Boycott Target: let them know where San Francisco stands

 

Nobody could say these women leafleting a downtown Target store on a sunny Thursday afternoon are paid protesters. They are there because they care. 

Bay Resistance explains the choice to boycott this national retailer:

Target: Target has rolled over and capitulated to the Trump regime. They rolled back their DEI initiatives, which included ending programs that help Black employees, cutting financial support for Black-owned businesses, and removing LGBTQ+ products from their stores.  

Target's headquarters is in Minneapolis and the ongoing call to denounce the corporation comes from the community there, according to Minnesota Public Radio in March.

Minneapolis racial justice group leaders [including] Dr. Nekima Levy Armstrong, Monique Cullars-Doty and Jaylani Hussein ... called for a national boycott of Target last year after the retailer announced that it would end its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and investments. The initiatives include a program it established aimed at helping Black employees build meaningful careers, improving the experience of Black shoppers and promoting Black-owned businesses, following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

Hussein said the retailer has [apparently] backtracked on those decisions.

“What we have just learned today is that Target has said they have not made a single concession,” said Hussein. “They have not made a single demand or change to their policies, and they are staying the course on their plan to continue to deny diversity and equity inclusion in this company.”

Mounting a national boycott of a big corporation is long, patient work.  It takes a long time for shoppers to change their habits. The danger to Target is that a large segment of the people they market to just might choose to go elsewhere. And once these shoppers have gone away, it's hard to get them back. 

In Richfield, Minn., in January ICE agents invaded a Target store and seized two employees, which increased the backlash against the company. Target is giving itself a bad name in Minnesota and activists here are spreading the word. ICE OUT!