00:03:11.360It was against the backdrop of the protests of 20200.76
00:03:13.860that Kiara Amani, attorney and author of the book
00:03:17.160therapy isn't just for white people, got the idea for Like You Cards.
00:03:21.680It really was birthed out of a place of having a lot of political turmoil in 2020.
00:03:26.860There was the death of George Floyd. We were all at home.
00:03:29.920People were having a hard time communicating and talking to one another.
00:03:33.680One of the things that I found very specifically was that people would make a lot of assumptions
00:03:39.220about what you believed, how you saw the world based on who you were, your color, your gender,
00:03:45.680all these things. And I found obviously people were frustrated because people have differing
00:03:52.040opinions. And I know that that can be really stressful. But what I really saw was people
00:03:56.000being frustrated because they felt misunderstood. Like they don't see me. They don't hear me. They
00:04:01.680don't understand why I'm so angry. They don't understand why I'm so triggered. So the idea
00:04:06.540was to create a card game that could help people feel, seen, heard, understood.
00:04:13.140Like a lot of companies in 2020, it seemed like Target was listening.
00:04:17.540That 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.
00:04:28.660Then in 2021, they made a bigger commitment to spend $2 billion by the end of 2025 supporting Black businesses and to carry over 500 Black-owned brands.
00:04:38.040They'd also be launching Forward Founders, an equity-free accelerator to help over 60 Black and diverse entrepreneurs scale into mass retail.
00:04:46.340Sounds pretty good, right? Kiara thought so too.
00:04:49.240I 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?
00:05:29.600And obviously social media is a really helpful tool,
00:05:31.600but unless you are really pushing your content out there with ads and paying, it's not always
00:05:38.940the most effective at reaching people. So Target made that statement and I was like, this is
00:05:44.000perfect. They're pledging to spend money on black businesses, small black businesses. We're a small1.00
00:05:49.980black business. We seem very mission aligned. They care about the black community. We're black. We
00:05:54.860created a card game that's for everybody. So I think it'd be good for the stores. So I got on
00:05:59.960LinkedIn and started finding emails and reaching out to every person I could find at Target.
00:06:04.680And I, this is not an ad, but I love LinkedIn because there are only so many monikers for
00:06:09.820a company. Usually it's firstname.lastnameatcompany.com. If it's not that, there are
00:06:15.520only other few first initial lastnameatcompany.com. So once you figure out one and you don't get that
00:06:21.980bounce back, you know you have the email for almost everybody at the company. So I found as
00:06:26.560many people as i could that worked in buying and then one person i think a black woman who worked
00:06:31.780in baby products connected us to another person who connected us to another person eventually we
00:06:36.680got to the right buyer um they loved the game they gave us some suggestions about how to fix
00:06:42.380the packaging to make it stand out on shelves and so we took all of those suggestions we revamped
00:06:48.200our packaging completely to be better for shelves put all of our own money into this i personally
00:06:52.760invested like 40k of my own personal money that I really didn't have. It's all my savings. I'm
00:06:57.300trying to make the product perfect for shelves. And eventually they were like, you did all the
00:07:01.940things. Congratulations. Welcome to Target. And we were so excited about it. It just felt very
00:07:08.240surreal. This creation that came from such a place of turmoil and difficulty is now on the shelves
00:07:13.720at Target. How did that feel? It was really surreal. I think that's the best word that I have
00:07:20.900to describe it, but we were also moving so quickly that I don't know that we ever, or I can speak for
00:07:27.060myself, I never really took the time to soak it in and say, I'm this girl from a small town in
00:07:32.480Virginia who had all these big dreams. I moved to LA and I'm doing all the things that I said I was
00:07:36.840going to do. I didn't really take that moment because as soon as you're in stores, it's like
00:07:41.280we had to get certifications. We have to make sure insurance is good. We're figuring out the warehouse.
00:07:45.520We're talking to our manufacturers, trying to figure out costs, trying to figure out projections.
00:07:49.880so we didn't really sit or I didn't really sit in the gravity of the feeling I think it wasn't
00:07:56.280until I probably walked into my first target and saw the product on shelves that I was like
00:08:02.800whoa I want to tell everybody that's my product and then very quickly my business mind switched
00:08:07.760on again I was like is this the good placement who can I talk to you is this you know how many
00:08:12.060products are in this store and how's it selling and so there was a lot of mix of emotion but it
00:08:18.560was so, I would say, crowded by trying to make sure you get to the next step, the next thing.
00:08:25.680This is an episode that's not pro-Target, but it does, it must be pretty cool to see
00:08:31.320something that you created on the shelf at a store like Target. Like, I don't fuck with Target0.99
00:08:36.680anymore personally, but I don't want to take away from what a cool moment that must have been.0.96
00:08:41.360I 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 had, again, grew up in Virginia and had some very racist experiences growing up that I talk about in my book.
00:09:01.680I had people from 10, 15 years ago calling me to apologize for things that, you know, they're like, I think back on these moments and I'm sorry.
00:09:09.400I 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.
00:09:18.660And we all saw it. No one said anything like we should have said something.
00:09:21.920So just all of the acknowledgement that people were actually seeing, it felt good to be like, whoa, my experiences aren't invisible.
00:09:43.340You know, you know, the vibes that, you know, we I grew up with friends, parents who were like doing battle reenactments off the battlefield.
00:09:51.420It's because Manassas was one of the battles that the South won.
00:09:53.920And then people would have parades and celebrate that.
00:10:10.160That was also a big part of my experience.
00:10:13.960I used to drive down Monument Avenue to get to my high school every day.
00:10:17.660And 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 we'd come to school dressed up as either side and do a battle march on our on our school's front lawn.
00:10:37.520Every time I tell that story, people are like, well, certainly that wasn't happening in 1992 in Virginia. And I say, sir, I can assure you that it very much was.
00:10:46.420Absolutely. This is why I'm grateful for the internet, because I've told people, just Google Manassas Civil War Parade. You can see the Google battle reenactments. I'm not making it up, but you can see it for yourself. And I had a friend watch it, and she was like, this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. And I was like, yeah.
00:11:04.520If the story of me and Target is a breakup story, then this is the part where I tell you how good things used to be.0.99
00:11:11.140All those big announcements about supporting Black-owned brands, well, my Black ass ate it right up.0.99
00:11:16.160Because listen, I'm a Target girl.0.99
00:11:18.440Do I want to get a nice coffee and walk around Target for no reason at all?
00:11:38.780But like any bad relationship, comes that moment where you start to question things
00:11:43.060and maybe even start to wonder, am I being lied to?
00:11:46.600I've tried to explain this to people, but Target, especially in 2020,
00:11:51.500but for me, even before, it kind of felt like Target was like for us.
00:11:56.280Now, obviously, they're a corporation.
00:11:58.340I think we're all smart enough to know that they are about money first and foremost.
00:12:01.360But they did all of these things to signal that they did want to make investments in our community. And so I think given the boycott and everything, people will often ask me, well, where's the smoke for Walmart? Where's the smoke for Amazon?
00:12:16.020And the reason why I think it's different is because Target went out of their way to make, to like signal to us that they see us, they're for us, they want to be in community with creators like you.
00:12:29.600And as far as I know, I mean, I feel like Amazon and Walmart have been very clear about who they are the whole time.
00:12:45.080I don't like being lied to. I am an attorney by training. I understand business. I understand
00:12:51.100money. I understand that for profit businesses are in it to make money. But Target made a financial
00:12:57.000commitment to the Black community. I want to believe that you're going to do what you say1.00
00:13:01.920you're going to do. That should be a very basic tenet principle of morality, of business, of
00:13:09.120community, doing what you say you're going to do. For us specifically, when it came to Target,
00:13:14.220You know, they were having all of these, there's Buy Black on the app, and then there's the Buy Black section in the stores, and they were coming off as trying to be a part of the community, for lack of a better, you know, metaphor.
00:13:27.020They 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.
00:13:34.440And very quickly, we started to realize, I would say, a year or two into the partnership, oh, this was performative.
00:13:42.560one of the things that's always rubbed me the wrong way is how companies frame their support
00:13:47.680for black business like it's charity like we should just be grateful for the opportunity
00:13:51.980but let's be real that framing is offensive why is it that when a major corporation invests in a
00:13:58.060black-owned business it gets talked about like a handout the first thing being i think it was our
00:14:02.980second year the first year we were in the toy catalog for christmas and i would say they kind
00:14:07.820have did the things they said they were going to do. Again, they didn't just say, oh, we're going
00:14:12.340to support Black businesses. They said, we're going to make a financial investment in these
00:14:15.900businesses. So as a small business, when you hear investment, especially when it pertains to
00:14:20.280marketing, that's an incredible opportunity. We know Black businesses are the least funded by
00:14:24.980venture capitalists, and we know you need a marketing budget to do well. It's not just
00:14:28.380the budget for the warehouse and the product. There's an extra capital that has to be there
00:14:33.180in order to market the product. So it also was frustrating because other people would be like,
00:14:37.440oh, you are expecting a handout. I'm like, almost every white business I know got an investment and
00:14:43.740you just say they had, they believed in the product. So they had investors. Why is it that
00:14:47.580our business can't be a business that's taking an investment? Why do you see it as a handout when
00:14:51.900it comes to a Black business? Everybody builds a business on somebody else's money. Not everybody,1.00
00:14:56.080most people. Most people build a business on somebody else's money. They get funding in
00:15:00.740order to get to a certain level. So all those inspirational target ads,
00:15:05.960The ones featuring traditionally marginalized creators and Black-owned brands?
00:15:09.840The ones that gave me all those warm fuzzies and made me feel super seen?
00:15:13.540Yeah, it turns out that a lot of those creators had to pay Target out of their own pockets to make that happen.
00:25:21.720And those are just the right things for our business today.
00:25:24.620So 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.
00:25:33.960And all the stuff that you just said, Target knows.
00:25:37.080They clear as day, their leadership went on podcasts and said, oh, the investments that we made in Black creators helped our bottom line.0.56
00:25:45.340And so this idea that them, quote unquote, supporting creators of color was a handout. They were I mean, it's disgusting to hear how scammy that support in quotes actually was.
00:26:00.640But like supporting 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 it's just wild to me how quick they would be to turn on this loyalty that they built, even though that loyalty was built on a lie. Like, I just don't understand why they would block their own bag in that way.
00:26:28.980I 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 attorney. But, you know, obviously the disparity in pay between white creators and black creators are with white creators. It's like, oh, we can't use this likeness or image without her permission. With black creators, it's like, let's just tag her and not pay her.
00:26:56.100And I'm like, come again. And they're like, don't you think she'll be honored to be included in this campaign?1.00
00:27:00.360And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You've never said that for any of the white creators that they'd be honored.0.79
00:27:04.780You understand that their business, their brand actually is their income and you can't feature their image or their likeness without paying them.0.88
00:27:11.400Why is it when it comes to the black creators for Black History Month?
00:27:14.020You're like, they they're just going to be honored to be mentioned.
00:27:16.860So 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.
00:27:24.160But we had meetings with our buyers at the time.
00:27:27.040We had, you know, all of these promises that were made, all of these campaigns we were
00:27:42.580Like I said, Black business, diverse businesses was good for Target's bottom line, which is
00:27:48.060why they did it and why they continue to do it.1.00
00:27:50.020I think when they started to get cocky and everybody was doing well, right, like everybody's eating all of a sudden, it's like, thanks for coming to the party.
00:27:57.760You can see yourself out. We good. We full here.
00:28:00.020I'm like, oh, OK. And I really believe, especially when it comes to supporting black businesses, that support without capital is counterfeit.
00:28:10.440It's not support. It's lip service.0.91
00:28:11.960Yes, that's very, very well put. And, you know, I want to talk more about the sort of legwork that it took, you know, financial legwork that it took to play ball with Target in this way.
00:28:23.620I think it did give me warm fuzzies to walk around Target previously and see women who looked like me, you know, on the shelves.
00:28:33.360I'm not going to lie, 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 had experiences like this where I'm invited on a brand trip.
00:28:49.380And 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 had 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.
00:29:07.160And I guess the question is like, I don't know, in my experience, that has taken some emotional work to be like, yeah, it's like, yeah, it sucks to feel like you're going to be included in this fancy thing and actually have to pay to play.
00:29:22.920And there was a there was an emotion. 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 to.
00:29:36.520They don't see a hundred percent. And so many of us were siloed in our experiences.
00:29:42.080so you start I think it's it feels very similar I tell people to like a bad breakup where you're
00:29:47.100really excited about the person you're posting them all over your socials and then they leave
00:29:52.160you and you're embarrassed and you're sad and you're like do I take the pictures down
00:29:55.820was it a good relationship did you ever love me and then maybe you start questioning yourself
00:30:00.660was I not enough could I have been better of course we can always be better in some capacity
00:30:04.660and there's a spiral that you kind of go down and it wasn't until that you know target made
00:30:10.700the announcements about pulling back. And we were learning other, I was talking to other small black
00:30:14.720creators who had this exact same experiences, people who had taken out $200,000, $300,000 in
00:30:20.520loans, whose invoices weren't being paid, who were dropped suddenly. And I think what's hard for us
00:30:25.780too is that we are a card game that was literally built on telling stories, being honest, having
00:30:32.420hard conversations. Small businesses have to forecast like a year out. People don't understand
00:30:37.500that either. Because if you're shipping your product, that shipping time, depending on the
00:30:42.980state of the country, that shipping time can be a very long time. And it's very expensive to ship
00:30:46.960product quickly. And you have to order a lot of products in order to get a good rate. So we have
00:30:51.040to forecast. We can't afford to, you know, be in February and we're planning for March, June,
00:30:58.020July, August, September. And then we already have all the product for the season. And then right
00:31:02.580before the season, you're like, yeah, by the way, what do you mean, by the way, we've already
00:31:06.320made the purchase. So even if there was going to be a conversation about scaling back, what I would
00:31:11.780have liked was some sort of notice. You know, meet with us a year in advance and say, hey, next year
00:31:17.860we're actually planning to scale back. This is probably going to be your last year in store.
00:31:21.320I'm going to give you an opportunity to plan accordingly. So because we understand you're a
00:31:27.140small business, we made all these promises, we're taking the promise back. A nice runway would have
00:31:32.140been nice. Right after Trump was elected, Target made a big shift. They abandoned all of their
00:31:38.660DEI goals and announced that all of those big commitments to the Black community were coming
00:31:42.020to an end. Kiara had just become a new mom. She had poured her time, energy, and a lot of her own
00:31:48.000money into making the partnership with Target work. And then, just like that, she was dumped.
00:31:54.420You've said that, like, there was no big announcement or anything. They just pulled back.
00:31:59.920And this was happening for you in your personal life when you would just you were like a new mom.
00:32:27.580telling somebody hey next year we're going to pull back we've made all these promises we're
00:32:33.720not going to keep them if they would have had the dignity to tell us like that's that's what
00:32:37.800we're looking at so we're going to give you this year to finish off you know product merchandising
00:32:43.100so you guys can prepare accordingly so that when you're forecasting for next year you know that
00:32:47.660don't plan to come back that would have been very sad but it would have given us time we were
00:32:52.800already we had inventory already for christmas because christmas is like best-selling time
00:32:56.940especially if you're in like the game and toy space. And so then when fall of 2024,
00:33:01.380and they had made the announcement in, you know, early 2025, when they told us for fall that they
00:33:06.500weren't going to move forward, I'm like, what do you mean? We already have all the inventory for
00:33:10.520the holiday here. And there was no explanation. There was no talk about sales. I think the exact
00:33:16.280wording we got was there's been a shift in the lineup. Good luck, carry on. And so even that
00:33:22.160felt very cold, especially because at the very beginning, again, there was a lot of conversation
00:33:25.920and convincing us to do it and then you know but you got to go get your diversity certification so
00:33:30.460that we can put on our our page that you're black we got to be able to tell people because we didn't
00:33:34.740really care like you could tell them or not tell them we're a black business but it was important
00:33:38.460to target because that's part of their pr to show how many black businesses they have so there was
00:33:42.980all this courting and then it felt like a breakup through a text message uh good luck hope all is
00:33:50.060well and you know that that was it there was no additional conversation oh and then they add and
00:33:55.200we'll let you know if we need you to buy any of the product back, which also terrifying for a
00:33:59.420small business. So I actually had a journalist reach out to me winter 2024 before the announcement
00:34:05.680independently from reputable news source. And she was like, hey, I've been doing some research and
00:34:10.900I've noticed that a lot of the black businesses that Target pledged to support in 2020 are no
00:34:15.940longer in the store or on the shelf. Like I'm just looking them up and it's like gone, gone,
00:34:19.940gone. What's going on? And that was the first time that felt a little validating because I was like,
00:34:24.340wait a second is that true so i started doing my my own research she was right um they made the
00:34:30.080announcement and then other small businesses started reaching out to me and i started having
00:34:33.860conversations and i was like whoa i thought that this was happening in a silo but we're all having
00:34:40.040the same experiences and so if anything i think it's actually been such a blessing because we have
00:34:47.480now i i've created i feel like a community of other small black entrepreneurs and again this is
00:34:53.640these are like the small businesses. None of us are celebrities. We don't have celebrity names.
00:34:57.560There's like celebrity backing. We don't have millions of followers. I made a viral, you know,
00:35:01.860TikTok video talking about my experience. But I think at the time I had like 130 followers on
00:35:06.540TikTok or something. Kid you not. So we didn't have like these huge platforms. It was really
00:35:12.120just the visibility that Target promised. And then they removed it after we'd all spent a lot
00:35:17.440of money and had a lot of product left and was kind of like, good luck. So I have so much to say
00:35:23.640about this. One is that I firmly believe that, you know, business is business. I get it. But
00:35:30.220how you move in business is a choice. So as you said, they could have respectively communicated
00:35:36.560with clarity and transparency with you. You wouldn't have loved it. You wouldn't have been
00:35:41.180throwing a party, but you would have understood and moved on and been able to make plans, yada,
00:35:44.760yada, yada. The choice to essentially break up with you via text, that's a choice. That's not
00:35:50.320business. No one forced them to handle business in such a disrespectful, sleazy, dirty way.
00:35:57.620That was a choice. And I think that communicates a lot about, like, that tells me a lot about the
00:36:02.920people who are leadership at Target. I guess I'll say that. And then, you know, when you were
00:36:08.180talking about how you felt quite siloed i have to imagine that target was sort of banking on
00:36:14.760you as an individual creator internalizing this negative feeling and thinking i must have done
00:36:20.040something wrong they must have had some information about my product about how it wasn't going well
00:36:24.580this must have been i must have made some sort of mistake they probably weren't counting on you
00:36:30.020reaching out to other creators and realizing oh this is a pattern they're doing this with all of
00:36:34.280us. They probably just wanted you personally to internalize that you had like botched this
00:36:38.740opportunity in some way. I fully agree. And again, I'm an attorney, so I'm an investigator.
00:36:45.360Even I think slightly before we got the announcement, there were stories where I'd
00:36:50.100pop up because we don't get any information from Target about our demographics, like who's buying,
00:36:55.080like what, they don't share any of that. So we also have no knowledge of that other than where
00:36:58.840it's selling and maybe what stores it's selling in. We would ask questions about which cities
00:37:04.000is it selling best? Which stores is it selling in? So I could figure out where we needed to get
00:37:08.420our sales up. So some of these stores that they'd tell me we had product in, I live in Los Angeles,
00:37:12.860so there were a good number of stores here. Some of these stores I started to pop up in,
00:37:17.040and I'd be, you know, walking through the game aisle in the section, and I didn't see our product
00:37:21.240anywhere. And I'd be very confused. And I'd look online, and I'd be like, okay, there's units,
00:37:25.500but it's not here. So I'd find a manager or something. There's one store in particular.
00:37:29.260Finally, I had a conversation with a human. I was like, hey, excuse me, I'm a creator. My
00:37:33.740product is supposed to be here. Can you go find it? And they went to the back and brought the
00:37:39.480product out and they're like, oh, here it is. And I was like, wait, why isn't it on shelves? And they
00:37:43.780were like, oh, sometimes if we only order a small amount of product, we don't actually put it on the
00:37:48.260shelf because then we have to print out the tags and it costs money for the store. And that made
00:37:52.820me irate because, again, deceptive. I'm giving you almost 50 percent of my profits and what you're
00:37:59.340supposed to be giving in return is shelf space. It's visibility. It's the idea that all these
00:38:05.040people who come to Target are going to see the product. Now I'm really feeling like Rosa Parks0.68
00:38:09.340because you're telling me we did all this and the product is in the back of the warehouse.
00:38:14.500So there was so much that was going into it when people would talk about like, oh, but what were
00:38:18.660the sales? What were the sales? I'm like, you have no idea what was happening on the back end.
00:38:24.240Of course, you want a product to sell. We did well when our product was in the toy magazine,
00:38:29.060when our product was on stores, we were always like right in the pack, selling well. Like there
00:38:33.660was never an issue of like, no, all right, no one's buying your product. Of course, if your
00:38:37.740product's in the back, if your product's not featured, if you have no visibility, if all the
00:38:41.780promise for marketing is taken away and nobody knows it exists, you're not going to sell a
00:38:46.160product. I mean, I, I, I'm, it's not, it's not often that I am like speechless and flabbergasted,
00:38:52.980But the idea of putting your product in the back, that goes counter to how people shop at Target.
00:39:00.260When you're shopping at Target, 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.
00:39:07.580And then if I didn't see it, I asked the cashier or something.
00:39:10.820People need to see the item on the shelf and then make the decision to buy it.
00:39:14.540And so having it in the back and just banking on someone coming in and being like, oh, do
00:39:18.520you have the game is I mean, it almost sounds like they didn't want you all to make money.
00:40:10.900Had 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 legwork and like personal financial cost it was going to come to be in, come with to be in Target, would you still make that deal?0.95
00:40:32.400There's, we would have taken, I would have taken those savings and put them into trying to reach customers.
00:40:38.020Again, the whole idea was that this is actually going to be financially beneficial for us because we have a company that's going to invest money to help us reach customers.
00:40:45.540So the very little capital I did have saved up, I used to make the product better to be put on shelves that wasn't even showcased on the shelf.
00:40:53.680Like y'all told us we needed a telescope box that would show nicely.
00:40:57.200If you weren't going to put it on the shelf, you could have let us keep the little hang tag boxes that what?
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00:46:49.300Because right now, a lot of us are asking questions of, like, big, higher profile Black creators who have partnerships with Target and asking, like, what are your thoughts on the boycott, this and that.
00:47:02.340And I wonder, 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?
00:47:15.720Like nobody's asking white creators like, oh, are you planning on pulling out of Target given the boycotts?0.59
00:47:20.180But 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.0.61
00:47:28.860Yeah, it 100% does. And I tell people all the time, buy from black creators in 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 biggest creators have licensing deals, which is completely different. It's not a product that they've created, owned, 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.0.97
00:47:55.260They might have the right to license your name for the next two years without you.
00:47:58.880And if you pull out, you have to pay them a million dollars.
00:48:01.180As I mentioned, even for us, that they let us know you might have to buy back your product
00:48:05.120if we don't sell out of it or if we take it off stores.
00:48:07.480So it can be very expensive to get out of a situation.
00:48:11.380I think the best way to talk about it is somebody in the abusive relationship.
00:48:15.240It's very easy to be like, girl, why are you still with that man?
00:48:18.760There's just so much that goes into it.
00:48:20.480You don't know their financial situation.
00:48:22.180You don't know what traumas they have.
00:48:23.640You don't know. You just don't know. 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's 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 the.
00:48:45.620And again, very complicated. I think it really is kind of like a creator by creator, case by case situation.
00:48:52.720That's a really eloquent way of putting it.
00:48:54.200And I appreciated in your TikTok that I initially saw that you were like, listen, people got
00:49:21.580If you have the luxury to be out today, that's good for you.
00:49:25.000But like, I got rent, so I might need to like apply to other jobs first, have some conversations, figure out a plan before I can get out.
00:49:32.600Like everybody's situation is just so different.
00:49:35.320So it's hard to judge on the outside when you don't know what's happening on the inside.
00:49:39.880And to that vein, I mean, what do you make of hearing Target is a sponsor of Essence Fest this time around or like Target is giving money to these big black church groups?
00:49:49.680I 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.
00:49:59.680Like, I feel some type of way about, I don't know, things that Mark Zuckerberg says, but I still have an Instagram.
00:50:06.660I feel some type of way about how where products are coming from and whether they're being sourced in an organic matter, if it's harming the community.
00:50:15.580I 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, ah, 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 grow my own food and all these things.
00:50:32.440I 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.
00:50:41.800But you have to ask, like, where what's the most important?
00:50:47.880Can I stand on business when it comes to those sacrifices?
00:50:50.340And I've heard other people say to kind of use your money the way that you would use your voice.
00:50:55.800So when things become to a certain extent, when things become incredibly egregious, it's like, OK, like I got off X.
00:51:01.860I 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 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?
00:51:23.700Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. And very realistic. 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.
00:51:41.180And yeah, if I like, like, I'm not going to begrudge a single parent or a new parent or somebody who is disabled, like, oh, no, you have to shop in this way.
00:51:52.780Like, 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.
00:52:01.700Like, I do feel like we should be a little bit more, have a little bit more grace for where folks are and are not able to show up.
00:52:08.940and that comes back to community and the reason we created this game in the first place like
00:52:14.500people don't know their neighbors so even the one day boycott where it was like we're not spending
00:52:18.560any money don't get gas don't do anything black people don't spend well if you have to get to0.78
00:52:23.760work and you don't have gas but you got to get to work so you can not lose your job or feed your0.66
00:52:27.780baby you got to get gas in an era where we had community we know our neighbors what it meant to
00:52:33.160boycott was like not only am i not going to drive i got gas i was just if you need a ride to work
00:52:38.020I got you. We don't have it anymore. We don't have the neighbors and the grandmas and the aunties
00:52:43.040and the uncles and the dads, the people to rely on to help us through these situations. So people
00:52:48.220are wanting to boycott for the good of the community, but then there's no community to
00:52:53.620support them through that boycott. So I think we have to be realistic. Like before you say anything
00:52:58.480to anybody, to your point, I had a friend literally text me. It was like, girl, I had to get diapers
00:53:03.140from Target. It was half off. It's right down the street. And I was like, you don't have to apologize
00:53:07.080eyes to me. But unless you're willing to be the friend that's like, don't go to Target. I got
00:53:12.760extra money in my bank account. I'm going to send you diapers this month so you don't have to worry
00:53:16.060about. Unless you're willing to shoulder the responsibility so that we can all carry it
00:53:21.220together. An ant can't carry a cake by itself. It just can't. And I mean, you have this great
00:53:26.900quote saying, I'm boycotting, not because I'm bitter, but because I want my money and energy
00:53:31.580into spaces where diverse communities are valued and included, not just Black dollars. What does
00:53:36.520that look like to you? So for me, a lot of this has been shopping local. So I live in Pasadena,
00:53:43.020try to go to the farmer's market once or twice a week. And I think I mentioned, like, I know the
00:53:47.300people that I buy my honey from. I know the people I buy my yogurt from. I know the lady who I buy my
00:53:52.240pasta from. I know what they believe. I know what they're working towards in the world, or at least
00:53:56.080how they appear. Can we ever really know somebody, you know, like, what are you doing in your secret
00:54:00.400life? I don't know. But I know how you, you know, how you show up. I know the conversations you're
00:54:05.480having. I know that, you know, you notice that single mom didn't have enough money and you told
00:54:10.020her, don't worry about it. Get, I got you, take it. I know that you'll give someone an extra three0.98
00:54:15.240or four yogurts because they've been such a loyal customer. Like I know your heart posture. I know
00:54:20.120the care that you have for your community. So I'm actually able to put my money behind people who
00:54:25.120stand, stand on business for what they stand for, what they believe in, as opposed to some of these
00:54:29.660large companies that I've worked for so many of them, people are sitting in the room and they
00:54:34.140could care less about you or your mama or your cousin and so much of us we make money to spend
00:54:39.400money like the value of money in and of itself is nothing like you can't it doesn't help you breathe
00:54:45.100you can't hold dollar bills and then all of a sudden you have clarity in your mind maybe if
00:54:49.940it's psychological for you but there's no actual value to money other than what it can afford you
00:54:55.180like what can you buy with it what can you do with it what type of power does it give you what
00:55:00.580So the question becomes not the money itself, but what is the person who has the money planning to do with that money?
00:55:07.860And 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.
00:55:19.080It just feels incredibly irresponsible to some extent, not try to boycott in a realistic way.
00:55:26.100Don't let anybody tell you that boycotts don't work because Target is feeling it.
00:55:30.580The store had measurable drops in foot traffic, sales, reputation, and stock price.
00:55:35.460Their CEO, Brian Cornell, even had to take a pay cut.
00:55:38.440But don't worry, he's still making millions.
00:55:40.720Yeah, and I mean, we have to keep it real.
00:55:43.300That sounds like the boycott is working.
00:55:45.500You know, foot traffic is down at Target.
00:55:48.100Their CEO is in a whole mess of hot water because of all this.
00:55:52.080And I will say, like, retail shopping is down, like, in general.
00:55:57.340But Costco is not having a rough time. And like when Trump was signaling that he wanted companies to abandon DEI, Costco said kick rocks and they're doing fine.
00:56:08.880So like this was definitely a choice and it seems to be a choice that it's not working out in Target's favor.
00:56:13.780And I think that speaks to the loyalty of real community.
00:56:18.320like we i was a target girly like i was the person who would go to target if i was bored or just like
00:56:25.020wanted to be in the air conditioning would just be like i want to walk around and see what they
00:56:28.080got at target i want to i want to get a coffee and walk around target like that was my happy place
00:56:32.000and i guess it this is interesting to me how quickly this thing that was so ingrained in my
00:56:39.120behavior became not needed like i don't miss it i don't i don't i've replaced it with other things
00:56:45.400And part of me is like, I probably shouldn't have been spending the money anyway.
00:56:48.320And I just like, I guess it's just like they really had something there and they gave it
00:56:53.220up for nothing because I have no desire to go back into a Target.
01:02:49.980And you're not the center of the world.
01:02:51.820Maybe 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.
01:03:04.600I don't know. That's all. That's all I got.
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01:03:20.940There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
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01:03:26.400Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
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