By Dr. Melina Abdullah
My inbox is teeming with social media posts: in separate reels, actress Jenifer Lewis and attorney Ben Crump are speaking direct to camera, “justice carolers” slow sales inside Home Depot to a snail’s pace, crowds chant, drum, and stream in front of Target.
All over the country people are withholding their dollars from the companies that continue to disregard Black consumers as well as those enabling ICE. “We Ain’t Buyin’ It!” is a powerful message. Several major retailers are being targeted (pun intended) with the once-favorite retail giant of the working-class topping the list. Target’s stock plummeted nearly 35% since January after the #BoycottTarget campaign was launched in response to the retail giant’s discontinuation of its DEI programs.
Boycotts have proven to be one of the most effective tools in our organizing toolbox. In 1955, the 380-day Montgomery Bus Boycott brought segregation to its knees. A decade later, the United Farm Workers’ grapes boycott took five years, but forced virtually all growers to accept union contracts. Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles’ #Boycott24 resulted in the massive gym chain filing for bankruptcy.
The mass engagement that effective boycotts demand requires that clear objectives be articulated and consequences for refused demands be apparent. The objective of the Montgomery Bus Boycott was the desegregation of the city’s bus system; the grape boycott…union contracts; #Boycott24…police-free safety protocols. For #BoycottTarget it’s to bring back the DEI programs. Boycotts are a potent tool in winning clear and measurable demands.
Popular activist Tamika Mallory, Pastor Jamal Bryant, and Black Voters Matter’s Latosha Brown are doing a masterful job in holding Target to account for their clear affront to the Black community. The word is out and folks simply cannot shop at the massive retailer without being shamed.
Retailers should absolutely demonstrate respect for the communities that patronize them or we should stop giving them our dollars. The cancellation of Target’s DEI programs has meant job losses for Black managers and executives and an end to Black-owned brands on Target shelves. It feels like more than disrespect. It feels like betrayal.
And…even if Target reinstitutes its DEI programs or…alternatively…if we shut them down, Black people still aren’t free. We are still exploited and oppressed…because DEI never truly shifted power, it just built in some soft edges to the brutality that is white-supremacist capitalism. Our most honorable Minister Malcolm X reminds us that “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” What is necessary for our freedom is not simply a more palatable form of oppression, but the upending of the capitalist system.
For the last ten years, Black Lives Matter in its grassroots form has engaged in Black Xmas, recognizing that white corporations rely on police violence to protect their profits and steal Black life. The call is not simply to boycott a single chain, or even several, but to withdraw our dollars from the capitalist system altogether. The first tenet of the transformative effort is to #BuildBlack, which begins by shaking off the consumerist frenzy of the holiday season and refusing to spend at all.
As we divest from white-supremacist capitalism – boycotting every single white corporation and commercial entity – we also direct our financial resources towards organizations that are doing the work of Black liberation. To #BuildBlack means to consciously resist capitalism and instead engage in ujamaa – cooperative economics.
Rather than buying items that we often don’t even need, we harness our economic resources and pour them into organizations that benefit our people. We can make contributions to worthwhile Black organizations in honor of our loved ones as holiday gifts and request that they do the same for us. BLMLA has made it easy in Los Angeles by preparing a list of 15 Black-led, Black-serving organizations all listed on blackxmas.org, where there are also downloadable holiday cards stating our commitment and intention.
So, yes…boycott Target…and also boycott them all. Refuse to give in to the white-supremacist capitalism that kills our people and build towards new, just, and shared economies that benefit our people.
Dr. Melina Abdullah is a contributing opinion writer for the L.A. Sentinel. This article originally appeared in the LA Sentinel.
Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint.
