Is This World Going Mad? Google Calendar Axes Diversity Events

At first, we thought it was a deepfake—we just decided to react only now because it sounded too unreal. But here we are: Google’s online and mobile calendars have axed key cultural events like Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Pride Month for 2025. And it’s so fucking true!

For years, Google Calendar has been more than just a tool for scheduling; it was a subtle nod to the diversity of our global community. Marking the start of Black History Month in February and Pride Month in June, these dates were once automatic reminders of cultural identity and resistance. Now, thanks to a new decision by the tech giant, these essential moments are nowhere to be found. According to reports from The Verge, Google has scrapped these manually added cultural events, citing sustainability issues.

A spokesperson for Google, Madison Cushman Veld, explained that the Calendar team had been manually adding a broader set of cultural moments to cater to feedback from users around the world. However, maintaining hundreds of such events consistently across different regions wasn’t scalable. So in mid-2024, Google decided to revert to displaying only public holidays and national observances sourced from timeanddate.com. This means that if you want to celebrate Pride, Black History, or Indigenous Peoples’ Month, you’re on your own—you’ll have to add them manually.

This move isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes on the heels of a growing list of actions by Google that seem to roll back its previous commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Remember the recent changes? Users in the US are now seeing the Gulf of Mexico renamed as the “Gulf of America” and Alaska’s Denali reverting to “Mount McKinley,” decisions reportedly influenced by executive orders from Donald Trump. These aren’t isolated tweaks—they’re part of a broader trend where major tech firms are rethinking, and in some cases retracting, their diversity initiatives.

For many, these cultural markers are more than just dates on a calendar. They are affirmations of identity, a recognition of struggles, and a celebration of progress. The removal of these events feels like yet another erasure of history—a dismissal of the very communities that have fought so hard for recognition. Social media is buzzing with disappointment and frustration. If our digital calendars, which shape our daily lives, can be sanitized so effortlessly, what does that say about the state of our world? Is this world going mad?

Google insists that these calendar changes won’t affect future Google Doodles, which continue to celebrate cultural moments with creative digital art. And yes, YouTube Music is still curating a Black History Month playlist. But for many, these gestures aren’t enough. The automatic presence of these events in a tool as ubiquitous as Google Calendar isn’t just convenient—it’s a daily reminder that diverse histories and identities matter.

We’re at a crossroads where tech companies are choosing between scalability and genuine representation. The question remains: Can efficiency trump inclusion? When a platform as influential as Google deems cultural diversity “unsustainable,” it sends a chilling message. It forces us to ask ourselves—if our calendars are being stripped of these essential events, what else might we lose?

At ket.brussels, we refuse to sit silently by as our digital spaces become stripped of the cultural markers that define us.