November 28, 2025 • 58 mins
Many people know about the call to boycott Target, but don't understand why Target has been specifically singled out. So we're re-airing this interview to help get everyone on the same page.
In 2020, Target loudly pledged to support Black creators and communities. Target spotlighted their products, and made headlines with its public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was great PR for Target. But now, those promises look like little more than PR spin.
Black creators and vendors who once collaborated with the brand say they weren’t just abandoned — they were exploited. From one-sided partnerships to pay-to-play marketing schemes, this episode investigates how a major corporation cashed in on the racial justice movement… and then just walked away.
We speak to Kiara Imani, a former Target vendor who is one of the Black entrepreneurs now speaking out. She was originally thrilled when a game she designed, "LikeU Cards," was included in Target's collection, only to quickly realize she was caught up in a pay-to-play scheme that was more about Target's PR than actually selling her product.
She's also an attorney and author of the book Therapy Isn’t Just For White People. She explains what went down, what she was promised versus what she actually got, and unpacks the backlash, the boycott, and why some former Target collaborators are now calling it what it really was all along: a scam.
Kiara’s TikTok about Target: https://www.tiktok.com/@kiara_imani_will/video/7481347076442606894
Buy Kiara book Therapy Isn’t Just For White People: https://www.mahoganybooks.com/9781735145884
Check out LikeU cards: https://likeucards.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqCZCnuFV-4u8l9PynC9x1nNFbC0DCrVv0_IYqoRsPTvnt-FEX5
If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there or email us at hello@tangoti.com!
Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! Many vids each week.
instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/
youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridgett and this is
there Are No Girls on the Internet. Today is Black Friday,
traditionally the day where people line up at major retailers
chasing so called can't missdeals, but this year feels different.
(00:27):
Shoppers are pulling back and many are giving big box
stores some serious side eye. Enter the we Ain't Buying
a campaign, a coalition of anti Trump economic advocacy groups
urging consumers to boycott Amazon, Target, and Home Depot from
Thanksgiving Day, November twenty seven through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
(00:48):
Now this is especially interesting to me because you probably
already know that Target has been facing boycott since earlier
this year, and I keep seeing folks on social media ask, well,
what about Amazon? Why aren't people boycotting them too, to
which I'd say, one, a lot of folks are already
boycotting Amazon, and they should be if they can.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
And two.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Target just really is different because they have long positioned
themselves as this champion of diversity and inclusion, only to
backtrack in a dramatic offensive way. The moment that Trump
returned to political power. Earlier this year, I spoke with Kiara,
a former Target vendor, about her experience working with the company.
She explains why it felt different with Target because Target
(01:33):
was so loudly proclaiming their allyship. She also provides an
insider's view into why that allyship felt more like a
predatory scam, how quickly Target pivoted away from the Black
community when they thought they no longer needed us, and
why now is the time to be intentional about where
all of our dollars go.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Support without capital is counterfeit. It's not support, it's lip service.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
This is the story of a breakup, not between two people,
but between me and my favorite big box retailer, Target,
and I'm.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Not the only one.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
After George Floyd's murder back in twenty twenty, Target headquartered
in Minneapolis where his death took place, was one of
many companies that made big public commitments to racial equity.
They promised to support black communities, fun black creators, and
put black owned brands on their shelves. But in early
twenty twenty five, that all changed. Target quietly announced it
(02:35):
was walking back its DEI efforts, and for a lot
of us, that was a deal breaker. We started boycotting
because it felt like a betrayal. But here's the part
we didn't see. In the middle of that boycott, for
people like Kiara.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
My name is kiar Imani and you can call me Kiara,
my friends call me Kiki.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Black creators and entrepreneurs like Kiara had finally gotten a
chance to be on the shelf at Target, a big opportunity. Right,
Not quite. In today's episode, you're going to hear how
black creators who partnered with Target didn't just get screwed
by the store.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
They got low key scammed.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But first back to Kiara, it was against the backdrop
of the protest of twenty twenty that Kiara Amani, attorney
and author of the book Therapy Isn't Just for White People,
got the idea for like you cards.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It really was birthed out of a place of having
a lot of political turmoil in twenty twenty. There was
a depth of George Floyd. We were all at home.
People were having a hard time communicating and talking to
one another. One of the things that I found, very
specifically was that people would make a lot of assumptions
about what you believed, how you saw the world based
(03:46):
on who you were, your color, your gender, all these things.
And I found obviously people were frustrated because people have
differing opinions, and I know that that can be really stressful.
But what I really saw was people being fresh because
they felt misunderstood, like they don't see me, they don't
hear me, they don't understand why I'm so angry, they
(04:07):
don't understand why I'm so triggered. So the idea was
to create a card game that could help people feel seen, heard, understood.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Like a lot of companies in twenty twenty, it seemed
like Target was listening. That year, they launched the REACH
Initiative Racial Equity, Action and Change, promising to increase black representation,
support black team members, guests, and communities, and even advocate
on racial policy. That in twenty twenty one, they made
a bigger commitment to spend two billion dollars by the
end of twenty twenty five supporting black businesses and to
(04:39):
carry over five hundred black owned brands. They'd also be
launching Forward Founders, an equity free accelerator to help over
sixty black and diverse entrepreneurs scale into mass retail. Sounds
pretty good, right, Pierre thought, so too.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I was kind of just working through my own feelings
about being black and growing up in predominantly white spaces
and not feeling seen and watching somebody in pain where
everybody was pointing to the reasons why it was okay,
as opposed to saying why is it happening and all
of those things. And then there were companies coming out
saying we stand with George Floyd, we stand with the
(05:13):
black community, and that was very inspiring. Our business model
from the beginning, the plan was to go straight to
B to B, which is like selling to a business
who then sells to customers, as opposed to going B
two C because going B two C is incredibly expensive.
People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars these big companies
on marketing trying to reach customers, and obviously social media
(05:34):
is a really helpful tool, but unless you are really
pushing your content out there with ads and paying, it's
not always the most effective at reaching people. So Target
made that statement, and I was like, this is perfect.
They are pledging to spend money on black businesses, small
black businesses. We're a small black business. We seem very
(05:54):
mission aligned. They care about the black community, we're black.
We created a card game that's where everybody's so I
think it'd be good for the stores. So I got
on LinkedIn and started finding emails and reaching out to
every person I could find at Target. And this is
not an ad, but I love LinkedIn because there are
only so many monikers for a company. Usually it's first
(06:15):
ning dot last night at company dot com. If it's
not that, there are only other few first initial last
night at company dot com. So once you figure out
one and you don't get that bounce back, you know
you have the email for almost everybody at the company.
So I found as many people as I could that
worked in buying, and then one person, I think a
black woman who worked in baby products, connected us to
(06:36):
another person who connected us to another person. Eventually we
got to the right buyer. They loved the game. It
gave us some suggestions about how to fix the packaging
to make it stand out on shelves, and so we
took all of those suggestions. We revamped our packaging completely
to be better for shelves, put all of our own
money into this. I personally invested like forty K of
(06:57):
my own personal money that I really didn't have all
my saying I'm trying to make this product perfect for shells,
and eventually they were like, you did all the things, congratulations,
welcome to Target, and we were so excited about it. It
just felt very surreal.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
This creation that came from such a place of turmoil
and difficulty is now on the shelves at Target. How
did that feel?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It was really surreal. I think that's the best word
that I have to describe it. But we were also
moving so quickly that I don't know that we ever,
or I can speak for myself. I never really took
the time to soak it in and say, I'm this
girl from a small town in Virginia who had all
these big dreams and I moved to LA and I'm
doing all the things that I said I was going
(07:40):
to do. I really take that moment, because as soon
as you're in stores, it's like, we had to get certifications,
we have to make sure insurance it's good, we're figuring
out the warehouse, we're talking to our manufacturers, trying to
figure out costs, trying to figure out projections. So we
didn't really sit, or I didn't really sit in the
gravity of the feeling. I think It wasn't until I
probably rocked into my first Target and saw the product
(08:04):
on shelves that I was like, whoa, I want to
tell everybody that's my product. And then very quickly my
business mind switched on again. I was like, is this
the good placement? Who can I talk to?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Is this? You know?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
How many products are in this store? And how's it selling?
And so there was a lot of mix of emotion,
but it was so I would say, crowded by trying
to make sure you get to the next step, the
next thing.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
This is an episode that's not pro Target, but it
does it must be pretty cool to see something that
you created on the shelf at a store like Target. Like,
I don't fuck with Target anymore personally, but I don't
want to take away from what a cool moment that
must have been.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I think to your point, obviously this conversation takes a
turn at some point, but less about the store itself.
I think in the moment when all of these companies
were making pledges. And I again grew up in Virginia
and had some very racist experiences growing up that I
talk about in my book. I had people from ten
(09:06):
fifteen years ago calling me to apologize for things that
you know, they're like, I think back on these moments
if I'm sorry. I had a girl from class in
law school who was like, hey, you know how our
professor you were the only black person in our class
and he used to call you colored and made you uncomfortable.
When we all saw it, no one said anything like
we should have said something, So just all of the
(09:27):
acknowledgement that people were actually seeing it felt good to
be like, WHOA, my experiences aren't invisible. I'm not being
gas lit. Somebody believes me about what it's like to
be a black woman in this country or just a
black human being.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I really know how that feels. I'm also from Virginia,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
You know the vibes that you know we I grew
up with friends parents who were like doing battle re
enactments off the battlefields because Manassas was one of the
battles at the South one, and then people would have
parade and celebrate. That felt weird. And I'm passing statues
and schools that are named after Confederate soldiers that the
Confederacy loss, and I'm like, but you guys wanted slaves,
(10:07):
and they're like, no, we're just celebrating the past, so
a lot of a lot of gas lighting that is.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That was also a big part of my experience.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I used to drive down Monument Avenue to get to
my high school every day, and when I was in
elementary school. People think I'm making this up, but I
swear to you this was real. When I was in
elementary school, my public school would do Civil War Day
where kids could choose to be Confederate or Union soldiers
and come to school dressed up as either side and
do a battle march on our schools front lawn. Every
(10:41):
time I tell that story, people are like, well, certainly
that wasn't happening in nineteen ninety two in Virginia, and
I say, sir, I can assure you that it very
much was.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Absolutely. This is why I'm grateful for the Internet, because
I've told people just google Manassas Civil War Parade, like
it'll you. You can see the google battley en Acmens.
I'm not making it up. You can see it for yourself.
And now a friend watch it. She was like, this
is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And I was like, yeah, if the.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Story of me and Target is a breakup story. Then
this is the part where I tell you how good
things used to be. All those big announcements about supporting
black owned brands, well, my black ass ate it right up,
because listen, I'm a Target girl. Do I want to
get a nice coffee and walk around Target for no
reason at all?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes? Yes I do. And it wasn't just the vibes.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Target was one of the first big box stores to
carry products for black natural hair. I literally could not
have gone natural had there not been a Target in
my town. So when Target said they were supporting us,
it felt real. It felt like they saw us. But
like any bad relationship, comes that moment where you start
to question things and maybe even.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Start to wonder am I being lied to.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I've tried to explain this to people, but Target, especially
in twenty twenty, but for me even before, it kind
of felt like Target was like for us. Now, obviously
they're a corporation. I think we're all smart enough to
know that they are about money first and foremost. But
they did all of these things to signal that they
did want to make investments in our community, and so
(12:12):
I think giving given the boycott and everything, people will
often ask me, well, where's the smoke for Walmart?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Where's the smoke for Amazon?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And the reason why I think it's different is because
Target went out of their way to make to like
signal to.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Us that they see us, they're for us, they want
to be in community with creators like you.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And as far as I know, I mean, I feel
like Amazon and Walmart have been very clear about who
they are the whole time, and so for me, Target
felt different.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Did you feel similarly? Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I tell people all the time, it's cut and dry,
it's not hard. I don't like being lied to. I
am an attorney by training. I understand business. I understand money.
I understand that for profit businesses are in it to
make money. But Target made a financial commitment to the
black community. I want to believe that you're going to
do what you say you're going to do. That should
(13:06):
be a very basic tenet principle of morality of business
of community doing what you say you're going to do
for us. Specifically, when it came to Target, you know,
they were having all of these there's by Black on
the app and then there's a by Black section in
the stores, and they were coming off as trying to
be a part of the community. For lack of a
(13:28):
better metaphor, they wanted an invite to the cookout so bad,
and they were saying all the things and doing all
of the things, and speaking the language, and very quickly
we started to realize, I would say, a year or
two into the partnership, oh, this was performative.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
One of the things that's always rubbed me the wrong
way is how companies frame their support for black business
like it's charity, Like we should just be grateful for
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
But let's be real that framing is offensive.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Why is it that what I am a corporation invests
in a black owned business, it gets talked about like
a handout.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The first thing being I think it was our second year,
the first year we were in the toy catalog for Christmas,
and I would say they kind of did the things
they said they were going to do again. They didn't
just say, oh, we're going to support black businesses. They
said we're going to make a financial investment in these businesses.
So as a small business, when you hear investments, especially
when it pertains to marketing, that's an incredible opportunity. We
(14:26):
know black businesses are the least funded by venture capitalists.
And we know you need a marketing budget to do well.
It's not just the budget for the warehouse and the product.
There's an extra capital that has to be there in
order to market the product. So it also was frustrating
because other people would be like, oh, you are expecting
a handout. I'm like, almost every white business I know
got an investment, and you just say they had They
(14:48):
believed in the product, so they had investors. Why is
it that our business can't be a business that's taking
an investment. Why do you see it as a handout
when it comes to a black business. Everybody builds a
business on somebody else's money, not everybody, most people. Most
people build a business on somebody else's money. They get
funding in order to get to a certain level.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So all those inspirational target ads, the ones featuring traditionally
marginalized creators and black owned brands, the ones that gave
me all those warm fuzzies and made me feel super seene, Yeah,
it turns out that a lot of those creators had
to pay Target out of their own pockets to make
that happen. Let me say that again, the very people
being spotlighted the ones whose stories were being used to
(15:28):
sell inclusion and progress and make Target look really woke,
those same people were often footing the bill themselves. So
while I was busy watching those ads, thinking wow, Target
really gets it, the truth is a lot of that
visibility came with a cost, like a real financial cost,
not to target to the very people they claimed to
be helping and uplifting.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
So I would say, like our second year in, we
got all these emails about Black History coming up and
we would love to feature you. And you know, I
don't know if you remember, but they were doing all
these commercials with the black or leftin of brands and
all of these ads, and we were like, cool, that
sounds like an awesome opportunity. You were going to give
us visibility. We are paying for the rest. To be clear,
(16:10):
we were paying out of pocket with our own money
for the warehouse, we were paying for the product, we
were paying for insurance. There was no like check that
they gave us to help out. The only help was
the visibility. So we have a meeting and they're like, yeah,
we'd love to feature you for Black History Month if
you here's the deck, here's the presentation. If you want
(16:31):
to be part of this group of like ten products
on the web page, on this random landing page, it's
only five thousand dollars. If you want to be part
of this, it's only fifteen thousand dollars. If you want
your own feature, it's only for the low price of
seventy five thousand dollars, you too can be And I
was like, wait a second time out, what's happening, Let's take.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
A quick break.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
At our back.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So while Target was raking in warm, fuzzy pr from
rubs like me for spotlighting black owned brands, they were
also shaking those very brands down for money just to
be spotlighted. So while it looked like support behind the scenes,
it was more like a pay to play scheme dressed
up as progress.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I'm an entertainment attorney, right, I work with talent and
brand partnerships. If you're on social media and Instagram, you know,
if a brand is partnering with talent and the talent
is being paid, they're supposed to say ad hashtag whatever
brand partner. This is an AD. You see the links.
The FDC makes it very clear, but with Target, they
made it appear as if this was they were doing
(17:47):
some philanthropy for the black community by giving us visibility,
when in actuality, they were taking fifty percent of the product.
We paid for everything out of pocket, and now you're
asking me to pay for the marketing. So it became
something that it was like, this feels like a marketing scheme.
It's more expensive to be in target, Like this isn't
you investing in me? This is me investing in your business.
(18:10):
Like you're taking our money to build out your business,
and you pitched this as something completely different.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
When a company promises one thing, take somebody's money and
deliver is a totally different thing. I mean, I don't
want to call it a scam, but it sounds like
a scam to me. And they didn't just scam the brand,
they scammed us too, the people who actually believed in
what they stood for. I'm stunned, Like, like I knew
so doing my research on you and doing my research
(18:38):
around my black readers, I knew there was a lot
of legwork and money that it took to be to
play ball with some of these big brands.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I didn't know it was like this.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I mean, this sounds like pay to play, Like this
almost sounds like, I mean, let alone the false narrative
that they are giving you a handout.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
This is them. It almost sounds like they're like low key,
he's scamming you all.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
And that's what it felt like to me, if I'm honest,
a marketing scam. And I've talked to other small business
owners about their experiences who feel the same way, some
of whom had even worse experiences than we did. People
who paid ten twenty five thousand dollars and Target forgot
to turn on the shipping so people could see the ad,
but no one could buy the product. So that's a
waste of a small business of money. People just have
(19:23):
really horrible experiences, And I think again it comes back
to transparency. We know for most small businesses, if you're
getting into the retail game, it's going to cost a
lot of money, which is why people get investors. If
a company is saying, hey, we understand why the black
community has this disparity. We understand that your ancestors built
(19:43):
this country on their backs and we're never compensated anything
for it and have set you back probably thousands of years.
So we kind of want to do our part to
make things better. So we're going to make a financial investment.
But then when you start to do the numbers, it's
you're actually investing in them. To me, that is false.
It's false advertising, it's deceptive, it's manipulative, not to the
(20:05):
small businesses only, but to the consumers, to the customers.
Because the people I know who were going to Target,
of yeah, they would go, they would buy our game,
they would buy the other black products. But then you're
there on a Saturday, and I'll speak for myself, I
was buying everything else too. I was a Target girly,
so I would stop Starbucks, get my coffee, do my runs,
add the things to my cart. So people like to
(20:27):
pretend like, oh, Target was doing the business as a favor.
I'm like, no, Target was doing every business a favor,
because the foot traffic they brought in by pretending to
be dedicated to something that they actually were not, was
affecting everybody. Everybody was getting more foot traffic, everybody was
doing well, and they saw that when we left the stores,
the foot traffic decreased. And a lot of times these
(20:50):
businesses know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
They didn't understand the value of supporting the black community,
which is wild to me, especially because Black women spend
more money really on hair care and beauty and in
that space than anybody. So you should be wanting you.
You should basically be doing whatever we say because if
(21:11):
you support us, we're gonna support you. That's the way
black women are. I am loyal, Okay. If I decide
I like you, I like you. I don't even like
going to another hairdresser because I'm like, I have a hairdresser,
and not a lot of Black men are the same
with their barber. Like. We are very loyal people. So
to the extent we're treated well, we'll continue to show up.
But my MoMA did not raise no fool. When our
(21:31):
communities show up, we bring profit with us. The CEO
of Target actually bragged about how diversity and inclusion efforts
were profitable for the company on Fortune's Leadership Next podcast.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
When your teams, your leadership represents the consumer you serve.
I think good things happen so I can see the
benefits for our shareholders. I know that focus on diversity
and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth
over the last nine years.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
This interview was in twenty twenty three, when the political
backlash against anything woke was really taking hold. Target CEO
was asked how he will maintain Target's DEI stances and
a changing political climate.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
We think about what's right for our team and what's
consistent with our culture and alan when we do that,
I think we make really good decisions and we add
value for our shareholders, and that's part of why we've
seen explosive top line growth. So I think the facts
are in the results for us and the things we've done.
From a D and I standpoint, it's adding value, it's
(22:34):
helping us drive sales, it's building greater engagement with both
our teams and our guests, and those are just the
right things for our business today.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
So what's interesting about what you're saying is that I,
in preparation for thinking about Target, I listened to old
podcast episodes where their leadership was on different business podcasts
and all the stuff that you just said, Target knows
they clear as day. Their leadership went on podcasts and said, oh,
the investments that we made aid and black creators helped
our bottom line.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And so this idea that them.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Quote unquote supporting creators of color was a handout.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
They were.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I mean, it's disgusting to hear how scammy that support
in quotes actually was. But like supporting it being inclusive
is good for business, right, Like they're not doing it
because it's charity or because it's the right thing to do,
per their own leadership public their public statements. They were
doing it because it made them more money. And so
(23:33):
it's just wild to me how quick they would be
to turn on this loyalty that they built, even if
that loyalty was built on a lie. Like, I just
don't understand why they would block their own bag in
that way.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
I think people get very cocky, and you see it
a lot in corporate America where they start to take
advantage of the very people that they're pledging to help.
And I've seen just really egregious things working as an eturn.
But you know, obviously the disparity in pay between white
creaters and black creators, or with white creators it's like, oh,
we can't use this likeness or image without her permission.
(24:10):
With black creators it's like, let's just tagger and not
pay her. And I'm like, come again, and they're like,
don't you think she'll be honored to be included in
this campaign. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, You've never
said that for any of the white creators that they'd
be honored. You understand that their business, their brand, actually
is their income, and you can't feature their image or
their likeness without paying them. Why is it when it
comes to the black craters for Black History Month, you're
(24:31):
like they they're just going to be honored to be mentioned.
So it's not unique. I think what really was hurtful
with Target is that there were so many promises made,
not just to the public, but we had meetings with
our buyers at the time. We had, you know, all
of these promises that were made, all of these campaigns
we were supposed to be included in, and we were
getting really excited based upon what we were told was
(24:53):
going to happen. And then it didn't happen, and people
started to talk about, oh, it's the ROI the sales.
We understand that, like I said, black business, diverse businesses
was good for Target's bottom line, which is why they
did it and why they continued to do it. I
think when they started to get cocky and everybody was
doing well, right, like everybody's eating all of a sudden,
(25:13):
it's like, thanks for coming to the party. You can
see yourself out. We good, we full here. I'm like,
oh okay, And I really believe, especially when it comes
to supporting black businesses that support without capital, it is counterfeit.
It's not support, it's lip service.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
That's very very well put.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And you know, I want to talk more about this
sort of legwork that it took, you know, financial leg
work that it took to play ball with Target in
this way.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think it did give me.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Warm fuzzies to walk around Target previously and see women
who looked like me, you know, in on that sholves.
I'm not gonna lie like that felt good. But I
think that the way that that looks flashy and cool
from the outside, when from the inside it maybe isn't
so flashy and isn't so cool. I've been and I've
had experiences like this where I'm invited on a brand
(26:06):
trip and if people knew, it's like actually, like like
I read about your the trip that you took to
Italy where it's like, actually, we have to pay for
the flights and the lodging, and we probably spent more
money on our own to get there and yet target
gets to have the like, the like good pr of
having invited these like diverse creators to Italy, And I
guess the question is like, I don't know in my
(26:28):
experience that has taken some emotional work to be like, yeah,
it sucks, like yeah, it sucks to feel like you're
gonna be included in this fancy thing and actually have
to pay to play, and.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
There was a there was an emotion.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I guess there was an emotional not only a financial
but an emotional cost that you have to carry where
you have to sort of eat these little indignities that
people on the outside simply aren't privy too.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
They don't see one hundred percent, and so many of
us were siloed in our experiences, so you start I
think it feels very similar to tell people to like
a bad breakup where you were really excited about the person,
You're posting them all over your socials and then they
leave you and you're embarrassed and you're sad, and you're like,
do I take the pictures down? Was it a good relationship?
(27:15):
Did you ever love me? And then maybe start questioning
yourself was I not enough? Could I have been better?
Of course we can always be better in some capacity,
and there's this spiral that you kind of go down.
And it wasn't until that, you know, Target made the
announcements about pulling back, and we were learning other I
was talking to other small black creators who had the
exact same experiences, people who had taken out two hundred
(27:36):
three hundred thousand dollars in loans, whose invoices weren't being paid,
who were dropped suddenly. And I think what's hard for
us too, is that we are a card game that
was literally built on telling stories, being honest, having hard conversations.
Small businesses have to forecast, like a year out. People
don't understand that either, because if you're shipping your product,
(27:58):
that shipping time, depending on the state of the country,
that shipping time can be a very long time and
it's very expensive to ship product quickly, and you have
to order a lot of products in order to get
a good rate. So we have to forecast. We can't
afford to, you know, be in February, and we're planning
for March, June, July, August, September, and then we already
have all the product for the season, and then right
(28:20):
before the season you're like, yeah, by the way, what
do you mean, By the way, We've already made the purchase.
So even if there was going to be a conversation
about scaling back, what I would have liked was some
sort of notice, you know, meet with us a year
in advance and say, hey, next year, we're actually planning
to scale back. This is probably going to be your
last year in store. I'm going to give you an
opportunity to plan accordingly. So, because we understand your a
(28:44):
small business. We made all these promises, we're taking the
promise back. A nice runway would have been nice.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Right after Trump was elected, Target made a big shift.
They abandoned all of their dea goals and announced that
all of those big commitments to the black community were
coming to an end.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Kiara had just become a new mom. She had poured
her time, energy, and a lot of her own money into.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Making the partnership with Target work, and then just like that,
she was dumped. You've said that, like there was no
big announcement or anything.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
They just pulled back, and this was happening for you
and your personal life.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
When you would just you were like a new mom,
congratulations on that. By the way, but like already all
of these big personal life changes, and Target just.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Pulls back like what was what?
Speaker 3 (29:32):
What?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
What? Tell me what that was?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Like? It was very confusing. As I mentioned, I think
as a small business, when you're forecasting, notice is everything,
communication is everything, telling somebody, hey, next year, we're going
to pull back. We made all these promises, we're not
going to keep them. If they would have had the
dignity to tell us like, that's that's what we're looking at.
(29:56):
So we're going to give you this year to finish
off you know, product merchandising, so you guys can prepare
accordingly so that when you're forecasting for next year, you
know that's don't plan to come back. That would have
been very sad, but it would have given us time.
We were already we had inventory already for Christmas, because
Christmas is like best selling time, especially if you're in
like the game and toy Space. And so then when
(30:17):
fall of twenty twenty four, then they had made the
announcement in you know, early twenty twenty five, when they
told us for the fall that they weren't going to
move forward, I'm like, what do you mean? We already
have all the inventory for the holiday here, and there
was no explanation, There was no talk about sales. I
think the exact wording we got was there's been a
shift in the lineup, good luck, carry on, and so
(30:39):
even that felt very cold, especially because at the very beginning,
again there was a lot of conversation and convincing us
to do it, and then you know, but you got
to go get your diversity certification so that we can
put on our page that you're black. We got to
be able to tell people because we didn't really care
like you could tell them or not tell them we're
a black business. But it was important to target because
that's part of their pr to show how many black
businesses they have. So there was all this courting and
(31:02):
then it felt like a breakup through a text message
good luck, hope, all is well, and you know that
that was it. There was no additional conversation. Oh and
then they add and we'll let you know if we
need you to buy any of the product back, which
also terrifying for small business. So I actually had a
journalist reach out to me winter twenty twenty four before
(31:22):
the announcement, independently from a reputable news source, and she
was like, hey, I've been doing some research, and I've
noticed that a lot of the black businesses that Target
pledged to support in twenty twenty are no longer in
the store or on the shelves. Like I'm just looking
them up and it's like, gone, gone, gone, what's going on?
And that was the first time that fell a little
validating because I was like, wait a second, is that true?
(31:43):
So I started doing my own research.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
She was right.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
They made the announcement, and then other small businesses started
reaching out to me and I started having conversations and
I was like, whoa. I thought that this was happening
in a silo, but we're all having the same experiences.
If anything, I think it's actually been such a blessing
because we have now I've created I feel like a
community of other small black entrepreneurs. And again this is
(32:11):
these are like the small businesses. None of us are celebrities.
We don't have celebrity names or like celebrity backing, we
don't have millions of followers. I made a viral, you know,
TikTok video talking about my experience, but I think at
the time I had like one hundred and thirty followers,
on TikTok or something kids you not, So we didn't
have like these huge platforms. It was really just the
visibility that target promise and then they've removed it after
(32:33):
we'd all spent a lot of money and had a
lot of product left and was kind of like good luck.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
So I had so much stace to say about this.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
One is that I firmly believe that you know, business
is business, I get it, But how you move in
business is a choice. So as you said, they could
have respectfully communicated with clarity and transparency with.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
You, wouldn't You wouldn't have loved it. You wouldn't have
been throwing a party.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
But you have undertood and moved on and been able
to make plans, YadA, YadA, YadA. The choice to essentially
break up with you via text, that's a choice.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
That's not business.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No one forced them to handle business in such a disrespectful, sleazy,
dirty way.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
That was a choice.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
And I think that communicates a lot about about like
that tells me a lot about the people who are
leadership that target.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I guess I'll say that.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And then you know, when you were talking about how
you felt quite siloed, I have to imagine that Target
was sort of banking on you, as an individual creator,
internalizing this negative feeling and thinking I must have done
something wrong. They must have had some information about my product,
about how it wasn't going well. This must have been
I must have made some sort of mistake. They probably
(33:46):
weren't counting on you reaching out to other creators and realizing, oh,
this is a pattern. They're doing this with all of us.
They probably just wanted you personally to internalize that you
had like botched this opportunity in some way.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I fully agree, And again, I'm an attorney, so I'm
an investigator. Even I think slightly before we got the announcement,
there were stores where I'd pop up because we don't
get any information from Target about our demographics, like who's buying,
like what. They don't share any of that, so we
also have no knowledge of that other than where it's
selling and maybe what stores it's selling in. We would
(34:19):
ask questions about which cities is it selling best, which
stores is it selling in, so I could figure out
where we needed to get our sales up. So some
of these stores that they'd tell me we had product in,
I live in Los Angeles, so there were good number
of stores here. Some of these stores I started to
pop up in and I'd be, you know, walking through
the game misle in the section, and I didn't see
our product anywhere, and I'd be very confused, and I'd
(34:40):
look online and I'd be like, Okay, there's units, but
it's not here. So I'd find a manager or something.
There's one store in particular. Finally, I had a conversation
with a human and I was like, hey, excuse me,
I'm a creator. My product is supposed to be here.
Can you go find it? And they went to the
back and brought the product out and they're like, oh,
here it is. And I was like, wait, why in
it on shelves And they were like, oh, sometimes if
(35:02):
we only order a small amount of product, we don't
actually put it on the shelf because then we have
to print out the tags and it costs money for
the store. And that made me irate, because again, deceptive,
I'm giving you almost fifty percent of my profits, and
what you're supposed to be giving in return is shelf space.
It's visibility. It's the idea that all these people who
(35:23):
come to Target are going to see the product now
I'm really feeling like Rosa Parks because you're telling me
we did all this and the product is in the
back of the warehouse. So there were so much that
was going into it. When people would talk about like, oh,
but what were the sales? Were the sales and like,
you have no idea what was happening on the back end.
Of course, you want a product to sell. We did
(35:44):
well when our product was in the toy magazine, When
our product was on stores, we were always like right
in the pack selling well. Like there was never an
issue of like, no, no one's buying your product. Of course,
if your product's in the back, if your product's not featured,
if you have no visibility, if all the promise remarks
is taken away and nobody knows it exists, you're not
going to sell a product.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I mean, I'm it's not often that I am like
speechless and flabbergasted, but the idea of putting your products
on the back that goes counter to how people shop
at Target.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
When you're stopping at Target, it's I can't, okay.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I don't think I've ever had an idea of something
I wanted to buy and then gone to Target. Specifically
to buy it, and then if I didn't see it,
I asked, I asked the cashier or something. People need
to see the item on the shelf and then make
the decision to buy it. And so having it in
the back and is banking on someone coming in and
being like.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Oh, do you have the game?
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Is?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I mean, it almost sounds like they didn't want you
all to make money. Could that be the case.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
I can't speak to their intentions because I'm not in
their minds, but I do know it's deceptive to say
we have one hundred something black people in our stores
that we're featuring when we're not actually being featured, Like
that's crazy to me, But they continue to get away
with it. And I don't think these problems are unique
to Target. I think with big retail in general, there's
(37:04):
a lot that I wish I knew before we were
in about the product. But I'm the first person in
my family to have a product in stores, So this
was definitely a level of education for all of us.
But I think more so than that, it was the
lack of transparency and being told one thing when another
thing was happening, and we just kept experiencing that over
(37:25):
and over again.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I don't like being lied to.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Had you known how quickly Target was going to pull
their investments in black creators, and how they were going
to treat you and like the leg work and find
and like personal financial cost it was going to come
to be and come with the beating Target, would you
still make that deal?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
There's no way we spent more money. We spent more
money than we made. There's we would have taken. I
would have taken those savings and put them into trying
to reach customers again. The whole idea was that this
is actually going to be financially beneficial for us because
we have company that's going to invest money to help
us reach customers. So the very little capital I did
have saved up. I used to make the product better
(38:08):
to be put on shelves that wasn't even showcased on
the shelf, Like y'all told us we needed a telescope
box that would show nicely. If you weren't going to
put it on the shelf, you could have let us
keep the little hanktag boxes and what leave me a
good forty thousand dollars?
Speaker 1 (38:21):
God, I mean I know that you're not calling target scammers.
This this, the whole thing just feels scammy to me,
Like it just feels like a like a baiten switch,
Like when you promise one thing and deliver a completely
different thing.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
The word I have for that is a scam.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Like my god, one percent, and I mean this sounds terrible.
It is what it is, gonna be honest. I grew
up in the South, right, Like I knew who was racist.
I knew who flew the Confederate flags, I knew who
the kid in my class he was like, You're just
gonna get in because you're black, And like, m actually,
I'm at the top of my class, I'm over four
point oh GPA and I'm president of everything. That's why
(39:01):
I'm gonna get into a good school, not because I'm black,
But like I knew who to look at and be
like yes, no, yes, no. This was hard for me.
I think this season has been hard, even living out
in LA because the racism exists, but it's all gaslighting.
It's done behind closed doors. People say one thing to
you and then you get behind a closed door and
it's something completely different. The conversations shift and at this
(39:25):
level in my career and now I've in rooms where
a lot of decisions are made and I sometimes I'm
screaming at the top of my lungs. Everybody's lying, like
you don't care about these communities. This is our all
about the ROI you want to make money, and I'm
not saying making money's bad. If you're a business, you
want to make money. Hopefully the relationship is mutually beneficial.
(39:46):
But that's the piece that's missing. It has to be
mutually beneficial. It can't just be beneficial for you and
detrimental for me. That's not a relationship. That's manipulation. I'm like,
you could tell me a joke, you could tell me
something I don't like, but don't tell me a lie.
The lie is what triggers me.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
More.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Essence Fest, the multi generational celebration of black women, took
over New Orleans earlier this month, but this year some
(40:29):
folks were side eyeing the sponsors because Target was one
of them, and around this same time, mega popular streamer
Kai Sinnat announced a brand partnership with Target two. Target
also made a three hundred thousand dollars donation to a
black church organization, a move that, let's be honest, looked
like damage control. So how does Kiara feel about black brands,
creators or organizations who still play ball with Target even
(40:52):
after the boycott, even after.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
The about face.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Honestly, she gets it because for a lot of black entrepreneurs,
especially the smaller ones, this this just about values. It's
about survival, visibility, what you have to do to feed
your family. And that's part of what makes us all
so painful and complicated. Target built a pipeline that black
brands bought into emotionally and financially, and then they just
walked away, leaving people to either stay in the game
(41:17):
or lose everything they put in. Is there a flip
side to this? Because right now a lot of us
are asking questions of like big, higher profile black creators
of partnerships with Target, and asking like what are your
thoughts on the boycott?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
This and that?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And I wonder if is there a dynamic where black
creators are expected to shoulder a burden from our community
that non black creators don't have to shoulder, right, Like,
nobody's asking white creators like, oh, are you planning on
pulling out?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Of Target given the boycotts.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
But I almost wonder if we are asking black creators
to shoulder something that their non black peers just simply
don't have to think about.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, it ae hundred percent does. And I tell people
all the time buy from black creators, and the space
where they're telling you is most beneficial for their business
because you don't know what people's contracts look like. You
don't know, like we had our actual physical product. A
lot of the Bickers creators have licensing deals, which is
completely different. It's not a product that they've created owned
(42:21):
have in their hand. It's a product that the company
makes or another company makes, and they just get the
right to put their name on it. They might have
the right to license your name for the next two
years without you, and if you pull out, you have
to pay them a million dollars. As I mentioned, even
for us that they let us know, you might have
to buy back your product if we don't sell out
of it, or if we take it off stores. So
it can be very expensive to get out of a situation.
(42:43):
I think the best way to talk about it is
somebody in an abusive relationship. It's very easy to be like, girl,
why are you still with that man? There's just so
much that goes into it. You don't know their financial situation,
you don't know what traumas they have.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
You don't know. You just don't know.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
And people need the space and the time to have
the freedom to make decisions that make the best sense
for them, and those decisions, I think it very It's
not fair to say the decision that you're making to
try to make sure you're in a situation that's not
going to pull it to you in the hole is
contrary to what it means to like support the people
to support and again, very complicated. I think it really
(43:20):
is kind of like a creator by creator, case by
case situation.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
That's a really eloquent way of putting it, and I
appreciate it in your TikTok that I initially saw that
you were like, listen, people got to do what works
for them. But here is where I personally am at
right like keeping it with like, here are the decisions
that I am making as it pertains to target people
can do what works for them.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Here's where I'm.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
At one hundred percent. And I don't know if you've
ever had this experience of working in corporate America. Kind
of the same thing with the job. If you're at
a job and managers are toxic and you're like, this
is crazy, they're raises girl, I'm out. If you have
the luxury to be out today, that's good for you.
But like I got rich, so I might need to
like apply to other jobs first, have some conversations, figure
(44:02):
out a plane before I can get out. Like, everybody's
situation is just so different, So it's hard to judge
on the outside when you don't know what's happening on
the inside.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
And to that vein, I mean, what do you make
of hearing Target as a sponsor of Essence Fest this
time around, or like Target is giving money to these
big black church.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Groups, what do you make of that?
Speaker 3 (44:22):
I think we all have to make choices about how
we're going to concede given that capitalism and racism are
the waters that we're swimming in. Like, I feel some
type of way about I don't know things that Mark
Zuckerberg says, but I still have an Instagram. I feel
some type of way about how where products are coming
(44:42):
from and whether they're being sourced in an organic matter,
if it's harming the community. I hate that AI is
bad for the community, but also sometimes I use it
to help me with an email, and I have to
have conversations with myself like, ugh, what are the unless
I'm going to like live outside in a tent with
no cell phone and no computer and no contact and
(45:02):
grow my own food and all these things I think
we're all making if we're honest with ourselves, there are
areas where we're all making concessions in ways that we
are that are not the most ideal. But you have
to ask, like, where what's the most important? What sacrifices
am I willing to make? Can I stand on business
when it comes to those sacrifices. And I've heard other
(45:23):
people say to kind of use your money the way
that you would use your voice. So when things become
to a certain extent, things become incredibly egregious. It's like, okay,
like I got off X, I don't have a Twitter
X whatever it's called. I don't use that anymore. At
a certain point, it becomes so egregious that you have
to step away. But I think everybody has to just
decide for themselves. How can I look in the mirror
(45:45):
and feel like I am showing up as the best,
most capable, honest person and still try to find a
way to navigate the fact that we got bills to pay.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, that's a really good way to put it and
very realistic.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
I sometimes feel online people it's like they think we
all can be like people should do what they can do.
But it's sometimes I feel like there's an expectation that
we can all be these perfect advocates and perfect activists
all the time. And yeah, if I like, like I'm
not gonna be grudge a single parent or a new
(46:19):
parent or somebody who is disabled, like, oh no, you
have to shop in this way, Like I personally might
be able to, you know, make certain economic choices that
somebody else might not be able to make, but they
might have the same sentiment like I do feel like
we should be a little bit more have a little
bit more grace for where folks are and are not
(46:39):
able to show up.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
And that comes back to community and the reason we
create this game in the first place. Like people don't
know their neighbors. So even the one day boycott where
it was like we're not spending any money, don't get
gas anything. Black people don't spend well, if you have
to get to work and you don't have gas, but
you got to get to work so you cannot lose
your job of feeds your baby. You got to get gas.
(47:01):
In an era where we had community, we know our neighbors,
what it meant to boycott was like, not only am
I not going to drive, I got gas, So says
if you need a ride to work, I got you.
We don't have it anymore. We don't have the neighbors
and the grandma's and the aunties and the uncles and
the dads, the people to rely on to help us
through these situations. So people are wanting to boycott for
(47:21):
the good of the community, but then there's no community
to support them through that boycott. So I think we
have to be realistic, Like before you say anything to
anybody to your point. I had a friend literally text
me it was like, girl, I had to get diapers
from Target. It was half off, it's right down the street.
And I was like, you don't have to apologize to me,
but unless you're willing to be the friend that's like,
(47:43):
don't go to Target. I got extra money in my
bank account. I'm gonna send you diapers this month. So
you don't have to worry about unless you're willing to
shoulder the responsibility so that we can all carry it together.
An aunt can't carry a cake by itself. It just can't.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
And I mean, you have this great quote saying I'm
boycot not because I'm bitter, but because I want my
money and energy into spaces where diverse communities are valued
and included, not just black dollars.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 3 (48:10):
So for me, a lot of this has been shopping local.
So I live in Pasadena, try to go to the
farmer's market once or twice a week. And I think
I've mentioned like I know the people that I buy
my honey from. I know the people I buy my
yogurt from. I know the lady who I buy my
pasta from. I know what they believe. I know what
they're working towards in the world, or at least how
they appear. Can we ever really know somebody? You know, like,
(48:31):
what are you doing in your secret life?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (48:33):
No, but I know how you. You know how you
show up, I know the conversations you're having. I know
that you know you notice that single mom didn't have
enough money and you told her, don't worry about it.
Get I got you take it. I know that you'll
give someone an extra three or four yogurts because they've
been such a loyal customer, Like I know your heart posture,
I know the care that you have for your community.
(48:54):
So I'm actually able to put my money behind people
who stand on business for what they stand for, what
they believe in, as opposed to as some of these
large companies that I've worked for, so many of them,
people are sitting in a room and they could care
less about you or your mama or your cousin, and
so much of us. We make money to spend money,
Like the value of money in and of itself is nothing,
(49:15):
Like you can't it doesn't help you breathe, you can't
hold dollar bills. And then all of a sudden you
have clarity in your mind, maybe if it's psychological for you,
but there's no actual value to money other than what
it can afford you, Like what can you buy with it?
What can you do with it? What type of power
does it give you? So the question becomes not the
money itself, but what is the person who has the
(49:37):
money planning to do with that money? And if some
of these big businesses corporations. You know, they're going to
use the money to push forward narratives and political ideologies
and things that are going to make the world a
terrible place for you and everybody around you. It just
feels incredibly irresponsible to some extent not try to boycott
in a realistic way.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Don't let anybody tell you that boycotts don't work. Because
Target is feeling it. The store had measurable drops and
foot traffic, sales, reputation, and stock price. Their CEO, Brian Cornell,
even had to take a pay cut. But don't worry,
he's still making millions. Yeah, And I mean we have
to keep it real. That sounds like the boycott is working.
You know, foot traffic is down at Target. Their CEO
(50:20):
is a whole mess of hot water.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Because of all this.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
And I will say, like retail shopping is down like
in general, but Costco is not having a rough time.
And like when Trump wrote like was signaling that he
wanted companies to abandon DEI, Costco said, kick rocks and
they're doing fine. So like this was definitely a choice,
and it seems to be a choice that it's not
working out in target's favor, and I think that speaks to.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
The loyalty of real community.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Like we I was a Target girly, like I was
the person who would go to Target.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
If I was bored or just like wanted to be
in the air conditioning.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Just like I want to walk around to see with the
I want to get a coffee and walk around Target,
like that was my happy place. And I guess this
is interesting to me how quickly this thing that was
so ingrained in my behavior became not needed, Like I
don't miss it.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
I've replaced it with other things. And part of me
is that I probably shouldn't have been spending the money anyway.
And I just like, I guess it's just like they
really had something there and they gave it up for nothing.
Because I have no desire to go back into our Target.
I don't even miss it.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
You create again normals what you're used to. So I
think that at first it was like, well, where are
we gonna go? But you find your new routines.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I get I.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
You know again, we go to the farmer's market in
my house like twice a week. We have our vendors,
we have our things, and I don't miss it either.
I make my own coffee at home now I don't
have to stop at Starbucks, and I'm saving money. So
it's like, wait a second. In a lot of ways,
this boycott is not just bad for you, it's financially,
economically and socially good for me.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
We're taking power back a little bit.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yeah, So, if this is a story about a breakup
between me and Target, let's talk about the last time
we saw each other.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I walked by the local.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Target, the one where I had enjoyed so many Target
runs in the years before, and Target just looked kind
of bad. I swear, I can't make this up. There
was a cardboard cutout of country singer Morgan Wallen right
at the entrance, advertising his newest country album, and I
couldn't help. But wonder hadn't Target and I really had
a relationship at all?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
What had we even seen at each other?
Speaker 1 (52:32):
And the Target in my community is in like a
shopping plaza. So I go into a big plaza and
is a Target and other things. So I walk by
the Target still, but I don't necessarily have to go in.
And the last time that I walked by the Target,
a couple of weeks ago, they had this big stand
with the country music artist Morgan Wallen, who, like, I
don't know if you know him, he's I'll just say
(52:54):
he yeah, he's known for some like let's just say
racially insensitive behavior in comments and leave it at that.
But I live in a majority, like a majority black neighborhood.
I live in a heavily black city, and seeing these
like massive Morgan Wallin stands, like literally at the entrance
of the store, it just made me think that Target
(53:15):
used to be for the gals, gays and days, and
now they don't know who they're for. Like I was like,
it's not the white dads who listened to Morgan Wallin
who are going to Target. Like it just made me think,
I don't, I don't know that Target knows who they're
for anymore.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Did you get that sense?
Speaker 3 (53:30):
And it's very confusing, Yeah, because I we got. We
did give statistics about who's most likely to shop at Target,
and it's women who are college educated who have like
one kid, I think at least one kids. Like their
biggest audience. I'm your audience, Okay, I buy all your things,
I buy the hair stuff I buy I stop for groceries.
I get the black owned stuff, I get stuff for
(53:51):
my son. Pretty much everything in your store is something
I would buy. So to me again, it comes back
to not the reason we create the card games, not
knowing your community, not knowing people, not knowing what's going
to affect them, what they care about, what they don't
care about. I heard someone say, who's you know? Won't
give me names? Pretty high up and people were worried
(54:13):
about the boycotts and how it's going to affect business,
And this high up white woman leader was like, ugh,
black people will forget about it, Like, give it a
couple of weeks, they'll forget about They'll move on. And
I'm like, you the audacity to think you know us
so well? How dare you think you understand this this
movement and to feel like you know what's going to
(54:35):
happen with it? And then, you know, I do start
to ask myself the hard questions. Is there a reason
they feel like we're easily manipulated? Is there a reason
they feel like we don't stand on business? Is it
because we never fought for reparations? We've been letting white
America get away with things for so long we've let
them tell us we have to wear straight hair in
(54:56):
the workplace and not natural hair because our natural hair
is aggressive, and we like have we can seeded too
much to the point where they're like, you've already told
me how to treat you. So I'm just going to continue.
Not that we should internalize it and say that it's
our fault, but I have been asking myself the question, like,
number one, where do you get the audacity? Number two?
As a community, like let's have a conversation. Are we
(55:18):
contributing to that feeling of being able to bully us
without us saying or doing anything about it.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
I know that you've been since the shift with Target,
You've been reinvesting in like education spaces, community spaces. How
can folks support you? How can they support your work?
Where can they get the book?
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Like? How can folks shop for you as a creator?
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yeah, so my book therapy isn't just for white people.
If you're not shopping on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles,
they've had their own. Everybody has a thing right now.
A lot of black owned bookstores also have access to
the book, or you can call your black owned bookstore
and ask them to get the book. Tons of the
black owned bookstores in LA have the book, so you know,
shop according to your preference target. Please don't We're not
(56:03):
I think we're still listed, but they just as like
out of stock recently set out of stock. Either they
actually sold out or they were like, ooh, this girl's
talking too much, take that product.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Off the shelf.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
You can go to our website lk EU. Likeucards dot com,
we have our flagship game. We have games for parents.
As you mentioned, we're trying to do more stuff with
kids because I think at the end of the day,
if we're going to shape the next generation, how we
shape the people growing up is so important. So our
kids game really helps parents step into their kids psychological
world and to get on their level and to not
(56:34):
make assumptions about how they see the world and to
really hear them. So that's also available on our website,
and stay tuned. We have some other fun ideas coming
down the pipeline and just playing with new ways to
bring the community together. Everything we do comes back to
the same goal of bringing community together.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Community has been such a big theme of this conversation.
Do you have any closing thoughts about community that you'd
like to leave folks.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
With in order to be part of the community. I
do think it starts with ourselves, and a huge part
of that is how you interact with your neighbor. So
if we're gonna get to this next phase of like
coming together to like make a change, you see your
neighbor outside waves, say hi. If they don't wave back,
don't feeling well, that's my I'm never waving again because
(57:20):
they didn't acknowledge me, and you're not the center of
the world. Maybe they just found out their mom has cancer,
you know, like give people grace and find ways to
connect in ways that also are allowing people to show
up as humans not as these perfectly like robots. I
don't know, that's all.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
That's all.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
I got.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi, you can we just had
hello at tegodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by Me for JAD.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
as our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(58:05):
bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you
get your podcasts
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridgett and this is
there Are No Girls on the Internet. Today is Black Friday,
traditionally the day where people line up at major retailers
chasing so called can't missdeals, but this year feels different.
(00:27):
Shoppers are pulling back and many are giving big box
stores some serious side eye. Enter the we Ain't Buying
a campaign, a coalition of anti Trump economic advocacy groups
urging consumers to boycott Amazon, Target, and Home Depot from
Thanksgiving Day, November twenty seven through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
(00:48):
Now this is especially interesting to me because you probably
already know that Target has been facing boycott since earlier
this year, and I keep seeing folks on social media ask, well,
what about Amazon? Why aren't people boycotting them too, to
which I'd say, one, a lot of folks are already
boycotting Amazon, and they should be if they can.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
And two.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Target just really is different because they have long positioned
themselves as this champion of diversity and inclusion, only to
backtrack in a dramatic offensive way. The moment that Trump
returned to political power. Earlier this year, I spoke with Kiara,
a former Target vendor, about her experience working with the company.
She explains why it felt different with Target because Target
(01:33):
was so loudly proclaiming their allyship. She also provides an
insider's view into why that allyship felt more like a
predatory scam, how quickly Target pivoted away from the Black
community when they thought they no longer needed us, and
why now is the time to be intentional about where
all of our dollars go.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Support without capital is counterfeit. It's not support, it's lip service.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
This is the story of a breakup, not between two people,
but between me and my favorite big box retailer, Target,
and I'm.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Not the only one.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
After George Floyd's murder back in twenty twenty, Target headquartered
in Minneapolis where his death took place, was one of
many companies that made big public commitments to racial equity.
They promised to support black communities, fun black creators, and
put black owned brands on their shelves. But in early
twenty twenty five, that all changed. Target quietly announced it
(02:35):
was walking back its DEI efforts, and for a lot
of us, that was a deal breaker. We started boycotting
because it felt like a betrayal. But here's the part
we didn't see. In the middle of that boycott, for
people like Kiara.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
My name is kiar Imani and you can call me Kiara,
my friends call me Kiki.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Black creators and entrepreneurs like Kiara had finally gotten a
chance to be on the shelf at Target, a big opportunity. Right,
Not quite. In today's episode, you're going to hear how
black creators who partnered with Target didn't just get screwed
by the store.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
They got low key scammed.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But first back to Kiara, it was against the backdrop
of the protest of twenty twenty that Kiara Amani, attorney
and author of the book Therapy Isn't Just for White People,
got the idea for like you cards.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
It really was birthed out of a place of having
a lot of political turmoil in twenty twenty. There was
a depth of George Floyd. We were all at home.
People were having a hard time communicating and talking to
one another. One of the things that I found, very
specifically was that people would make a lot of assumptions
about what you believed, how you saw the world based
(03:46):
on who you were, your color, your gender, all these things.
And I found obviously people were frustrated because people have
differing opinions, and I know that that can be really stressful.
But what I really saw was people being fresh because
they felt misunderstood, like they don't see me, they don't
hear me, they don't understand why I'm so angry, they
(04:07):
don't understand why I'm so triggered. So the idea was
to create a card game that could help people feel seen, heard, understood.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Like a lot of companies in twenty twenty, it seemed
like Target was listening. That year, they launched the REACH
Initiative Racial Equity, Action and Change, promising to increase black representation,
support black team members, guests, and communities, and even advocate
on racial policy. That in twenty twenty one, they made
a bigger commitment to spend two billion dollars by the
end of twenty twenty five supporting black businesses and to
(04:39):
carry over five hundred black owned brands. They'd also be
launching Forward Founders, an equity free accelerator to help over
sixty black and diverse entrepreneurs scale into mass retail. Sounds
pretty good, right, Pierre thought, so too.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I was kind of just working through my own feelings
about being black and growing up in predominantly white spaces
and not feeling seen and watching somebody in pain where
everybody was pointing to the reasons why it was okay,
as opposed to saying why is it happening and all
of those things. And then there were companies coming out
saying we stand with George Floyd, we stand with the
(05:13):
black community, and that was very inspiring. Our business model
from the beginning, the plan was to go straight to
B to B, which is like selling to a business
who then sells to customers, as opposed to going B
two C because going B two C is incredibly expensive.
People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars these big companies
on marketing trying to reach customers, and obviously social media
(05:34):
is a really helpful tool, but unless you are really
pushing your content out there with ads and paying, it's
not always the most effective at reaching people. So Target
made that statement, and I was like, this is perfect.
They are pledging to spend money on black businesses, small
black businesses. We're a small black business. We seem very
(05:54):
mission aligned. They care about the black community, we're black.
We created a card game that's where everybody's so I
think it'd be good for the stores. So I got
on LinkedIn and started finding emails and reaching out to
every person I could find at Target. And this is
not an ad, but I love LinkedIn because there are
only so many monikers for a company. Usually it's first
(06:15):
ning dot last night at company dot com. If it's
not that, there are only other few first initial last
night at company dot com. So once you figure out
one and you don't get that bounce back, you know
you have the email for almost everybody at the company.
So I found as many people as I could that
worked in buying, and then one person, I think a
black woman who worked in baby products, connected us to
(06:36):
another person who connected us to another person. Eventually we
got to the right buyer. They loved the game. It
gave us some suggestions about how to fix the packaging
to make it stand out on shelves, and so we
took all of those suggestions. We revamped our packaging completely
to be better for shelves, put all of our own
money into this. I personally invested like forty K of
(06:57):
my own personal money that I really didn't have all
my saying I'm trying to make this product perfect for shells,
and eventually they were like, you did all the things, congratulations,
welcome to Target, and we were so excited about it. It
just felt very surreal.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
This creation that came from such a place of turmoil
and difficulty is now on the shelves at Target. How
did that feel?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It was really surreal. I think that's the best word
that I have to describe it. But we were also
moving so quickly that I don't know that we ever,
or I can speak for myself. I never really took
the time to soak it in and say, I'm this
girl from a small town in Virginia who had all
these big dreams and I moved to LA and I'm
doing all the things that I said I was going
(07:40):
to do. I really take that moment, because as soon
as you're in stores, it's like, we had to get certifications,
we have to make sure insurance it's good, we're figuring
out the warehouse, we're talking to our manufacturers, trying to
figure out costs, trying to figure out projections. So we
didn't really sit, or I didn't really sit in the
gravity of the feeling. I think It wasn't until I
probably rocked into my first Target and saw the product
(08:04):
on shelves that I was like, whoa, I want to
tell everybody that's my product. And then very quickly my
business mind switched on again. I was like, is this
the good placement? Who can I talk to?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Is this? You know?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
How many products are in this store? And how's it selling?
And so there was a lot of mix of emotion,
but it was so I would say, crowded by trying
to make sure you get to the next step, the
next thing.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
This is an episode that's not pro Target, but it
does it must be pretty cool to see something that
you created on the shelf at a store like Target. Like,
I don't fuck with Target anymore personally, but I don't
want to take away from what a cool moment that
must have been.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I think to your point, obviously this conversation takes a
turn at some point, but less about the store itself.
I think in the moment when all of these companies
were making pledges. And I again grew up in Virginia
and had some very racist experiences growing up that I
talk about in my book. I had people from ten
(09:06):
fifteen years ago calling me to apologize for things that
you know, they're like, I think back on these moments
if I'm sorry. I had a girl from class in
law school who was like, hey, you know how our
professor you were the only black person in our class
and he used to call you colored and made you uncomfortable.
When we all saw it, no one said anything like
we should have said something, So just all of the
(09:27):
acknowledgement that people were actually seeing it felt good to
be like, WHOA, my experiences aren't invisible. I'm not being
gas lit. Somebody believes me about what it's like to
be a black woman in this country or just a
black human being.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I really know how that feels. I'm also from Virginia,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
You know the vibes that you know we I grew
up with friends parents who were like doing battle re
enactments off the battlefields because Manassas was one of the
battles at the South one, and then people would have
parade and celebrate. That felt weird. And I'm passing statues
and schools that are named after Confederate soldiers that the
Confederacy loss, and I'm like, but you guys wanted slaves,
(10:07):
and they're like, no, we're just celebrating the past, so
a lot of a lot of gas lighting that is.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That was also a big part of my experience.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I used to drive down Monument Avenue to get to
my high school every day, and when I was in
elementary school. People think I'm making this up, but I
swear to you this was real. When I was in
elementary school, my public school would do Civil War Day
where kids could choose to be Confederate or Union soldiers
and come to school dressed up as either side and
do a battle march on our schools front lawn. Every
(10:41):
time I tell that story, people are like, well, certainly
that wasn't happening in nineteen ninety two in Virginia, and
I say, sir, I can assure you that it very
much was.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Absolutely. This is why I'm grateful for the Internet, because
I've told people just google Manassas Civil War Parade, like
it'll you. You can see the google battley en Acmens.
I'm not making it up. You can see it for yourself.
And now a friend watch it. She was like, this
is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And I was like, yeah, if the.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Story of me and Target is a breakup story. Then
this is the part where I tell you how good
things used to be. All those big announcements about supporting
black owned brands, well, my black ass ate it right up,
because listen, I'm a Target girl. Do I want to
get a nice coffee and walk around Target for no
reason at all?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes? Yes I do. And it wasn't just the vibes.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Target was one of the first big box stores to
carry products for black natural hair. I literally could not
have gone natural had there not been a Target in
my town. So when Target said they were supporting us,
it felt real. It felt like they saw us. But
like any bad relationship, comes that moment where you start
to question things and maybe even.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Start to wonder am I being lied to.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I've tried to explain this to people, but Target, especially
in twenty twenty, but for me even before, it kind
of felt like Target was like for us. Now, obviously
they're a corporation. I think we're all smart enough to
know that they are about money first and foremost. But
they did all of these things to signal that they
did want to make investments in our community, and so
(12:12):
I think giving given the boycott and everything, people will
often ask me, well, where's the smoke for Walmart?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Where's the smoke for Amazon?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And the reason why I think it's different is because
Target went out of their way to make to like
signal to.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Us that they see us, they're for us, they want
to be in community with creators like you.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And as far as I know, I mean, I feel
like Amazon and Walmart have been very clear about who
they are the whole time, and so for me, Target
felt different.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Did you feel similarly? Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I tell people all the time, it's cut and dry,
it's not hard. I don't like being lied to. I
am an attorney by training. I understand business. I understand money.
I understand that for profit businesses are in it to
make money. But Target made a financial commitment to the
black community. I want to believe that you're going to
do what you say you're going to do. That should
(13:06):
be a very basic tenet principle of morality of business
of community doing what you say you're going to do
for us. Specifically, when it came to Target, you know,
they were having all of these there's by Black on
the app and then there's a by Black section in
the stores, and they were coming off as trying to
be a part of the community. For lack of a
(13:28):
better metaphor, they wanted an invite to the cookout so bad,
and they were saying all the things and doing all
of the things, and speaking the language, and very quickly
we started to realize, I would say, a year or
two into the partnership, oh, this was performative.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
One of the things that's always rubbed me the wrong
way is how companies frame their support for black business
like it's charity, Like we should just be grateful for
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
But let's be real that framing is offensive.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Why is it that what I am a corporation invests
in a black owned business, it gets talked about like
a handout.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The first thing being I think it was our second year,
the first year we were in the toy catalog for Christmas,
and I would say they kind of did the things
they said they were going to do again. They didn't
just say, oh, we're going to support black businesses. They
said we're going to make a financial investment in these businesses.
So as a small business, when you hear investments, especially
when it pertains to marketing, that's an incredible opportunity. We
(14:26):
know black businesses are the least funded by venture capitalists.
And we know you need a marketing budget to do well.
It's not just the budget for the warehouse and the product.
There's an extra capital that has to be there in
order to market the product. So it also was frustrating
because other people would be like, oh, you are expecting
a handout. I'm like, almost every white business I know
got an investment, and you just say they had They
(14:48):
believed in the product, so they had investors. Why is
it that our business can't be a business that's taking
an investment. Why do you see it as a handout
when it comes to a black business. Everybody builds a
business on somebody else's money, not everybody, most people. Most
people build a business on somebody else's money. They get
funding in order to get to a certain level.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So all those inspirational target ads, the ones featuring traditionally
marginalized creators and black owned brands, the ones that gave
me all those warm fuzzies and made me feel super seene, Yeah,
it turns out that a lot of those creators had
to pay Target out of their own pockets to make
that happen. Let me say that again, the very people
being spotlighted the ones whose stories were being used to
(15:28):
sell inclusion and progress and make Target look really woke,
those same people were often footing the bill themselves. So
while I was busy watching those ads, thinking wow, Target
really gets it, the truth is a lot of that
visibility came with a cost, like a real financial cost,
not to target to the very people they claimed to
be helping and uplifting.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
So I would say, like our second year in, we
got all these emails about Black History coming up and
we would love to feature you. And you know, I
don't know if you remember, but they were doing all
these commercials with the black or leftin of brands and
all of these ads, and we were like, cool, that
sounds like an awesome opportunity. You were going to give
us visibility. We are paying for the rest. To be clear,
(16:10):
we were paying out of pocket with our own money
for the warehouse, we were paying for the product, we
were paying for insurance. There was no like check that
they gave us to help out. The only help was
the visibility. So we have a meeting and they're like, yeah,
we'd love to feature you for Black History Month if
you here's the deck, here's the presentation. If you want
(16:31):
to be part of this group of like ten products
on the web page, on this random landing page, it's
only five thousand dollars. If you want to be part
of this, it's only fifteen thousand dollars. If you want
your own feature, it's only for the low price of
seventy five thousand dollars, you too can be And I
was like, wait a second time out, what's happening, Let's take.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
A quick break.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
At our back.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
So while Target was raking in warm, fuzzy pr from
rubs like me for spotlighting black owned brands, they were
also shaking those very brands down for money just to
be spotlighted. So while it looked like support behind the scenes,
it was more like a pay to play scheme dressed
up as progress.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I'm an entertainment attorney, right, I work with talent and
brand partnerships. If you're on social media and Instagram, you know,
if a brand is partnering with talent and the talent
is being paid, they're supposed to say ad hashtag whatever
brand partner. This is an AD. You see the links.
The FDC makes it very clear, but with Target, they
made it appear as if this was they were doing
(17:47):
some philanthropy for the black community by giving us visibility,
when in actuality, they were taking fifty percent of the product.
We paid for everything out of pocket, and now you're
asking me to pay for the marketing. So it became
something that it was like, this feels like a marketing scheme.
It's more expensive to be in target, Like this isn't
you investing in me? This is me investing in your business.
(18:10):
Like you're taking our money to build out your business,
and you pitched this as something completely different.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
When a company promises one thing, take somebody's money and
deliver is a totally different thing. I mean, I don't
want to call it a scam, but it sounds like
a scam to me. And they didn't just scam the brand,
they scammed us too, the people who actually believed in
what they stood for. I'm stunned, Like, like I knew
so doing my research on you and doing my research
(18:38):
around my black readers, I knew there was a lot
of legwork and money that it took to be to
play ball with some of these big brands.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I didn't know it was like this.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I mean, this sounds like pay to play, Like this
almost sounds like, I mean, let alone the false narrative
that they are giving you a handout.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
This is them. It almost sounds like they're like low key,
he's scamming you all.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
And that's what it felt like to me, if I'm honest,
a marketing scam. And I've talked to other small business
owners about their experiences who feel the same way, some
of whom had even worse experiences than we did. People
who paid ten twenty five thousand dollars and Target forgot
to turn on the shipping so people could see the ad,
but no one could buy the product. So that's a
waste of a small business of money. People just have
(19:23):
really horrible experiences, And I think again it comes back
to transparency. We know for most small businesses, if you're
getting into the retail game, it's going to cost a
lot of money, which is why people get investors. If
a company is saying, hey, we understand why the black
community has this disparity. We understand that your ancestors built
(19:43):
this country on their backs and we're never compensated anything
for it and have set you back probably thousands of years.
So we kind of want to do our part to
make things better. So we're going to make a financial investment.
But then when you start to do the numbers, it's
you're actually investing in them. To me, that is false.
It's false advertising, it's deceptive, it's manipulative, not to the
(20:05):
small businesses only, but to the consumers, to the customers.
Because the people I know who were going to Target,
of yeah, they would go, they would buy our game,
they would buy the other black products. But then you're
there on a Saturday, and I'll speak for myself, I
was buying everything else too. I was a Target girly,
so I would stop Starbucks, get my coffee, do my runs,
add the things to my cart. So people like to
(20:27):
pretend like, oh, Target was doing the business as a favor.
I'm like, no, Target was doing every business a favor,
because the foot traffic they brought in by pretending to
be dedicated to something that they actually were not, was
affecting everybody. Everybody was getting more foot traffic, everybody was
doing well, and they saw that when we left the stores,
the foot traffic decreased. And a lot of times these
(20:50):
businesses know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
They didn't understand the value of supporting the black community,
which is wild to me, especially because Black women spend
more money really on hair care and beauty and in
that space than anybody. So you should be wanting you.
You should basically be doing whatever we say because if
(21:11):
you support us, we're gonna support you. That's the way
black women are. I am loyal, Okay. If I decide
I like you, I like you. I don't even like
going to another hairdresser because I'm like, I have a hairdresser,
and not a lot of Black men are the same
with their barber. Like. We are very loyal people. So
to the extent we're treated well, we'll continue to show up.
But my MoMA did not raise no fool. When our
(21:31):
communities show up, we bring profit with us. The CEO
of Target actually bragged about how diversity and inclusion efforts
were profitable for the company on Fortune's Leadership Next podcast.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
When your teams, your leadership represents the consumer you serve.
I think good things happen so I can see the
benefits for our shareholders. I know that focus on diversity
and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth
over the last nine years.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
This interview was in twenty twenty three, when the political
backlash against anything woke was really taking hold. Target CEO
was asked how he will maintain Target's DEI stances and
a changing political climate.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
We think about what's right for our team and what's
consistent with our culture and alan when we do that,
I think we make really good decisions and we add
value for our shareholders, and that's part of why we've
seen explosive top line growth. So I think the facts
are in the results for us and the things we've done.
From a D and I standpoint, it's adding value, it's
(22:34):
helping us drive sales, it's building greater engagement with both
our teams and our guests, and those are just the
right things for our business today.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
So what's interesting about what you're saying is that I,
in preparation for thinking about Target, I listened to old
podcast episodes where their leadership was on different business podcasts
and all the stuff that you just said, Target knows
they clear as day. Their leadership went on podcasts and said, oh,
the investments that we made aid and black creators helped
our bottom line.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And so this idea that them.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Quote unquote supporting creators of color was a handout.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
They were.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I mean, it's disgusting to hear how scammy that support
in quotes actually was. But like supporting it being inclusive
is good for business, right, Like they're not doing it
because it's charity or because it's the right thing to do,
per their own leadership public their public statements. They were
doing it because it made them more money. And so
(23:33):
it's just wild to me how quick they would be
to turn on this loyalty that they built, even if
that loyalty was built on a lie. Like, I just
don't understand why they would block their own bag in
that way.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
I think people get very cocky, and you see it
a lot in corporate America where they start to take
advantage of the very people that they're pledging to help.
And I've seen just really egregious things working as an eturn.
But you know, obviously the disparity in pay between white
creaters and black creators, or with white creators it's like, oh,
we can't use this likeness or image without her permission.
(24:10):
With black creators it's like, let's just tagger and not
pay her. And I'm like, come again, and they're like,
don't you think she'll be honored to be included in
this campaign. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, You've never
said that for any of the white creators that they'd
be honored. You understand that their business, their brand, actually
is their income, and you can't feature their image or
their likeness without paying them. Why is it when it
comes to the black craters for Black History Month, you're
(24:31):
like they they're just going to be honored to be mentioned.
So it's not unique. I think what really was hurtful
with Target is that there were so many promises made,
not just to the public, but we had meetings with
our buyers at the time. We had, you know, all
of these promises that were made, all of these campaigns
we were supposed to be included in, and we were
getting really excited based upon what we were told was
(24:53):
going to happen. And then it didn't happen, and people
started to talk about, oh, it's the ROI the sales.
We understand that, like I said, black business, diverse businesses
was good for Target's bottom line, which is why they
did it and why they continued to do it. I
think when they started to get cocky and everybody was
doing well, right, like everybody's eating all of a sudden,
(25:13):
it's like, thanks for coming to the party. You can
see yourself out. We good, we full here. I'm like,
oh okay, And I really believe, especially when it comes
to supporting black businesses that support without capital, it is counterfeit.
It's not support, it's lip service.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
That's very very well put.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And you know, I want to talk more about this
sort of legwork that it took, you know, financial leg
work that it took to play ball with Target in
this way.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think it did give me.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Warm fuzzies to walk around Target previously and see women
who looked like me, you know, in on that sholves.
I'm not gonna lie like that felt good. But I
think that the way that that looks flashy and cool
from the outside, when from the inside it maybe isn't
so flashy and isn't so cool. I've been and I've
had experiences like this where I'm invited on a brand
(26:06):
trip and if people knew, it's like actually, like like
I read about your the trip that you took to
Italy where it's like, actually, we have to pay for
the flights and the lodging, and we probably spent more
money on our own to get there and yet target
gets to have the like, the like good pr of
having invited these like diverse creators to Italy, And I
guess the question is like, I don't know in my
(26:28):
experience that has taken some emotional work to be like, yeah,
it sucks, like yeah, it sucks to feel like you're
gonna be included in this fancy thing and actually have
to pay to play, and.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
There was a there was an emotion.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I guess there was an emotional not only a financial
but an emotional cost that you have to carry where
you have to sort of eat these little indignities that
people on the outside simply aren't privy too.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
They don't see one hundred percent, and so many of
us were siloed in our experiences, so you start I
think it feels very similar to tell people to like
a bad breakup where you were really excited about the person,
You're posting them all over your socials and then they
leave you and you're embarrassed and you're sad, and you're like,
do I take the pictures down? Was it a good relationship?
(27:15):
Did you ever love me? And then maybe start questioning
yourself was I not enough? Could I have been better?
Of course we can always be better in some capacity,
and there's this spiral that you kind of go down.
And it wasn't until that, you know, Target made the
announcements about pulling back, and we were learning other I
was talking to other small black creators who had the
exact same experiences, people who had taken out two hundred
(27:36):
three hundred thousand dollars in loans, whose invoices weren't being paid,
who were dropped suddenly. And I think what's hard for
us too, is that we are a card game that
was literally built on telling stories, being honest, having hard conversations.
Small businesses have to forecast, like a year out. People
don't understand that either, because if you're shipping your product,
(27:58):
that shipping time, depending on the state of the country,
that shipping time can be a very long time and
it's very expensive to ship product quickly, and you have
to order a lot of products in order to get
a good rate. So we have to forecast. We can't
afford to, you know, be in February, and we're planning
for March, June, July, August, September, and then we already
have all the product for the season, and then right
(28:20):
before the season you're like, yeah, by the way, what
do you mean, By the way, We've already made the purchase.
So even if there was going to be a conversation
about scaling back, what I would have liked was some
sort of notice, you know, meet with us a year
in advance and say, hey, next year, we're actually planning
to scale back. This is probably going to be your
last year in store. I'm going to give you an
opportunity to plan accordingly. So, because we understand your a
(28:44):
small business. We made all these promises, we're taking the
promise back. A nice runway would have been nice.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Right after Trump was elected, Target made a big shift.
They abandoned all of their dea goals and announced that
all of those big commitments to the black community were
coming to an end.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Kiara had just become a new mom. She had poured
her time, energy, and a lot of her own money into.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Making the partnership with Target work, and then just like that,
she was dumped. You've said that, like there was no
big announcement or anything.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
They just pulled back, and this was happening for you
and your personal life.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
When you would just you were like a new mom,
congratulations on that. By the way, but like already all
of these big personal life changes, and Target just.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Pulls back like what was what?
Speaker 3 (29:32):
What?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
What? Tell me what that was?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Like? It was very confusing. As I mentioned, I think
as a small business, when you're forecasting, notice is everything,
communication is everything, telling somebody, hey, next year, we're going
to pull back. We made all these promises, we're not
going to keep them. If they would have had the
dignity to tell us like, that's that's what we're looking at.
(29:56):
So we're going to give you this year to finish
off you know, product merchandising, so you guys can prepare
accordingly so that when you're forecasting for next year, you
know that's don't plan to come back. That would have
been very sad, but it would have given us time.
We were already we had inventory already for Christmas, because
Christmas is like best selling time, especially if you're in
like the game and toy Space. And so then when
(30:17):
fall of twenty twenty four, then they had made the
announcement in you know, early twenty twenty five, when they
told us for the fall that they weren't going to
move forward, I'm like, what do you mean? We already
have all the inventory for the holiday here, and there
was no explanation, There was no talk about sales. I
think the exact wording we got was there's been a
shift in the lineup, good luck, carry on, and so
(30:39):
even that felt very cold, especially because at the very beginning,
again there was a lot of conversation and convincing us
to do it, and then you know, but you got
to go get your diversity certification so that we can
put on our page that you're black. We got to
be able to tell people because we didn't really care
like you could tell them or not tell them we're
a black business. But it was important to target because
that's part of their pr to show how many black
businesses they have. So there was all this courting and
(31:02):
then it felt like a breakup through a text message
good luck, hope, all is well, and you know that
that was it. There was no additional conversation. Oh and
then they add and we'll let you know if we
need you to buy any of the product back, which
also terrifying for small business. So I actually had a
journalist reach out to me winter twenty twenty four before
(31:22):
the announcement, independently from a reputable news source, and she
was like, hey, I've been doing some research, and I've
noticed that a lot of the black businesses that Target
pledged to support in twenty twenty are no longer in
the store or on the shelves. Like I'm just looking
them up and it's like, gone, gone, gone, what's going on?
And that was the first time that fell a little
validating because I was like, wait a second, is that true?
(31:43):
So I started doing my own research.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
She was right.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
They made the announcement, and then other small businesses started
reaching out to me and I started having conversations and
I was like, whoa. I thought that this was happening
in a silo, but we're all having the same experiences.
If anything, I think it's actually been such a blessing
because we have now I've created I feel like a
community of other small black entrepreneurs. And again this is
(32:11):
these are like the small businesses. None of us are celebrities.
We don't have celebrity names or like celebrity backing, we
don't have millions of followers. I made a viral, you know,
TikTok video talking about my experience, but I think at
the time I had like one hundred and thirty followers,
on TikTok or something kids you not, So we didn't
have like these huge platforms. It was really just the
visibility that target promise and then they've removed it after
(32:33):
we'd all spent a lot of money and had a
lot of product left and was kind of like good luck.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
So I had so much stace to say about this.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
One is that I firmly believe that you know, business
is business, I get it, But how you move in
business is a choice. So as you said, they could
have respectfully communicated with clarity and transparency with.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
You, wouldn't You wouldn't have loved it. You wouldn't have
been throwing a party.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
But you have undertood and moved on and been able
to make plans, YadA, YadA, YadA. The choice to essentially
break up with you via text, that's a choice.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
That's not business.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No one forced them to handle business in such a disrespectful, sleazy,
dirty way.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
That was a choice.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
And I think that communicates a lot about about like
that tells me a lot about the people who are
leadership that target.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I guess I'll say that.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And then you know, when you were talking about how
you felt quite siloed, I have to imagine that Target
was sort of banking on you, as an individual creator,
internalizing this negative feeling and thinking I must have done
something wrong. They must have had some information about my product,
about how it wasn't going well. This must have been
I must have made some sort of mistake. They probably
(33:46):
weren't counting on you reaching out to other creators and realizing, oh,
this is a pattern. They're doing this with all of us.
They probably just wanted you personally to internalize that you
had like botched this opportunity in some way.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I fully agree, And again, I'm an attorney, so I'm
an investigator. Even I think slightly before we got the announcement,
there were stores where I'd pop up because we don't
get any information from Target about our demographics, like who's buying,
like what. They don't share any of that, so we
also have no knowledge of that other than where it's
selling and maybe what stores it's selling in. We would
(34:19):
ask questions about which cities is it selling best, which
stores is it selling in, so I could figure out
where we needed to get our sales up. So some
of these stores that they'd tell me we had product in,
I live in Los Angeles, so there were good number
of stores here. Some of these stores I started to
pop up in and I'd be, you know, walking through
the game misle in the section, and I didn't see
our product anywhere, and I'd be very confused, and I'd
(34:40):
look online and I'd be like, Okay, there's units, but
it's not here. So I'd find a manager or something.
There's one store in particular. Finally, I had a conversation
with a human and I was like, hey, excuse me,
I'm a creator. My product is supposed to be here.
Can you go find it? And they went to the
back and brought the product out and they're like, oh,
here it is. And I was like, wait, why in
it on shelves And they were like, oh, sometimes if
(35:02):
we only order a small amount of product, we don't
actually put it on the shelf because then we have
to print out the tags and it costs money for
the store. And that made me irate, because again, deceptive,
I'm giving you almost fifty percent of my profits, and
what you're supposed to be giving in return is shelf space.
It's visibility. It's the idea that all these people who
(35:23):
come to Target are going to see the product now
I'm really feeling like Rosa Parks because you're telling me
we did all this and the product is in the
back of the warehouse. So there were so much that
was going into it. When people would talk about like, oh,
but what were the sales? Were the sales and like,
you have no idea what was happening on the back end.
Of course, you want a product to sell. We did
(35:44):
well when our product was in the toy magazine, When
our product was on stores, we were always like right
in the pack selling well. Like there was never an
issue of like, no, no one's buying your product. Of course,
if your product's in the back, if your product's not featured,
if you have no visibility, if all the promise remarks
is taken away and nobody knows it exists, you're not
going to sell a product.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I mean, I'm it's not often that I am like
speechless and flabbergasted, but the idea of putting your products
on the back that goes counter to how people shop
at Target.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
When you're stopping at Target, it's I can't, okay.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I don't think I've ever had an idea of something
I wanted to buy and then gone to Target. Specifically
to buy it, and then if I didn't see it,
I asked, I asked the cashier or something. People need
to see the item on the shelf and then make
the decision to buy it. And so having it in
the back and is banking on someone coming in and
being like.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Oh, do you have the game?
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Is?
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I mean, it almost sounds like they didn't want you
all to make money. Could that be the case.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
I can't speak to their intentions because I'm not in
their minds, but I do know it's deceptive to say
we have one hundred something black people in our stores
that we're featuring when we're not actually being featured, Like
that's crazy to me, But they continue to get away
with it. And I don't think these problems are unique
to Target. I think with big retail in general, there's
(37:04):
a lot that I wish I knew before we were
in about the product. But I'm the first person in
my family to have a product in stores, So this
was definitely a level of education for all of us.
But I think more so than that, it was the
lack of transparency and being told one thing when another
thing was happening, and we just kept experiencing that over
(37:25):
and over again.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
And I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I don't like being lied to.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Had you known how quickly Target was going to pull
their investments in black creators, and how they were going
to treat you and like the leg work and find
and like personal financial cost it was going to come
to be and come with the beating Target, would you
still make that deal?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
There's no way we spent more money. We spent more
money than we made. There's we would have taken. I
would have taken those savings and put them into trying
to reach customers again. The whole idea was that this
is actually going to be financially beneficial for us because
we have company that's going to invest money to help
us reach customers. So the very little capital I did
have saved up. I used to make the product better
(38:08):
to be put on shelves that wasn't even showcased on
the shelf, Like y'all told us we needed a telescope
box that would show nicely. If you weren't going to
put it on the shelf, you could have let us
keep the little hanktag boxes and what leave me a
good forty thousand dollars?
Speaker 1 (38:21):
God, I mean I know that you're not calling target scammers.
This this, the whole thing just feels scammy to me,
Like it just feels like a like a baiten switch,
Like when you promise one thing and deliver a completely
different thing.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
The word I have for that is a scam.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Like my god, one percent, and I mean this sounds terrible.
It is what it is, gonna be honest. I grew
up in the South, right, Like I knew who was racist.
I knew who flew the Confederate flags, I knew who
the kid in my class he was like, You're just
gonna get in because you're black, And like, m actually,
I'm at the top of my class, I'm over four
point oh GPA and I'm president of everything. That's why
(39:01):
I'm gonna get into a good school, not because I'm black,
But like I knew who to look at and be
like yes, no, yes, no. This was hard for me.
I think this season has been hard, even living out
in LA because the racism exists, but it's all gaslighting.
It's done behind closed doors. People say one thing to
you and then you get behind a closed door and
it's something completely different. The conversations shift and at this
(39:25):
level in my career and now I've in rooms where
a lot of decisions are made and I sometimes I'm
screaming at the top of my lungs. Everybody's lying, like
you don't care about these communities. This is our all
about the ROI you want to make money, and I'm
not saying making money's bad. If you're a business, you
want to make money. Hopefully the relationship is mutually beneficial.
(39:46):
But that's the piece that's missing. It has to be
mutually beneficial. It can't just be beneficial for you and
detrimental for me. That's not a relationship. That's manipulation. I'm like,
you could tell me a joke, you could tell me
something I don't like, but don't tell me a lie.
The lie is what triggers me.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
More.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Essence Fest, the multi generational celebration of black women, took
over New Orleans earlier this month, but this year some
(40:29):
folks were side eyeing the sponsors because Target was one
of them, and around this same time, mega popular streamer
Kai Sinnat announced a brand partnership with Target two. Target
also made a three hundred thousand dollars donation to a
black church organization, a move that, let's be honest, looked
like damage control. So how does Kiara feel about black brands,
creators or organizations who still play ball with Target even
(40:52):
after the boycott, even after.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
The about face.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Honestly, she gets it because for a lot of black entrepreneurs,
especially the smaller ones, this this just about values. It's
about survival, visibility, what you have to do to feed
your family. And that's part of what makes us all
so painful and complicated. Target built a pipeline that black
brands bought into emotionally and financially, and then they just
walked away, leaving people to either stay in the game
(41:17):
or lose everything they put in. Is there a flip
side to this? Because right now a lot of us
are asking questions of like big, higher profile black creators
of partnerships with Target, and asking like what are your
thoughts on the boycott?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
This and that?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And I wonder if is there a dynamic where black
creators are expected to shoulder a burden from our community
that non black creators don't have to shoulder, right, Like,
nobody's asking white creators like, oh, are you planning on
pulling out?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Of Target given the boycotts.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
But I almost wonder if we are asking black creators
to shoulder something that their non black peers just simply
don't have to think about.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, it ae hundred percent does. And I tell people
all the time buy from black creators, and the space
where they're telling you is most beneficial for their business
because you don't know what people's contracts look like. You
don't know, like we had our actual physical product. A
lot of the Bickers creators have licensing deals, which is
completely different. It's not a product that they've created owned
(42:21):
have in their hand. It's a product that the company
makes or another company makes, and they just get the
right to put their name on it. They might have
the right to license your name for the next two
years without you, and if you pull out, you have
to pay them a million dollars. As I mentioned, even
for us that they let us know, you might have
to buy back your product if we don't sell out
of it, or if we take it off stores. So
it can be very expensive to get out of a situation.
(42:43):
I think the best way to talk about it is
somebody in an abusive relationship. It's very easy to be like, girl,
why are you still with that man? There's just so
much that goes into it. You don't know their financial situation,
you don't know what traumas they have.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
You don't know. You just don't know.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
And people need the space and the time to have
the freedom to make decisions that make the best sense
for them, and those decisions, I think it very It's
not fair to say the decision that you're making to
try to make sure you're in a situation that's not
going to pull it to you in the hole is
contrary to what it means to like support the people
to support and again, very complicated. I think it really
(43:20):
is kind of like a creator by creator, case by
case situation.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
That's a really eloquent way of putting it, and I
appreciate it in your TikTok that I initially saw that
you were like, listen, people got to do what works
for them. But here is where I personally am at
right like keeping it with like, here are the decisions
that I am making as it pertains to target people
can do what works for them.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Here's where I'm.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
At one hundred percent. And I don't know if you've
ever had this experience of working in corporate America. Kind
of the same thing with the job. If you're at
a job and managers are toxic and you're like, this
is crazy, they're raises girl, I'm out. If you have
the luxury to be out today, that's good for you.
But like I got rich, so I might need to
like apply to other jobs first, have some conversations, figure
(44:02):
out a plane before I can get out. Like, everybody's
situation is just so different, So it's hard to judge
on the outside when you don't know what's happening on
the inside.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
And to that vein, I mean, what do you make
of hearing Target as a sponsor of Essence Fest this
time around, or like Target is giving money to these
big black church.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Groups, what do you make of that?
Speaker 3 (44:22):
I think we all have to make choices about how
we're going to concede given that capitalism and racism are
the waters that we're swimming in. Like, I feel some
type of way about I don't know things that Mark
Zuckerberg says, but I still have an Instagram. I feel
some type of way about how where products are coming
(44:42):
from and whether they're being sourced in an organic matter,
if it's harming the community. I hate that AI is
bad for the community, but also sometimes I use it
to help me with an email, and I have to
have conversations with myself like, ugh, what are the unless
I'm going to like live outside in a tent with
no cell phone and no computer and no contact and
(45:02):
grow my own food and all these things I think
we're all making if we're honest with ourselves, there are
areas where we're all making concessions in ways that we
are that are not the most ideal. But you have
to ask, like, where what's the most important? What sacrifices
am I willing to make? Can I stand on business
when it comes to those sacrifices. And I've heard other
(45:23):
people say to kind of use your money the way
that you would use your voice. So when things become
to a certain extent, things become incredibly egregious. It's like, okay,
like I got off X, I don't have a Twitter
X whatever it's called. I don't use that anymore. At
a certain point, it becomes so egregious that you have
to step away. But I think everybody has to just
decide for themselves. How can I look in the mirror
(45:45):
and feel like I am showing up as the best,
most capable, honest person and still try to find a
way to navigate the fact that we got bills to pay.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, that's a really good way to put it and
very realistic.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
I sometimes feel online people it's like they think we
all can be like people should do what they can do.
But it's sometimes I feel like there's an expectation that
we can all be these perfect advocates and perfect activists
all the time. And yeah, if I like, like I'm
not gonna be grudge a single parent or a new
(46:19):
parent or somebody who is disabled, like, oh no, you
have to shop in this way, Like I personally might
be able to, you know, make certain economic choices that
somebody else might not be able to make, but they
might have the same sentiment like I do feel like
we should be a little bit more have a little
bit more grace for where folks are and are not
(46:39):
able to show up.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
And that comes back to community and the reason we
create this game in the first place. Like people don't
know their neighbors. So even the one day boycott where
it was like we're not spending any money, don't get
gas anything. Black people don't spend well, if you have
to get to work and you don't have gas, but
you got to get to work so you cannot lose
your job of feeds your baby. You got to get gas.
(47:01):
In an era where we had community, we know our neighbors,
what it meant to boycott was like, not only am
I not going to drive, I got gas, So says
if you need a ride to work, I got you.
We don't have it anymore. We don't have the neighbors
and the grandma's and the aunties and the uncles and
the dads, the people to rely on to help us
through these situations. So people are wanting to boycott for
(47:21):
the good of the community, but then there's no community
to support them through that boycott. So I think we
have to be realistic, Like before you say anything to
anybody to your point. I had a friend literally text
me it was like, girl, I had to get diapers
from Target. It was half off, it's right down the street.
And I was like, you don't have to apologize to me,
but unless you're willing to be the friend that's like,
(47:43):
don't go to Target. I got extra money in my
bank account. I'm gonna send you diapers this month. So
you don't have to worry about unless you're willing to
shoulder the responsibility so that we can all carry it together.
An aunt can't carry a cake by itself. It just can't.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
And I mean, you have this great quote saying I'm
boycot not because I'm bitter, but because I want my
money and energy into spaces where diverse communities are valued
and included, not just black dollars.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 3 (48:10):
So for me, a lot of this has been shopping local.
So I live in Pasadena, try to go to the
farmer's market once or twice a week. And I think
I've mentioned like I know the people that I buy
my honey from. I know the people I buy my
yogurt from. I know the lady who I buy my
pasta from. I know what they believe. I know what
they're working towards in the world, or at least how
they appear. Can we ever really know somebody? You know, like,
(48:31):
what are you doing in your secret life?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (48:33):
No, but I know how you. You know how you
show up, I know the conversations you're having. I know
that you know you notice that single mom didn't have
enough money and you told her, don't worry about it.
Get I got you take it. I know that you'll
give someone an extra three or four yogurts because they've
been such a loyal customer, Like I know your heart posture,
I know the care that you have for your community.
(48:54):
So I'm actually able to put my money behind people
who stand on business for what they stand for, what
they believe in, as opposed to as some of these
large companies that I've worked for, so many of them,
people are sitting in a room and they could care
less about you or your mama or your cousin, and
so much of us. We make money to spend money,
Like the value of money in and of itself is nothing,
(49:15):
Like you can't it doesn't help you breathe, you can't
hold dollar bills. And then all of a sudden you
have clarity in your mind, maybe if it's psychological for you,
but there's no actual value to money other than what
it can afford you, Like what can you buy with it?
What can you do with it? What type of power
does it give you? So the question becomes not the
money itself, but what is the person who has the
(49:37):
money planning to do with that money? And if some
of these big businesses corporations. You know, they're going to
use the money to push forward narratives and political ideologies
and things that are going to make the world a
terrible place for you and everybody around you. It just
feels incredibly irresponsible to some extent not try to boycott
in a realistic way.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Don't let anybody tell you that boycotts don't work. Because
Target is feeling it. The store had measurable drops and
foot traffic, sales, reputation, and stock price. Their CEO, Brian Cornell,
even had to take a pay cut. But don't worry,
he's still making millions. Yeah, And I mean we have
to keep it real. That sounds like the boycott is working.
You know, foot traffic is down at Target. Their CEO
(50:20):
is a whole mess of hot water.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Because of all this.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
And I will say, like retail shopping is down like
in general, but Costco is not having a rough time.
And like when Trump wrote like was signaling that he
wanted companies to abandon DEI, Costco said, kick rocks and
they're doing fine. So like this was definitely a choice,
and it seems to be a choice that it's not
working out in target's favor, and I think that speaks to.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
The loyalty of real community.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Like we I was a Target girly, like I was
the person who would go to Target.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
If I was bored or just like wanted to be
in the air conditioning.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Just like I want to walk around to see with the
I want to get a coffee and walk around Target,
like that was my happy place. And I guess this
is interesting to me how quickly this thing that was
so ingrained in my behavior became not needed, Like I
don't miss it.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
I've replaced it with other things. And part of me
is that I probably shouldn't have been spending the money anyway.
And I just like, I guess it's just like they
really had something there and they gave it up for nothing.
Because I have no desire to go back into our Target.
I don't even miss it.
Speaker 3 (51:30):
You create again normals what you're used to. So I
think that at first it was like, well, where are
we gonna go? But you find your new routines.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I get I.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
You know again, we go to the farmer's market in
my house like twice a week. We have our vendors,
we have our things, and I don't miss it either.
I make my own coffee at home now I don't
have to stop at Starbucks, and I'm saving money. So
it's like, wait a second. In a lot of ways,
this boycott is not just bad for you, it's financially,
economically and socially good for me.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
We're taking power back a little bit.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yeah, So, if this is a story about a breakup
between me and Target, let's talk about the last time
we saw each other.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I walked by the local.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Target, the one where I had enjoyed so many Target
runs in the years before, and Target just looked kind
of bad. I swear, I can't make this up. There
was a cardboard cutout of country singer Morgan Wallen right
at the entrance, advertising his newest country album, and I
couldn't help. But wonder hadn't Target and I really had
a relationship at all?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
What had we even seen at each other?
Speaker 1 (52:32):
And the Target in my community is in like a
shopping plaza. So I go into a big plaza and
is a Target and other things. So I walk by
the Target still, but I don't necessarily have to go in.
And the last time that I walked by the Target,
a couple of weeks ago, they had this big stand
with the country music artist Morgan Wallen, who, like, I
don't know if you know him, he's I'll just say
(52:54):
he yeah, he's known for some like let's just say
racially insensitive behavior in comments and leave it at that.
But I live in a majority, like a majority black neighborhood.
I live in a heavily black city, and seeing these
like massive Morgan Wallin stands, like literally at the entrance
of the store, it just made me think that Target
(53:15):
used to be for the gals, gays and days, and
now they don't know who they're for. Like I was like,
it's not the white dads who listened to Morgan Wallin
who are going to Target. Like it just made me think,
I don't, I don't know that Target knows who they're
for anymore.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Did you get that sense?
Speaker 3 (53:30):
And it's very confusing, Yeah, because I we got. We
did give statistics about who's most likely to shop at Target,
and it's women who are college educated who have like
one kid, I think at least one kids. Like their
biggest audience. I'm your audience, Okay, I buy all your things,
I buy the hair stuff I buy I stop for groceries.
I get the black owned stuff, I get stuff for
(53:51):
my son. Pretty much everything in your store is something
I would buy. So to me again, it comes back
to not the reason we create the card games, not
knowing your community, not knowing people, not knowing what's going
to affect them, what they care about, what they don't
care about. I heard someone say, who's you know? Won't
give me names? Pretty high up and people were worried
(54:13):
about the boycotts and how it's going to affect business,
And this high up white woman leader was like, ugh,
black people will forget about it, Like, give it a
couple of weeks, they'll forget about They'll move on. And
I'm like, you the audacity to think you know us
so well? How dare you think you understand this this
movement and to feel like you know what's going to
(54:35):
happen with it? And then, you know, I do start
to ask myself the hard questions. Is there a reason
they feel like we're easily manipulated? Is there a reason
they feel like we don't stand on business? Is it
because we never fought for reparations? We've been letting white
America get away with things for so long we've let
them tell us we have to wear straight hair in
(54:56):
the workplace and not natural hair because our natural hair
is aggressive, and we like have we can seeded too
much to the point where they're like, you've already told
me how to treat you. So I'm just going to continue.
Not that we should internalize it and say that it's
our fault, but I have been asking myself the question, like,
number one, where do you get the audacity? Number two?
As a community, like let's have a conversation. Are we
(55:18):
contributing to that feeling of being able to bully us
without us saying or doing anything about it.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
I know that you've been since the shift with Target,
You've been reinvesting in like education spaces, community spaces. How
can folks support you? How can they support your work?
Where can they get the book?
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Like? How can folks shop for you as a creator?
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yeah, so my book therapy isn't just for white people.
If you're not shopping on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles,
they've had their own. Everybody has a thing right now.
A lot of black owned bookstores also have access to
the book, or you can call your black owned bookstore
and ask them to get the book. Tons of the
black owned bookstores in LA have the book, so you know,
shop according to your preference target. Please don't We're not
(56:03):
I think we're still listed, but they just as like
out of stock recently set out of stock. Either they
actually sold out or they were like, ooh, this girl's
talking too much, take that product.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Off the shelf.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
You can go to our website lk EU. Likeucards dot com,
we have our flagship game. We have games for parents.
As you mentioned, we're trying to do more stuff with
kids because I think at the end of the day,
if we're going to shape the next generation, how we
shape the people growing up is so important. So our
kids game really helps parents step into their kids psychological
world and to get on their level and to not
(56:34):
make assumptions about how they see the world and to
really hear them. So that's also available on our website,
and stay tuned. We have some other fun ideas coming
down the pipeline and just playing with new ways to
bring the community together. Everything we do comes back to
the same goal of bringing community together.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Community has been such a big theme of this conversation.
Do you have any closing thoughts about community that you'd
like to leave folks.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
With in order to be part of the community. I
do think it starts with ourselves, and a huge part
of that is how you interact with your neighbor. So
if we're gonna get to this next phase of like
coming together to like make a change, you see your
neighbor outside waves, say hi. If they don't wave back,
don't feeling well, that's my I'm never waving again because
(57:20):
they didn't acknowledge me, and you're not the center of
the world. Maybe they just found out their mom has cancer,
you know, like give people grace and find ways to
connect in ways that also are allowing people to show
up as humans not as these perfectly like robots. I
don't know, that's all.
Speaker 1 (57:38):
That's all.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
I got.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi, you can we just had
hello at tegodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by Me for JAD.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
as our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(58:05):
bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you
get your podcasts
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.