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Some Black consumers may be breaking up with Target this February. It all started late last month, when the retailer announced that it was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The move drew widespread rebuke from social justice organizers, including New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant. Although Target said one set of its racial-equity initiatives had already been scheduled to conclude, the timing was notable: The move came just days after the White House called for a federal DEI ban, and as several other companies took similar actions. Beyond renaming its supplier diversity team now called supplier engagement and ending diversity-focused surveys, Target hasnt said what the change will mean for the many Black entrepreneurs who sell everything from coffee to sunscreen on its shelves. The webpage for the retailers Black Beyond Measure initiative, which highlights dozens of Black-founded brands and connects business owners to a program designed to democratize access to retail education, remains active. But Targets critics, including Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, view the move as a surrender to the new presidential administrations attack on equity programs. In a news conference outside Targets Minnesota headquarters on Jan. 30, 2025, Armstrong called for a nationwide boycott of the store to begin on the first day of Black History Month. While many social media users posted in support of the boycott, some Black founders whose brands are stocked by Target and there are dozens of them have been more conflicted. Tabitha Brown, whose products can be found in various aisles, from books to cooking appliances, asked customers to reconsider boycotting Target. Withholding their dollars, Brown insisted, will hurt Black businesses far more than the corporations that sell their products. This request for restraint garnered a mixed response on social media. Some Black consumers accused Black business owners of selling out the very racial community that contributed to their success. So, why would a Black business owner ask consumers to patronize a retailer that signaled it doesnt care about Black customers? And how did something as mundane as where people buy toilet paper and shampoo become a litmus test for racial consciousness in the first place? Black consumers and the fight for dignity The marketplace has long been a battleground where Black Americans have sought to assert their citizenship. Most of the nations biggest household brands didnt begin to take African American consumers seriously until after World War II. Before that shift, advertisements and product packaging were more likely to feature degrading Black caricatures to appeal to white shoppers, than to address Black consumers directly. This segregated commercial landscape reinforced the belief among some community members that Black people would not be taken seriously as citizens until they were taken seriously as consumers. They would need to vote with their dollars, patronizing only those brands and retailers that respected them. In my research on marketing campaigns aimed at Black women, Ive examined how the struggle for consumer citizenship complicated the dynamic between Black entrepreneurs and consumers. On the one hand, businesses have long leveraged Black ownership as a unique selling proposition in and of itself, urging shoppers to view Black brand loyalty as a path to collective racial progress. Unlike their larger competitors, Black entrepreneurs relied on their racial community to stay afloat. Patronizing African American businesses could therefore be framed as a racial duty. Conversely, as African American advertising pioneers made clear, recognition from big brands was a political victory of sorts because it signaled that Black dollars were just as valuable as anyone elses. Competing for Black dollars Corporate attention to Black consumers ebbs and flows in a cycle that is especially noticeable in the beauty and personal care industry. In seasons of limited competition for African American customers, entrepreneurs typically thrive, even while they struggle to meet the capital demands of a growing brand. Their success, however, beckons larger corporations, which then seek to capitalize on consumer niches they previously ignored. Two common approaches that mass market brands pursue to compete for Black dollars include acquiring smaller, established Black brands and developing their own niche products. Large corporations deployed both strategies during a period of intense expansion into the beauty market of the 1980s. Black owners tried to stave off their competition by creating a special emblem that alerted shoppers to their authenticity. Then, as now, social justice organizations, such as Rev. Jesse Jacksons Operation PUSH, also initiated boycotts and urged Black consumers not to choose lipstick over liberation. Nevertheless, many Black entrepreneurs sold their brands, and by 1986 nearly half of the Black hair care market was no longer Black-owned. A linked fate Parsing winners and losers within the world of Black enterprise is as difficult now as it was in earlier periods. African American business owners often possess a cultural consciousness that distinguishes their brands, even when they cant match the resources of larger competitors. And as they figure out how to survive an uneven playing field, Black entrepreneurs sometimes face accusations of betraying their racial community. In a market governed by the law of supply and demand, Black consumers benefit from increased competition. Yet, racial loyalty sometimes asks that they eschew these benefits for the sake of keeping Black dollars in Black hands. Four years ago, when Target launched its Black Beyond Measure funding initiative, it seemed that the retailer had struck a rare balance in supporting Black brands and their customers. In addition to curating a collection of products to lure shoppers, Target used the campaign as an opportunity to position entrepreneurs to flourish well beyond Black History Month. Now, as Black consumers and business owners weigh varying responses to the retailers decision to reverse their commitment to DEI values, one question endures: Do Black dollars matter? Timeka N. Tounsel is an associate professor of Black studies in communication at the University of Washington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to pause its high-profile lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange Binance as the regulator tries to present itself as more crypto-friendly under a new administration. Binance and the SEC filed a joint motion Monday asking for a 60-day stay in a lawsuit the regulator filed with significant fanfare two years ago under its previous chairman, Gary Gensler. Mondays filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the SEC approached Binance asking for the pause. The regulator said the work of a new crypto task force launched by Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda that’s supposed to improve ties to the crypto industry may impact and facilitate the potential resolution of this case. The filing is the first tangible action in existing enforcement actions that recognizes a change in direction of the agency, said Carol Goforth, a distinguished professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Binance is the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange a digital marketplace where customers can buy, sell and store different types of crypto and the SECs lawsuit drew considerable attention when first filed. Gensler said in a statement at the time that Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, had engaged in an extensive web of deception while the SECs X account posted a graphic highlighting a key piece of evidence of alleged wrongdoing: a quote from Binances chief compliance officer saying to another employee in 2018, We are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro. In a separate case, Binance later agreed to pay a roughly $4 billion settlement and Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform. A key issue facing the cryptocurrency industry is whether certain digital assets should be regulated as securities a position that the SEC under Gensler supported while many in the crypto industry are opposed. Cryptocurrencies are a kind of electronic cash that have moved from the financial fringes to the mainstream in rapid fits and starts, despite being marred by scandals and market meltdowns. The SEC has targeted crypto exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and others for allegedly operating unregistered securities exchanges. That scrutiny came after the high-profile meltdown of FTX, the exchange founded by disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried. The industry said it was unfairly treated by the Biden administration, and Gensler in particular, and spent heavily to help Trump and Republicans in the last election. Trump and GOP lawmakers have signaled their eagerness to help the crypto industry with friendly legislation and light-touch regulations. Uyeda launched the new crypto task force last month, saying the agency needed a reset in its approach to crypto. To date, the SEC has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively, often adopting novel and untested legal interpretations along the way, the agency said in announcing the task force. Clarity regarding who must register, and practical solutions for those seeking to register, have been elusive. Legal experts said the pause in the Binance case could indicate similar changes in the SECs ongoing legal action against other crypto exchanges. I would expect that all of these cases will be either dismissed outright or settled on very favorable terms to the defendants, said James Murphy, a securities law expert. That’s bad news, said Corey Frayer, a former SEC official who recently left the agency. The SEC delaying what appears to be a slam dunk case in Binance while welcoming cryptos return to its pre-FTX days is a bad omen for any other ongoing crypto litigation, he said. In a statement, Binance said the SECs case has always been without merit and praised Uyeda for his thoughtful approach to ensuring digital assets receive the appropriate legislative and regulatory focus in this new, golden era of blockchain in the U.S. and around the world. Alan Suderman, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp. reported a 369.2 billion yen ($2.4 billion) loss for the fiscal third quarter as it racked up red ink from its Vision Fund investments.That’s compared to a 950 billion yen profit in October-December 2023.Quarterly sales rose 3% from the previous year to 1.83 trillion yen ($11.9 billion), the Tokyo-based company said Wednesday.The report comes barely a month after Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive, appeared with President Donald Trump in Washington, as well as with Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle, to announce an investment of up to $500 billion into an artificial intelligence project called Stargate.Son has repeatedly said the company is banking on a future in artificial intelligence.SoftBank Group invests in an array of companies that it sees as holding long-term potential, including unlisted upstarts, so its financial performance tends to swing wildly.For the nine months of this fiscal year through December, it recorded a profit of 636 billion yen ($4 billion), a reversal from a loss of 459 billion for the previous year.Investment gains were recorded in its holdings in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba; Coupang, a South Korean retailer based in the U.S.; a mobility service provider DiDi Global and Grab Holdings, a Singaporean technology company, while improved sales came in its British semiconductor company Arm’s business.Some of the investment gains from the earlier months of this fiscal year were erased in the latest quarter. The company does not issue an annual forecast. Yuri Kageyama is on Theads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyama Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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