Target’s DEI cuts have Black entrepreneurs saying ‘clear the shelves’
Owners of brands that the big-box retailer championed before it rolled back DEI efforts say a boycott would harm their brands, and encouraged customers to support them.
Chantel Powell remembers the day her 6-year-old son, Kameron, came home from summer camp smelling “like a man.” It was July 2017, the kind of sticky, airless heat that made deodorant essential — but none of the options on the market seemed safe enough for her child, nor appealing enough to make him want to use them. In her kitchen, Powell improvised: baking soda, cornstarch, coconut oil and a few drops of citrus essential oil. She swiped the concoction under Kameron’s arms and sent him back to camp.
The next afternoon, he ran into the house beaming: “Mom, I told all the kids about your deodorant. You have to make it for everybody.”
By 2018, she had launched Play Pits, a line of natural deodorants designed for kids. She would go into Target and place her product on the shelves of the personal-care aisle to imagine something bigger for her brand. What began as a grassroots effort — selling at markets and salons — eventually did catch the attention of a Target buyer scrolling her website. In March 2022, Play Pits landed on shelves in 296 Target stores, an unprecedented feat for a Black-woman-owned business of its size.
“My competition is Unilever, Procter & Gamble — big conglomerates,” Powell told the Washington Post. “To see my product in Target stores was a milestone.”
But now, that hard-won success feels tenuous. Target recently announced plans to scale back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, including its three-year racial equity goals aimed at improving opportunities for Black-owned businesses and suppliers. The retailer, which once championed programs to diversify its shelves, has joined a growing list of corporate giants — Meta, Walmart, McDonald’s — that are retreating from DEI commitments.
The backlash was immediate and visceral. Social media lit up with calls to boycott Target, with Black consumers leading the charge. Yet Powell and other Black owners of brands featured in Target stores are urging customers to “clear the shelves” and keep buying their products at Target. A boycott, they warn, could jeopardize their livelihoods.
“If our core customer base stops supporting us at Target,” Powell said, “our businesses might not survive.”
Emmy-winning actress and vegan lifestyle creator Tabitha Brown, whose partnership with Target spans collections from swimwear to food, took to Instagram recently with a plea to her 4 million followers. “Don’t let them erase us,” she said, addressing the financial strain Black brands face in retail. “Let’s not give them what they want. Don’t let them take us off shelves.”
Her words echoed across the Black entrepreneurial community. The Doux, a natural hair-care line, posted on Instagram that buying directly on a brand’s website “might sound supportive, but it can unintentionally hurt businesses that have invested heavily in retail partnerships. … The best way to support The Doux right now is to CLEAR THE SHELVES.”
Through Target’s DEI programs, the retailer offered better shelf placement, discounted promotional opportunities, and faster payouts — crucial benefits in an industry where companies must front the cost of inventory before seeing a dime.
“Big-box retailers are a predictable revenue stream,” Powell said. “Online, I might make $2,000 one day and $200 the next. But with Target, I have a consistent flow of income. It’s also a convenient opportunity for my customers to shop my products. For moms, convenience is key.”
Powell fears the ripple effects of Target’s decision to scale back DEI programs will devastate her 15 employees, most of whom are mothers. “It’s frustrating. Corporations jumped on the bandwagon to support Black businesses when it was trendy. Now that it’s easier to discard us, that’s what they’re doing,” she said.
Shontay Lundy, founder of Black Girl Sunscreen, knows the stakes well. Her company became the first sunscreen brand owned by a Black woman to secure year-round shelf space at Target in 2019, an achievement that helped her grow her 25-person, mostly Black female staff in Los Angeles. She steered her customers to buy at Target over her own website.
Although BGS is not part of any Target DEI initiatives, Lundy believes the Target announcement will impact her business.
“When you think about boycotting, you’re affecting many, many lives,” Lundy said, noting that alternatives such as Costco, which is doubling down on its DEI commitments, aren’t viable for most Black-owned businesses because of the sheer scale of inventory required. “If you can’t survive in Target, you can’t survive in Costco.”
For Black entrepreneurs and Black women, 2024 was a grueling year, she said. “It feels like we can’t catch a break,” Lundy said. “But we have to stay grounded and not be reactive.”
Pernell Cezar, cofounder of BLK & Bold Specialty Beverages, urged consumers to stay focused on the bigger picture. “If you’re going to support Black businesses, you need to hold yourself accountable to that cause,” he said. “It takes more than one level of disruption to stop any of our progress. But it’s hard to make progress when we feel deterred.”
BLK & Bold, known for its sustainably sourced coffees and teas, is stocked in 1,500 Target stores. “Black entrepreneurs are cutting our teeth in ways we haven’t experienced before,” Cezar said. “This is another part of that journey. There’s a huge importance in Black entrepreneurs being respected by the systems we partner with as well as by consumers. I don’t want us to get lost amongst each other.”
For Son-ja Haile, the founder of Satya + Sage, Target was a lifeline. Her candles have been sold on Target.com since 2021. Over the weekend, her sales doubled — an apparent surge of support for Black-owned brands after Target’s decision. But the cost of maintaining her presence online has been steep. “It costs thousands of dollars, like five figures, to run a two-week ad on Target,” she said. One of Target’s DEI programs helped make that expense manageable.
“If the program is taken away, will my products still be sold online? Will they drop me?” she wondered. “I really hoped to get my products in store.”