00:00:49.980If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:00:55.400Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:04.060Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:05:55.080People were having a hard time communicating and talking to one another.
00:05:58.820One of the things that I found very specifically
00:06:01.680was that people would make a lot of assumptions about what you believed, how you saw the world
00:06:07.360based on who you were, your color, your gender, all these things. And I found, obviously,
00:06:13.900people were frustrated because people have differing opinions. And I know that that can
00:06:18.460be really stressful. But what I really saw was people being frustrated because they felt
00:06:22.920misunderstood. Like, they don't see me. They don't hear me. They don't understand why I'm so angry.
00:06:28.820They don't understand why I'm so triggered.
00:06:31.140So the idea was to create a card game that could help people feel, seen, heard, understood.
00:06:38.320Like a lot of companies in 2020, it seemed like Target was listening.
00:06:42.700That 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.
00:06:53.860Then in 2021, they made a bigger commitment
00:06:55.940to spend $2 billion by the end of 2025
00:09:40.920It 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. I moved to LA and I'm doing all the things that I said I was going to do.
00:10:02.420I didn't really take that moment because as soon as you're in stores, it's like we had to get
00:10:06.980certifications. We have to make sure insurance is good. We're figuring out the warehouse. We're
00:10:11.080talking to our manufacturers, trying to figure out costs, trying to figure out projections.
00:10:15.560So we didn't really sit or I didn't really sit in the gravity of the feeling. I think it wasn't
00:10:21.440until I probably walked into my first Target and saw the product on shelves that I was like,
00:10:27.960whoa I want to tell everybody that's my product and then very quickly my business mind switched
00:10:32.920on again I was like is this the good placement who can I talk to you is this you know how many
00:10:37.220products are in this store and how's it selling and so there was a lot of mix of emotion but it
00:10:43.720was so I would say crowded by trying to make sure you get to the next step the next thing
00:10:50.360this is an episode that's not pro target but it does it must be pretty cool to see something that
00:10:57.160you created on the shelf at a store like Target. Like, I don't fuck with Target anymore personally,0.94
00:11:02.600but I don't want to take away from what a cool moment that must have been.0.97
00:11:07.000I think to your point, obviously, this conversation takes a turn at some point.
00:11:12.760But less about this, the store itself. I think in the moment when all of these companies were
00:11:19.720making pledges and I had, again, grew up in Virginia and had some very racist experiences
00:11:25.400growing up that I talk about in my book. I had people from 10, 15 years ago calling me to
00:11:30.280apologize for things that, you know, they're like, I think back on these moments and I'm sorry. I had
00:11:34.880a girl from class in law school who was like, hey, you know how our professor, you were the
00:11:39.940only black person in our class and he used to call you colored and made you uncomfortable and0.53
00:11:44.080we all saw it. No one said anything like we should have said something. So just all of the
00:11:49.040the acknowledgement that people were actually seeing, it felt good to be like, whoa, my experiences
00:11:56.340aren't invisible. I'm not being gaslit. Somebody believes me about what it's like to be a Black
00:12:02.980woman in this country or just a Black human being. I really know how that feels. I'm also from
00:12:08.140Virginia. You know, you know the vibes that, you know, we, I grew up with friends, parents who were
00:12:13.920like doing battle reenactments off the battlefields because Manassas was one of the battles that the
00:12:18.480South one. And then people would have parades and celebrate that. And that felt weird. And
00:12:22.700I'm passing statues in schools that are named after Confederate soldiers that the Confederacy
00:12:27.280lost. And I'm like, but you guys wanted slaves. And they're like, no, we're just celebrating the
00:12:31.200past. So a lot of gaslighting. That was also a big part of my experience. I used to drive down
00:12:40.580Monument Avenue to get to my high school every day. And when I was in elementary school, people
00:12:45.000think I'm making this up, but I swear to you, this was real. When I was in elementary school,
00:12:49.640my public school would do Civil War Day, where kids could choose to be Confederate or Union
00:12:55.620soldiers, and we'd come to school dressed up as either side and do a battle march on our
00:13:01.040school's front lawn. Every time I tell that story, people are like, well, certainly that wasn't
00:13:05.200happening in 1992 in Virginia. And I say, sir, I can assure you that it very much was.
00:13:36.300All those big announcements about supporting Black-owned brands, well, my Black ass ate0.99
00:13:40.520it right up. Because listen, I'm a Target girl. Do I want to get a nice coffee and walk around0.99
00:13:45.300Target for no reason at all? Yes. Yes, I do. And it wasn't just the vibes. Target was one of the
00:13:51.020first big box stores to carry products for black natural hair. I literally could not have gone
00:13:56.140natural had there not been a Target in my town. So when Target said they were supporting us,
00:14:00.760it felt real. It felt like they saw us. But like any bad relationship, comes that moment where you
00:14:07.140start to question things and maybe even start to wonder, am I being lied to? I've tried to explain
00:14:12.800this to people, but Target, especially in 2020, but for me, even before, it kind of felt like
00:14:19.640Target was like for us. Now, obviously, they're a corporation. I think we're all smart enough to
00:14:24.680know that they are about money first and foremost, but they did all of these things to signal that
00:14:29.680they did want to make investments in our community. And so I think given the boycott and everything,
00:14:36.520people will often ask me, well, where's the smoke for Walmart? Where's the smoke for Amazon?
00:14:41.580And the reason why I think it's different is because Target went out of their way to make,
00:14:48.500to like signal to us that they see us, they're for us, they want to be in community with creators
00:14:53.660like you. And as far as I know, I mean, I feel like Amazon and Walmart have been very clear about
00:14:59.420who they are the whole time. And so for me, Target felt different. Did you feel similarly?
00:15:06.520Absolutely. 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.
00:15:27.760That should be a very basic tenant 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 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.
00:15:51.900Or they wanted an invite to the cookout so bad.
00:15:55.100And they were saying all the things and doing all of the things and speaking the language.
00:15:59.700And very quickly, we started to realize, I would say, a year or two into the partnership, oh, this was performative.
00:16:08.860One of the things that's always rubbed me the wrong way is how companies frame their support for Black business.
00:16:20.800Why is it that when a major corporation invests in a Black-owned business, it gets talked about like a handout?
00:16:26.300The first thing being, I think it was our second year.
00:16:29.100The 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.
00:16:34.900Again, they didn't just say, oh, we're going to support Black businesses.
00:16:38.500They said we're going to make a financial investment in these businesses.
00:16:41.660So as a small business, when you hear investment, especially when it pertains to marketing, that's an incredible opportunity.0.91
00:16:47.520We 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 believed in the product, so they had investors.
00:17:12.260Why is it that our business can't be a business that's taking an investment?0.92
00:17:15.780Why do you see it as a handout when it comes to a Black business?1.00
00:17:18.380Everybody builds a business on somebody else's money.0.82
00:20:47.340Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:20:51.620I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:20:56.200I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:21:03.820They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:21:07.720But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:21:11.160They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:21:14.800Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:21:22.580If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:21:29.480This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:21:41.660I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:21:48.780I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:29:13.740It's building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests.
00:29:17.820And those are just the right things for our business today.
00:29:20.280So 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.
00:29:29.840And all the stuff that you just said, Target knows.
00:29:32.440They clear as day, their leadership went on podcasts and said, oh, the investments that we made in Black creators helped our bottom line.
00:29:41.020And 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.
00:29:56.320But 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, 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.
00:30:24.660I 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.
00:30:51.760And 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
00:30:56.080And 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
00:31:00.460You 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
00:31:07.060Why is it when it comes to the black creators for Black History Month?
00:31:09.700You're like, they're just going to be honored to be mentioned.
00:31:12.520So 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.
00:31:19.820But we had meetings with our buyers at the time.
00:31:22.720We had, you know, all of these promises that were made, all of these campaigns we were
00:38:26.360And then other small businesses started reaching out to me and I started having conversations.
00:38:30.100And I was like, whoa, I thought that this was happening in a silo, but we're all having the
00:38:35.920same experiences. And so if anything, I think it's actually been such a blessing because we have now
00:38:43.440I've created, I feel like a community of other small black entrepreneurs. And again, this is,
00:38:49.440these are like the small businesses. None of us are celebrities. We don't have celebrity names.
00:38:53.260There's like celebrity backing. We don't have millions of followers. I made a viral, you know,
00:38:57.440TikTok video talking about my experience. But I think at the time I had like 130 followers on
00:39:02.220TikTok or something. Kid you not. So we didn't have like these huge platforms. It was really
00:39:07.780just the visibility that Target promised. And then they removed it after we'd all spent a lot
00:39:13.100of money and had a lot of product left and was kind of like, good luck. So I have so much to say
00:39:19.300about this. One is that I firmly believe that, you know, business is business. I get it. But
00:39:25.900how you move in business is a choice. So as you said, they could have respectively communicated
00:39:32.240with clarity and transparency with you. You wouldn't have loved it. You wouldn't have
00:39:36.720been throwing a party, but you would have understood and moved on and been able to
00:39:39.740make plans, yada, yada, yada. The choice to essentially break up with you via text,
00:39:44.760that's a choice. That's not business. No one forced them to handle business in such a
00:39:50.640disrespectful, sleazy, dirty way. That was a choice. And I think that communicates a lot about
00:39:56.200about like that tells me a lot about the people who are leadership at Target. I guess I'll say
00:40:01.180that. And then, you know, when you were talking about how you felt quite siloed, I have to imagine
00:40:08.220that Target was sort of banking on you as an individual creator, internalizing this negative
00:40:13.980feeling and thinking I must have done something wrong. They must have had some information about
00:40:18.520my product about how it wasn't going well. This must have been, I must have made some sort of
00:40:22.680mistake. They probably weren't counting on you, reaching out to other creators and realizing,
00:40:28.120oh, this is a pattern. They're doing this with all of us. They probably just wanted you personally
00:40:31.920to internalize that you had like botched this opportunity in some way. I fully agree. And again,
00:40:38.340I'm an attorney, so I'm an investigator. Even I think slightly before we got the announcement,
00:40:44.020there were stores where I'd pop up because we don't get any information from Target about our
00:40:48.640demographics like who's buying like what they don't share any of that so we also have no knowledge of
00:40:53.540that other than where it's selling and maybe what store is it selling in we would ask questions
00:40:58.640about which cities is it selling best which stores is it selling in so I could figure out where we
00:41:03.700need to get our sales up so some of these stores that they tell me we had product in I live in Los
00:41:08.160Angeles so there were a good number of stores here some of these stores I started to pop up in
00:41:12.380and I'd be, you know, walking through the game aisle in the section and I didn't see our product
00:41:16.900anywhere. And I'd be very confused. And I'd look online and I'd be like, okay, there's units,
00:41:21.200but it's not here. So I'd find a manager or something. There's one store in particular.
00:41:24.980Finally, I had a conversation with a human. I was like, hey, excuse me. I'm a creator. My product
00:41:29.720is supposed to be here. Can you go find it? And they went to the back and brought the product
00:41:35.420out. And they're like, oh, here it is. And I was like, wait, why isn't it on shelves? And they
00:41:39.440were like, oh, sometimes if we only order a small amount of product, we don't actually put it on the
00:41:43.940shelf because then we have to print out the tags and it costs money for the store. And that made
00:41:48.500me irate because, again, deceptive. I'm giving you almost 50 percent of my profits and what you're
00:41:55.020supposed to be giving in return is shelf space. It's visibility. It's the idea that all these
00:42:00.720people who come to Target are going to see the product. Now I'm really feeling like Rosa Parks0.68
00:42:05.000because you're telling me we did all this and the product is in the back of the warehouse so there
00:42:10.540was so much that was going into it when people would talk about like oh but what were the sales
00:42:14.860what were the sales and like you have no idea what was happening on the back end of course you want
00:42:20.620a product to sell we did well when our product was in the toy magazine when our product was on
00:42:25.620stores we were always like right in the pack selling well like there was never an issue of
00:42:30.400Like, no, all right, no one's buying your product.
00:42:32.700Of course, if your product's in the back, if your product's not featured, if you have no visibility, if all the promise for marketing is taken away and nobody knows it exists, you're not going to sell a product.
00:42:42.780I mean, I'm, it's not often that I am like speechless and flabbergasted, but I, the idea of putting your product in the back, that goes counter to how people shop at Target.
00:42:55.840When you're shopping at Target, it's I can't 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.
00:43:03.260And if I didn't see it, I ask I ask the cashier or something.
00:43:06.520People need to see the item on the shelf and then make the decision to buy it.
00:43:10.300And so having it in the back and just banking on someone coming in and being like, oh, do you have the game is I mean, it almost sounds like they didn't want you all to make money.
00:48:27.240It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:48:35.140Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:48:44.300Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:51:16.720Essence Fest, the multi-generational celebration of Black women, took over New Orleans earlier this month.
00:51:22.440But this year, some folks were side-eyeing the sponsors because Target was one of them.
00:51:27.240And around this same time, mega-popular streamer Kai Sanat announced a brand partnership with Target, too.
00:51:33.940Target also made a $300,000 donation to a Black church organization, a move that, let's be honest, looked like damage control.
00:51:41.380So how does Kiara feel about Black brands, creators, and organizations who still play ball with Target, even after the boycott, even after the about face?0.78
00:51:50.900Because for a lot of Black entrepreneurs, especially the smaller ones, this isn't just about values.0.88
00:51:55.640It's about survival, visibility, what you have to do to feed your family.0.97
00:51:59.400And that's part of what makes this all so painful and complicated.0.94
00:52:03.240Target built a pipeline that Black brands bought into, emotionally and financially.0.98
00:52:07.200And then they just walked away, leaving people to either stay in the game or lose everything they put in.0.94
00:52:13.340Is 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, this and that.
00:52:28.640And 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?
00:52:42.020Like nobody's asking white creators like, oh, are you planning on pulling out of Target given the boycotts?0.59
00:52:46.480But 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
00:52:55.160Yeah, 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 bigger 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
00:53:21.560They might have the right to license your name for the next two years without you.
00:53:25.160And if you pull out, you have to pay them a million dollars.
00:53:27.480As I mentioned, even for us, that they let us know you might have to buy back your product
00:53:31.400if we don't sell out of it or if we take it off stores.
00:53:33.780So it can be very expensive to get out of a situation.
00:53:37.680I think the best way to talk about it is somebody in an abusive relationship.
00:53:41.540It's very easy to be like, girl, why are you still with that man?
00:53:45.040There's just so much that goes into it.
00:53:46.780You don't know their financial situation.
00:53:48.480You don't know what traumas they have.
00:53:49.920You 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 that.
00:54:11.920And again, very complicated. I think it really is kind of like a creator by creator, case by case situation.
00:54:19.020That's a really eloquent way of putting it.
00:54:20.480And I appreciate it in your TikTok that I initially saw,
00:54:23.220but you were like, listen, people got to do what works for them.
00:54:25.800But here is where I personally am at, right?
00:54:28.300Like keeping it with like, here are the decisions that I am making
00:54:47.880If you have the luxury to be out today, that's good for you.
00:54:51.300But 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.
00:54:58.900Like everybody's situation is just so different.
00:55:01.740So it's hard to judge on the outside when you don't know what's happening on the inside.
00:55:06.180And 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?
00:55:15.980I 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.
00:55:25.960Like, I feel some type of way about, I don't know, things that Mark Zuckerberg says, but I still have an Instagram.
00:55:32.600I 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.
00:55:41.860I 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.
00:55:58.740I 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 people say to kind of use your money the way that you would use your voice.
00:56:21.420so when things become to a certain extent when things become incredibly egregious it's like okay
00:56:26.900like I got off x I don't have a twitter x whatever it's called I don't use that anymore at a certain
00:56:32.300point it becomes so egregious that you have to step away but I think everybody has to just decide
00:56:37.740for themselves how can I look in the mirror and feel like I am showing up as the best most capable
00:56:43.420honest person and still try to find a way to navigate the fact that we got bills to pay
00:56:50.000Yeah, 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.
00:57:07.480And yeah, if I like, look, 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.
00:57:19.060Like, 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.
00:57:28.000Like, 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.
00:57:35.220and that comes back to community and the reason we created this game in the first place like people
00:57:41.020don't know their neighbors so even the one day boycott where it was like we're not spending any
00:57:45.220money don't get gas don't do anything black people don't spend well if you have to get to work and0.67
00:57:50.600you don't have gas but you got to get to work so you can not lose your job and feed your baby0.99
00:57:54.400you got to get gas in an era where we had community we know our neighbors what it meant to boycott was
00:58:00.060like, not only am I not going to drive, I got gas. Oh, sis, if you need a ride to work, I got you.
00:58:05.360We don't have it anymore. We don't have the neighbors and the grandmas and the aunties and
00:58:09.480the uncles and the dads, the people to rely on to help us through these situations. So people are
00:58:14.680wanting to boycott for the good of the community, but then there's no community to support them
00:58:20.600through that boycott. So I think we have to be realistic. Like before you say anything to anybody,
00:58:25.340to your point, I had a friend literally text me. It was like, girl, I had to get diapers from
00:58:29.700Target. It was half off. It's right down the street. And I was like, you don't have to apologize
00:58:33.380to me. But unless you're willing to be the friend that's like, don't go to Target. I got extra money
00:58:39.520in my bank account. I'm going to send you diapers this month so you don't have to worry about. Unless
00:58:42.900you're willing to shoulder the responsibilities so that we can all carry it together. An aunt
00:58:48.780can't carry a cake by itself. It just can't. And I mean, you have this great quote saying,1.00
00:58:54.100I'm boycotting, not because I'm bitter, but because I want my money and energy into spaces
00:58:58.580where diverse communities are valued and included, not just black dollars. What does that look like
00:59:03.320to you? So for me, a lot of this has been shopping local. So I live in Pasadena, try to go to the
00:59:09.960farmer's market once or twice a week. And I think I mentioned, like, I know the people that I buy my
00:59:14.580honey from. I know the people I buy my yogurt from. I know the lady who I buy my pasta from.
00:59:19.180I know what they believe. I know what they're working towards in the world, or at least how
00:59:22.560they appear. Can we ever really know somebody, you know, like, what are you doing in your secret
00:59:26.680life. I don't know. But I know how you show up. I know the conversations you're having. I know
00:59:32.620that you noticed that single mom didn't have enough money and you told her, don't worry about
00:59:37.100it. I got you. Take it. I know that you'll give someone an extra three or four yogurts because0.98
00:59:42.540they've been such a loyal customer. I know your heart posture. I know the care that you have for
00:59:47.780your community. So I'm actually able to put my money behind people who stand on business for
00:59:52.840what they stand for what they believe in as opposed to some of these large companies that
00:59:57.240I've worked for so many of them people are sitting in the room and they could care less about you or
01:00:02.000your mama your cousin and so much of us we make money to spend money like the value of money in
01:00:07.980and of itself is nothing like you can't it doesn't help you breathe you can't hold dollar bills and
01:00:13.480then all of a sudden you have clarity in your mind maybe if it's psychological for you but there's no
01:00:18.100actual value to money other than what it can afford you? Like what can you buy with it? What
01:00:23.340can you do with it? What type of power does it give you? So the question becomes not the money
01:00:29.240itself, but what is the person who has the money planning to do with that money? And if some of
01:00:35.040these big businesses, corporations, you know, they're going to use the money to push forward
01:00:39.120narratives and political ideologies and things that are going to make the world a terrible place
01:00:43.980for you and everybody around you. It just feels incredibly irresponsible to some extent, not try
01:00:49.640to boycott in a realistic way. Don't let anybody tell you that boycotts don't work because Target
01:00:55.260is feeling it. The store had measurable drops in foot traffic, sales, reputation, and stock price.
01:01:01.760Their CEO, Brian Cornell, even had to take a pay cut. But don't worry, he's still making millions.
01:01:07.020Yeah. And I mean, we have to keep it real. That sounds like the boycott is working.
01:01:11.020You know, foot traffic is down at Target. Their CEO is in a whole mess of hot water because of all this. And I will say like retail shopping is down like in general. But 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.
01:01:35.140And so like this was definitely a choice and it seems to be a choice that it's not working out in Target's favor.
01:01:39.920And I think that speaks to the loyalty of real community.
01:04:46.500pretty much everything in your store is something i would buy so to to me again it comes back to
01:04:52.880not the reason we created the card games not knowing your community not knowing people not
01:04:58.680knowing what's going to affect them what they care about what they don't care about i heard
01:05:03.880someone say who's you know won't give me names pretty high up and people were worried about the0.73
01:05:08.700boycotts and how it's going to affect business and this high up white woman leader was like0.98
01:05:13.820black people will forget about it like give it a couple weeks they'll forget about they'll move on0.90
01:05:18.800and I'm like youth the audacity to think you know us so well how dare you think you understand1.00
01:05:26.340this this movement and to feel like you know what's going to happen with it and then you know
01:05:32.180I do start to ask myself the hard questions is there a reason they feel like we're easily
01:05:37.620manipulated is there a reason they feel like we don't stand on business is it because we never
01:05:42.760fought for reparations. We've let, we've been letting white America get away with things for
01:05:46.720so long. We've let them tell us we have to wear straight hair in the workplace and not natural
01:05:51.640hair because our natural hair is aggressive. And we like, have we conceded too much to the point
01:05:56.440where they're like, you've already told me how to treat you. So I'm just going to continue.
01:06:00.840Not that we should internalize it and say that it's our fault. But I have been asking myself
01:06:06.040the question, like, number one, where do you get the audacity? Number two, as a community,
01:06:10.540like let's have a conversation. Are we contributing to that feeling of being able to bully us without
01:06:16.800us saying or doing anything about it? I know that you've been since the shift with Target,
01:06:21.600you've been reinvesting in like education spaces, community spaces. How can folks support you? How
01:06:27.780can they support your work? Where can they get the book? Like how can folks show up for you as a
01:06:31.600creator? Yeah. So my book Therapy Isn't Just for White People. If you're not shopping on Amazon
01:06:36.820or barnes and nobles they've had their own everybody has a thing right now a lot of black
01:06:42.040owned bookstores also have access to the book or you can call your black owned bookstore and ask
01:06:46.360them to get the book tons of the black owned bookstores in la have the book um so you know
01:06:51.240shop according to your preference uh target please don't we're not i i think we're still listed but
01:06:59.160they just says like out of stock recently it said out of stock either they actually sold out or
01:07:04.020they're like, oh, this girl is talking too much. Take that product off the shelf. You can go to
01:07:07.820our website, likeucards.com. We have our flagship game. We have games for parents. As you mentioned,
01:07:15.300we're trying to do more stuff with kids because I think at the end of the day, if we're going to
01:07:18.940shape the next generation, how we shape the people growing up is so important. So our kids game
01:07:23.840really helps parents step into their kids' psychological world and to get on their level
01:07:28.120and to not make assumptions about how they see the world and to really hear them. So that's also
01:07:33.000available on our website. And stay tuned. We have some other fun ideas coming down the pipeline and
01:07:39.840just playing with new ways to bring the community together. Everything we do comes back to the same
01:07:45.980goal of bringing community together. Community has been such a big theme of this conversation.
01:07:51.280Do you have any closing thoughts about community that you'd like to leave folks with?
01:07:54.860In order to be part of the community, I do think it starts with ourselves.
01:07:59.360and a huge part of that is how you interact with your neighbor so if we're gonna get to this next
01:08:05.460phase of like coming together to like make a change you see your neighbor outside wave say
01:08:11.420hi if they don't wave back don't be like well that's why i'm never waving again because they
01:08:15.420didn't acknowledge me and you're not the center of the world maybe they just found out their mom
01:08:19.580has cancer you know like give people grace find ways to connect and ways that also are allowing
01:08:26.260people to show up as humans not as these perfectly like robots i don't know that's all that's all i
01:08:32.860got got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi you can reach us at
01:08:42.160hello at tangody.com you can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com there are no
01:08:47.540girls on the internet was created by me bridget todd it's a production of iheart radio and unbossed
01:08:51.780creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
01:08:56.200sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you
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