Black Women and Target, a Tainted Love Story. Part two: Dear Tanisha...

Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg / Alamy Stock Photo

Some relationships are not meant to last…

On January 24, 2025, four days into Donald Trump’s second administration and with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on the federal delete menu, Target announced that the company would end its DEI initiatives:

Discount store chain Target said Friday that it would join rival Walmart and a number of other prominent American brands in scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have come under attack from conservative activists and, as of this week, the White House.

The Minneapolis-based retailer said the changes to its “Belonging at the Bulleye” strategy would include ending a program it established to help Black employees build meaningful careers, improve the experience of Black shoppers and to promote Black-owned businesses following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

Target, which operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said it also would conclude the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, goals it previously set in three-year cycles.

The goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities.

In a memo to employees, Kiera Fernandez, Target’s chief community impact and equity officer, as a “next chapter” in a decades-long process to create “inclusive work and guest environments that welcome all.”

“Many years of data, insights, listening and learning have been shaping this next chapter in our strategy,” Fernandez wrote in the memo, which Target shared Friday. “And as a retailer that serves millions of consumers every day, we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape, now and in the future.”

But as corporations tend to do when they are seeking to play both sides, Target publicly wrapped their announcement in a gauze of “Bullseye Belonging…”

We remain focused on driving our business by creating a sense of belonging for our team, guests and communities through a commitment to inclusion. Belonging for all is an essential part of our team and culture, helping fuel consumer relevance and business results.

In every area of our business, we are constantly listening, learning and adjusting to set ourselves up for long-term success. As we start a new fiscal year, we’re continuing to shape the next chapter of Belonging at the Bullseye.

Uh huh … go on …

Throughout 2025, we’ll be accelerating action in key areas and implementing changes with the goal of driving growth and staying in step with the evolving external landscape. We will continue to monitor and adjust as needed. Current actions include:

• Concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

• Concluding our Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025 as planned.

• Ensuring our employee resource groups are communities fully focused on development and mentorship. These communities will continue to be open to all.

• Further evaluating our corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to our roadmap for growth.

• Stopping all external diversity-focused surveys, including HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

• Evolving our “Supplier Diversity” team to “Supplier Engagement” to better reflect our inclusive global procurement process across a broad range of suppliers, including increasing our focus on small businesses.

Shorn of the corporate speak, Target was getting out of the DEI business. At least publicly.

The announcement sent shockwaves through Black America, which discovered in one fell swoop how superficial this longtime romance with Target seems to have been. It’s as if you’ve been in a relationship that you think is great, but suddenly it dawns on you that this person you love and who you believe loves you, actually has no respect for you and wants to be in an open relationship with you … and fascists. And so one day, out of the blue, you find a note on your dresser reading:

Dear Tanisha:
I’ve decided to be with someone else, and given that they’re frankly, pretty racist, I’m gonna have to publicly disavow you. I hope we can still see each other on the sly, though (wink)…
See you at Essence Fest and look forward to you spending lots of money with me in NOLA!
— Love, Tarzhay

“I quit you”

The day after Target made its announcement a group of activists made theirs. It was the equivalent of: “I quit you.” The leaders of Until Freedom and We Are Somebody — veteran activists Tamika Mallory and former Ohio State Senator and 2016 Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner, respectively — announced that they were calling for a national boycott of Target stores, coinciding with the start of Black History Month. I’ll let Nina tell the story from there:

On Friday, January 24th, Target announced it was rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs — including some that aim to make its workforce and merchandise better reflect its customers.

In a memo sent to its employees, the Minneapolis-based retailer said it will end its three-year DEI goals, stop reports to external diversity-focused groups like the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and end a program focused on carrying more products from Black- or minority-owned businesses.

On Saturday, January 25th, My organization, We Are Somebody, a coalition-building organization for the working-class, called for a nationwide boycott of Target, starting February 1st, the start of Black History Month. We are calling on conscious-minded shoppers to stop shopping at Target completely.

Turner included in her post, a link to some of the Black-owned businesses that have been featured at Target stores, so people could continue to support them by buying from them directly online.

That announcement coincided with a group of Minneapolis activists who also demanded Target retract its retreat on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and deliver on the promises made to George Floyd’s family. They too were calling for a boycott:

Civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong said the boycott against Target will begin on Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month.

She said they believe Target phasing out DEI programs is “completely unacceptable.”

Levy Armstrong, who had her 7-year-old daughter Assata Armstrong by her side, said the group believes that “this decision was not made independently by Target, but it was made as a result of the pressure that is coming from the White House and the administration under Donald Trump.”

“They acted cowardly, and they made the decision to bow down to the Trump administration when we are here today, saying we will not bow down,” Levy Armstrong said.

She added that different ethnic groups and races make up the “fabric of America and our presence in this country should be embraced.”

She and others at the event urged people to shop at businesses that are committed to DEI efforts.

Civil Rights leaders soon jumped in. On January 30th, the National Action Network, led by Rev. Al Sharpton, who had been Mallory’s mentor in civil rights organizing, called for a “BUYCOTT” benefitting retailers like Costco, that stood firmly by DEI. And while NAN did not specifically call for or endorse a boycott, every major corporation that walked away from diversity, equity and inclusion, and by default from Black America, was on notice that Black consumers and civil rights organizations were paying attention.

Target’s c-suite, including CEO Brian Cornell and the company’s executive vice president and Chief Community and Stakeholder Engagement Officer Kiera Fernandez, received urgent calls in January from the leaders of the major civil rights groups including the NAACP, the National Urban League and the National Council of Negro Women, all of whom have had prior positive engagement, and even partnerships with Target on scholarships and other initiatives. Ms. Fernandez, as the only Black member of the senior leadership team, was in a particularly uncomfortable position — left to deal with the blowback from her own community, with her name attached to corporate statements attempting to explain the new strategy — despite there being no evidence that any of this was her idea. It’s a situation any Black woman who has ever worked in corporate America can relate to — the company makes a call that impacts Black folks, and all eyes, internally and externally, turn to you, with the folks who made the mess expecting you to fix it.

Note: I reached out to Target for comment on all of this, but they declined.

The whole mess culminated in a March 5th announcement by Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist megachurch in Atlanta (“Big New Birth” to those of us who had been members of New Birth MBC in Miami Florida — AKA “Little New Birth”) in conjunction with Mallory and Turner, of a 40 day “Target fast,” wherein parishioners of his Black megachurch and others, including Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglass Haynes III’s Friendship Baptist Church in Dallas, would refuse to shop at Target stores or patronize them online for 40 days, leading up to the Lentin season and Easter. The boycott demand came with four key demands:

• Honor the $2 billion pledge to the black business community through products, services, and black media buys

• Deposit $250 million amongst any of our 23 black banks

• Completely restoring the franchise commitment to DEI

• Pipeline community centers at 10 HBCU to teach retail business at every level

More than than 200,000 people have since taken the pledge.

As a result, the company has seen its in-store foot traffic and its stock price tumble. Target has tried to put a brave face on it, blaming its troubles on Trump tariffs and the resulting inflation. But anyone with eyes and an ability to turn on a camera inside a Target store in any community with a significant Black population knows better.

The Target boycott produced a few familiar reactions, including the most embarrassing one of all — Black conservatives beclowning themselves at the incredibly ironic MAGA Black History Month celebration in late February in the East Room of the White House. One wonders how it was even allowed under Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders, but it was an event that did take place, at which some of the continuously “hahaaaaing” Black Trump fans waved pictures of Rev. Bryant on a stick while cooing over the elevation of frequent right wing podcast guest Kash Patel to director of the FBI …

It’s not clear what message that was meant to send, other than, we are highly embarrassing people who go “hahaaaaaa” a LOT, while shake-dancing around. Still, Bryant responded to what he viewed as an attempt at intimidation:

“It wasn’t just about me, but it was an attempt to silence the voice of the prophetic Black church,” Bryant said.

In a statement to Channel 2’s Audrey Washington, Bryant wrote:

“To be singled out at a White House reception as a potential target to be “held accountable” by the newly appointed FBI director was not on my 2025 bingo card... but let me be clear that no amount of intimidation or political pressure will silence the truth.

“I stand firm in my commitment to speak out against this administration or any corporation that seeks to erode generations of progress among marginalized communities. It is not only my right but it’s our collective responsibility as citizens to hold the powerful accountable. At this critical moment, we must collectively resist any radical actions that threaten the very foundations of our democracy.

“Silence is not an option, and complacency is not a strategy. We all must remain steadfast in the fight to ensure that truth and justice prevail.”

It was a weird moment, but things were only going to get weirder.

Who you gonna call?

At the start of the boycott, Target CEO Brian Cornell had reportedly declined to directly negotiate with Pastor Bryant to end the TargetFast, according to Bryant, who publicly accused the company of trying to instead push him off onto Ms. Fernandez. He stated publicly in March that he’d refused to take a meeting with anyone other than the CEO.

That meeting would come, just before Easter, but not in Atlanta, or Minneapolis, and not because Target necessarily invited him.

According to sources close to all sides, including public admissions by Target; a couple of weeks before Easter, Cornell contacted Rev. Sharpton, asking to meet.

Sharpton was in the midst of his own civil rights action against PepsiCo, for also dumping its DEI commitments. Still, he agreed to take the meeting, and placed a call to Rev. Bryant, who had just participated in the NAN annual conference in New York and was back in Atlanta. He figured Bryant ought to be there, since it was his boycott. Bryant made plans to fly to New York for the meeting on April 17 — three days before Easter.

The meeting took place at NAN headquarters in New York, attended by Sharpton, Bryant, Cornell, NAN’s chairman of the board, Rev. Franklin T. Richardson and Carra Wallace, NAN’s advisor for the Special Economic Justice Projects. It was memorialized in a photo posted on NAN’s social media accounts.

Missing from the photo … Rev. Jamal Bryant. People on social media were incensed.

The following day; Good Friday, Bryant took to his Instagram account to clarify his absence from the photo and a subsequent NAN statement that he would be “informed” of what took place in a meeting he attended, and Sharpton issued a clarifying statement as well, reiterating that not only was Bryant in the meeting, he and Rev. Bryant are “aligned, especially as those seeking to dismantle DEI will sow divisions to advance their cause.” Sharpton added: "We took a photo to put it crystal clear that the CEO and I met, but this is not just a photo opp. This was a message that we will go public with progress and what the answers are for the things we asked for.”

And with that, further meetings were scheduled, this time to include Turner and Mallory, to continue the talks.

From “Target fast” to all-out “boycott”

Easter Sunday came and went, along with the passing of The People’s Pope, the day after. Black America and Black women in particular, awaited the results of the negotiations that could determine whether they would return en masse to Target’s stores and website. From all of the off the record feedback I’ve received, Target did not exactly come back to Black America on bended knee, vowing to put a red circle ring on it.

And so, on the Tuesday after Easter, following an additional meeting with Target that included Ms. Mallory and Ms. Turner, Pastor Bryant held a town hall at Big New Birth, and laid down the gauntlet:

He also gave an interview to local Atlanta station 11 Alive, in which he also promoted the Bullseye Black Market, which supports and promotes Black-owned businesses, and commented again on the Trump White House Black History Month face-on-a-card-on-a-stick business:

“Target was the first, but they may not be the last…”

Bottom line: the Target boycott won’t be ending anytime soon.

From the updated TargetFast website, which now also includes a “Black Wall Street Ticker,” tracking overall spending by Black consumers, with retailers divided into “buycott” and “boycott” categories:

We are entering a new phase of this movement. What began as the Target FAST — a moral witness and urgent call for justice — now evolves into a full Target BOYCOTT. This shift marks not an end, but a deepening of our commitment to justice and accountability.

Until Target comes to the table with serious, concrete proposals to meet our four demands, we will remain in this posture. Silence and delay are no longer acceptable. Our communities deserve action, not platitudes. Our demands are not radical — they are righteous, reasonable, and long overdue.

It is vital to remember: this boycott is a coalition effort. It is not about any single individual, personality, or public figure. It is about people. It is about power. It is about principle. We stand shoulder to shoulder — workers, organizers, elders, youth, people of faith, people of conscience — in a collective refusal to support a corporation that refuses to hear us.

Together, we are drawing a line. Together, we are demanding justice. And together, we will win!

Summertime, and the living ain’t easy….

Despite the success (and potential expansion) of the Target boycott, the complications with this potential divorce between Target and Black America will only get more complicated as summertime looms, the Trump tariffs keep biting into overall consumer spending … and a certain major festival for Black women kicks off in New Orleans in July …

In part three, we’ll talk Target … and Essence Fest.

Need to catch up? Read part one this series here.