positive working environments for Christians, but the company itself is hypocritical and has been for a while. Maybe my fellow conservatives will finally understand that. It’s time we stopped being duped by a company masquerading as devoutly Christian while undermining traditional Christian values with woke leftist race-baiting.

The Federalist reported in 2019, “According to the Chick-fil-A Foundation’s 2017 IRS 990 form, the fast-food corporation gave $2,500 to the [anti-Christian] SPLC which deemed the restaurant a ‘hate group’…It was the SPLC that motivated a terrorist shooter in 2012 to launch an assault on the Family Research Council [FRC].” At the time, FRC president Tony Perkins said, “Not only has Chick-fil-A abandoned donations to Christian groups including the Salvation Army, it has donated to one of the most extreme anti-Christian groups in America.” Also in 2019, Chick-fil-A backed away from donating to causes deemed “anti-gay.” SPLC labels any entity that isn’t zealously pro-LGBTQ as an “anti-gay” hate group, even churches.

Then, in 2020, “Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy recently shined the shoes of a Black man on stage to make a point about fighting racism and repenting…[Cathy] said that the world needs to have a sense of shame, embarrassment, and ‘an apologetic heart.’” Fox News also reported, “White Christians should repent for racism and fight for their black brothers and sisters, Chick-fil-A's CEO urged.”

So now Chick-fil-A has a DEI page on its website to tout its wokeness. The company has the hutzpah to head the page with the pious aspiration, “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.” Which somehow includes a commitment to a race-obsessed leftist philosophy?

The page quotes Erick McReynolds, Chick-fil-A’s VP of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, and states, “Chick-fil-A, Inc.'s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.” Everything it does.

It’s time for Christians to demand Chick-fil-A choose one side or the other. It shouldn’t be allowed to continue pretending it can align with both conservative Christians and radical, anti-Christian leftists. It’s one or the other.