Tabitha Brown, Melissa Butler Break Silence On Boycotting Amid DEI Rollback At Target, Walmart, And More

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Target, Walmart, Amazon, and other major retailers chose to roll back their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiates per Trump’s executive order. This led to several Black-owned business owners who have product or partnerships with these corporations to speak out about the dangers of boycotting.

Tabitha Brown‘s initial statement was silent but powerful. She captioned the response by affirming, “I said what I said.” Her second response was more direct and geared towards those who didn’t pick up what she was putting down the first time.

In a nearly 10-minute video shared on her Instagram on Saturday (Jan. 25), Brown expressed, “As disheartening as it is for me, I’m not the only one affected by this. It’s for everyone who is a woman-owned business, minority-owned business, and Black-owned business. It’s for so many of us who have worked so very hard to be placed into retail—to finally be seen and [have] a proof of retail because, contrary to whatever the world might tell you, it has been very hard for Black-owned businesses to hit shelves. Which is why it’s such a big deal when we do, and finally land inside of retail. So, it is definitely heartbreaking to feel unsupported.”

While she understands why people are flocking to boycott these retailers, she noted that those most affected by this will be the aforementioned entrepreneurs who sell products in these stores.

“Our sales would drop and our businesses would be hurt,” Brown stated. “And if any of you know business, it doesn’t just happen overnight—where you can just go take all your stuff and pull it off the shelves. There’s a process. And then, where are you gonna put it? You gotta have a place to store it, and that’s money. Then, you gotta have another place to sell it. Which is almost impossible sometimes. And even if you sell online, it’s a process when it comes to business. And everyone does not have the funds or the means or the availability or the space to house their own products.”

Brown did speak on her top concern. “If we all decide to stop supporting said businesses and say, ‘I can’t buy nothing from there,’ then, those companies get to say, ‘Oh, your products are not performing,’ and they can remove them from the shelves and then put their preferred businesses on the shelves. And then what happens to all the businesses who’ve worked so hard to get where they are? Then, what happens?”

An alternate solution she shared was for us to take ownership of these larger corporations, but admitted, “It’s a long way to go.”

Two other business owners who responded to the DEI rollback were The Lip Bar founder Melissa Butler and Culture Brands CEO Eunique Jones-Gibson.

Butler’s brand is the “largest Black-owned makeup company in Target” and though she’s “disappointed,” Butler said she isn’t “surprised.” She believes that commitments like the DEI programs announced in 2020 were something that many corporations didn’t actually want to do, so Trump is only “emboldening them.”

She also noted that since she’s been in Target (which started in 2017), she witnessed eight brands get kicked out due to low performance.

Jones-Gibson confessed that it’s all felt like “one big UNO reverse right before yelling UNO,” adding, “It’s frustrating, though not surprising, because… WTTTY [we tried to tell you].”

When speaking about a potential boycott and some criticism Brown faced, Jones-Gibson said, “Looking at the Target boycott convo & I get it. But telling Tabitha Brown to cancel her contract or suggesting that the Black owned brands in stores can do better w/a shift to buying direct from their websites vs in major retail is insane. Not only b/c of the accessibility, awareness & volume being on shelves brings but… Black business owners know all too well, when you’re selling online, the switch up from ‘support Black businesses’ to ‘this is why I don’t support Black businesses’ is SWIFT.”

The Culture Tags creator did note that “we should be intentional with our dollars while being cognizant of the unintentional harm we may cause by completely withdrawing support from the brands still on shelves in those stores.” She also urged people to “be okay w/WAITING a moment before jumping to conclusions” and reminding them that we aren’t quite ready to “boycott every time racism racisms.”

Target announced on Friday (Jan. 24) that it is ceasing its DEI programs as Trump told federal agencies to end their programs and urged private business to follow suit.

Target’s DEI goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups—including but not limited to the LGBTQ+ community, veterans, and people with disabilities—as well as recruiting more diverse suppliers.

Of the rollback, Kiera Fernandez, Target’s Chief Community Impact and Equity Officer, said in a statement, “Many years of data, insights, listening, and learning have been shaping this next chapter in our strategy. And as a retailer that serves millions of consumers every day, we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape, now and in the future.”

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