Black-Owned Businesses Resist Boycott Calls After Target’s DEI Retreat

Though the number of U.S. companies discontinuing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies has grown steadily over the past year, few have drawn as much criticism as Target, which announced its own pullback last week. Yet in response to subsequent calls from critics to boycott the retailer, many Black entrepreneurs are urging DEI backers to instead continue shopping at the chain. They argue that doing so is best way to support minority-owned businesses like their own that may otherwise lose hard-won space with the giant retailer.

Minneapolis-headquartered Target said it would end the DEI policies it adopted in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in its home city, as countless companies moved to address unequal treatment of minorities and under-represented groups in society and business. That renunciation followed similar decisions by McDonald’s, Amazon, Meta, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson, Ford, Molson Coors, Walmart, and others, amid public pressure campaigns waged by conservative activists. Target’s January 24 announcement also came in the wake of President Trump’s issuing executive orders on the very first day of his term that banned DEI measures in federal agencies, and demanded that contractors and even entirely independent private companies be scrutinized for compliance.

Despite that broadening movement, Target’s decision generated particularly strong condemnation. The reason? The company had long placed DEI at the center of its recruitment, promotion, supplier, partnership, and communications activities. Among those were the goals it set to do $2 billion in business with Black-owned businesses and sell more than 500 Black-owned brands in its stores by 2025. Indeed, prior to conservative offensives picking up speed and force, Target CEO Brian Cornell declared the “focus on diversity and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth.”

The abrupt abandonment of its DEI program therefore sparked particularly passionate reaction from LGTBQ+ organizations in Minneapolis, along with calls from progressive groups to boycott the chain.

In response, many Black entrepreneurs, founders, and company owners have urged consumers to reconsider calls to shun the retailer. The best way to express support of DEI, they say, is to replicate Target’s discontinued policy of supporting Black businesses that often wage uphill battles to win space on larger retailers’ shelves.

“We have worked so hard and spent so much to be here—and we need your support to be successful in retail so we can scale,” said 11-year-old Zoe Oli, the founder and CEO of Beautiful Curly Me, whose dolls Target sells. Oli’s Instagram post also asked people to continue backing other Black-owned businesses facing the same situation as her own.

“The news from Target and others is sad, frustrating and so disheartening but please let’s rally together and be intentional with what we purchase at these retailers,” she said, calling continued sales essential to maintain a presence in the chain. “Numbers do not lie. Our sales performance is what will help us grow and expand. Our voices matter and we belong on the shelf just like those other multimillion-dollar brands.”

The Lip Bar founder and CEO Melissa Butler echoed the sentiment. She said it not only often takes smaller, minority-owned companies longer to persuade big retailers to carry their goods, but that those products are often the first pulled from stores if they don’t turn significant numbers.

Purchasing her products on the company’s site is great, Butler noted, but it doesn’t help support the Lip Bar’s continued retail presence. Because even as the largest Black-owned makeup company the chain carries, she noted, “if our customers boycott Target, they are impacting us … [and] by not shopping in these stores, you are also impacting the hundreds of Black-owned businesses.”

Emmy Award-winning actress and serial entrepreneur Tabitha Brown concurred, adding that in addition to costing Black product makers sales, a boycott would also likely provoke the return of their goods from Target—generating additional transportation and storage costs.

 At the same time, Brown noted that she sells her seasonings, swimwear, home goods, cookware, and other products at Amazon and Walmart as well as Target—all of which have now backed off their DEI policies. The logic of boycotting one of those retailers extends to them all, she said, which would result in a dramatic loss of business for many underrepresented entrepreneurs.

“It’s for everyone who is a woman-owned business, minority-owned business, and Black-owned business,” Brown said on Instagram. “It’s for so many of us who have worked so very hard to be placed into retail—to finally be seen … because, contrary to whatever the world might tell you, it has been very hard for Black-owned businesses to hit shelves.”

To be sure, Brown and other Black founders said they share the disappointment and anger at Target and other chains for ending their DEI programs, and understand the reasoning behind the boycott response. But she stressed consumers can also express their displeasure by focusing their spending on companies whose products could vanish from retailer shelves otherwise

“It’s such a big deal when we do and finally land inside of retail,” Brown said, urging people to step into the beneficial DEI role that companies are now abandoning. “It is definitely heartbreaking to feel unsupported.”