There Are No Girls on the Internet - Target Scammed Black Vendors and We Have Receipts

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

In 2020, Target pledged to support Black creators and communities. Target spotlighted their products, and made headlines with its public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. But now, those promises look like little more than PR spin. Black creators and vendors who once collaborated with the brand say they weren’t just abandoned — they were exploited. From one-sided partnerships to pay-to-play marketing schemes,  this episode investigates how a major corporation cashed in on the racial justice movement… and then just walked away. We speak to Kiara Imani, a former Target vendor who is one of the Black entrepreneurs  now speaking out. She was originally thrilled when a game she designed, "LikeU Cards," was included in Target's collection, only to quickly realize she was caught up in a pay-to-play scheme that was more about Target's PR than actually selling her product.  She's also an attorney and author of the book Therapy Isn’t Just For White People. She explains what went down, what she was promised versus what she actually got, and unpacks the backlash, the boycott, and why some former Target collaborators are now calling it what it really was all along: a scam. Kiara’s TikTok about Target: https://www.tiktok.com/@kiara_imani_will/video/7481347076442606894 Buy Kiara book Therapy Isn’t Just For White People: https://www.mahoganybooks.com/9781735145884 Check out LikeU cards: https://likeucards.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqCZCnuFV-4u8l9PynC9x1nNFbC0DCrVv0_IYqoRsPTvnt-FEX5 If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there or email us at [e-mail]! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! Many vids each week. instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. So we, too, can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Support without capital, it's counterfeit. It's not support. It's lip service.

There are no girls on the internet as a production of IHeart Radio. and unbossed creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. This is the story of a breakup. Not between two people, but between me and my favorite big box retailer, Target. And I'm not the only one. After George Floyd's murder back in 2020, Targeted in Minneapolis, where his death took place, was one of many companies that made big public commitments to racial equity.

They promised to support black communities, fund black creators, and put black-owned brands on their shelves. But in early 2025, that all changed. Target quietly announced it was walking back its DEI efforts. And for a lot of us, that was a deal breaker. We started boycotting because it felt like a betrayal. But here's the part we didn't see. In the middle of that boycott were people like Kiara.

My name is Kiara Imani, and you can call me Kiara. My friends call me Kiki. Black creators and entrepreneurs like Kiara had finally gotten a chance to be on the shelves at Target. A big opportunity, right? Not quite. In today's episode, you're going to hear how black creators who partnered with Target didn't just get screwed by the store.

They got low-key scammed. But first, back to Kiara. It was against the backdrop of the protest of 2020 that Kiara Amani, attorney and author of the book, Therapy, isn't just for white people, got the idea for like-you cards. It really was birthed out of a place of having a lot of political turmoil. in 2020, there was a depth of George Floyd. We were all at home. People were having a hard time communicating and talking to one another. One of the things that I found very specifically was that

people would make a lot of assumptions about what you believed, how you saw the world based on who you were, your color, your gender, all these things. And I found obviously people were frustrated because people have differing opinions. And I know that that can be really stressful. But what I really saw was people being frustrated because they felt misunderstood. Like, they don't see me, they don't hear me, they don't understand why I'm so angry, they don't understand why I'm so triggered. So the idea was to create a card game that could help people feel, seeing, heard, understood. Like a lot of companies in 2020, it seemed like Target was listening. That 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. Then 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. They'd also be launching Forward Founders, an equity-free accelerator

to help over 60 black and diverse entrepreneurs scale into mass retail. Sounds pretty good, right? Kiara thought so too. I was kind of just working through my own feelings about being black and green. 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?

And all of those things. And then there were companies coming out saying, we stand with George Floyd, we stand with the Black community. And that was very inspiring. Our business model from the beginning, the plan was to go straight to B2B, which is like selling to a business who then sells to customers as opposed to going B2C because going B2C is incredibly expensive. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, these big companies, on marketing, trying to reach customers. And obviously, social media is a really helpful tool, but unless you are really pushing your content out there with ads and paying, it's not always the most effective at reaching people. So Target made that statement, and I was like, this is perfect. They are pledging to spend money on black businesses, small black businesses.

We're a small black business. We seem very mission aligned. they care about the black community. We're black. We created a card game that's for everybody. So I think it'd be good for the stores. So I got on LinkedIn and started finding emails and reaching out to every person I could find a target. And I, this is not an ad, but I love LinkedIn because there are only so many monikers for a company. Usually it's first name. Lastnade at company.com. If it's not that, there are only other few, first initial last name at company.com. So once you figure out one and you don't get that bounce back. You know you have the email for almost everybody at the company. So I found as many people

as I could that worked in buying and then one person, I think a black woman who worked in baby products connected us to another person who connected us to another person. Eventually we got to the right buyer. They loved the game. They gave us some suggestions about how to fix the packaging to make it stand out on its shelves. And so we took all of those suggestions. We revamped our packaging completely to be better for shelves, put all of our own money into this. I personally invested like 40K of my own personal money that I really didn't have. It's all my savings. I'm trying to make the product perfect for shells. And eventually they were like, you did all the things. Congratulations. Welcome to Target. And we were so excited about it. It just felt very surreal.

This creation that came from such a place of turmoil and difficulty is now on the shelves at Target. How did that feel? It 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 L.A. and I'm doing all the things that I said I was going to do. I don't really take that moment because as soon as you're in stores, it's like we had to get certifications. We have to make sure insurance is good. We're figuring out the warehouse. We're talking to our manufacturers, trying to figure out costs, trying to figure out project.

So we didn't really sit or I didn't really sit in the gravity of the feeling. I think it wasn't until I probably rocked into my first target and saw the product on shelves that I was like, whoa, I want to tell everybody, that's my product. And then very quickly my business mind switched on again. I was like, is this the good placement? Who can I talk to? Is this, you know, how many products are in this store and how is it selling? And so there was a lot of mix of emotion.

but it was so, I would say, crowded by trying to make sure you get to the next step, the next thing. This is an episode that's not pro-Target, but it does. It must be pretty cool to see something that you created on the shelf at a store like Target. Like, I don't fuck with Target anymore personally, but I don't want to take away from what a cool moment that must have been. I 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 talked about in my book. I had people from 10, 15 years ago calling me to apologize for things. You know, they're like, I think back on these moments.

And I'm sorry. I 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 and we all saw it. No one said anything. Like, we should have said something. So just all of the acknowledgement that people were actually seeing, it felt good to be like, whoa, my experiences aren't invisible.

I'm not being gaslit. Somebody believes me about what it's like to be a black woman in this country or just a black human being. I really know how that feels. I'm also from Virginia. You know, you know the vibes that, you know, we, I grew up with friends, parents who were like doing battle reenactments of the battlefields, because Manassas was one of the battles at the South won.

And then people would have parades and celebrate that. And that felt weird. And I'm passing statues and schools that are named after Confederate soldiers that the Confederacy lost. And I'm like, but you guys went in slaves. And they're like, no, we're just celebrating the past. So a lot of, a lot of gaslighting. That is, that was also a big part of my experience. I used to drive down Monument Avenue to get to my high school every day.

And 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 would be come to school dressed up as either side and do a battle march on our school's front lawn. Every time I tell that story, people are like, well, certainly that wasn't happening in 1992. to you in Virginia and I say, sir, I can assure you that it very much was. Absolutely.

This is why I'm grateful for the internet because I've told people, just Google Manassas Civil War Parade. Like, you'll, you can see the battle reenactments. I'm not making it up, but you can see it for yourself. And I had a friend watch it, too. It's like, this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. And I was like, yeah. If the story of me and Target is a breakup story, then this is the part why I tell you how

good things used to be. All those big announcements about supporting Black-owned brands, well, my Black ass ate it right up, because listen, I'm a Target girl. Do I want to get a nice coffee and walk around Target for no reason at all? Yes, yes, I do. And it wasn't just the vibes. Target was one of the first big box stores to carry products for black natural hair.

I literally could not have gone natural had there not been a Target in my town. So when Target said they were supporting us, it felt real. It felt like they saw us. But like any bad relationship comes that moment where you start to question things and maybe even start to wonder, am I being lied to? I've tried to explain this to people, but Target, especially in 2020, but for me, even before, it kind of felt like Target was like for us. Now, obviously, they're a corporation. I think we're all smart enough to know that they are about money first and foremost, but 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 to smoke for Walmart? Where's to smoke for Amazon? And 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 or for us. They want to be in community with creators like you.

And as far as I know, I mean, I feel like Amazon and Walmart have been very clear about who they are the whole time. And so for me, Target felt different. Do you, did you feel similarly? Absolutely. 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. That should be a very basic. pennant 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. They 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 and very quickly we started to realize, I would say, a year or two into the partnership. Oh, this was performative. One of the things that's always rubbed me the wrong way is how companies frame their support for black business.

Like it's charity. Like we should just be grateful for the opportunity. But let's be real that framing is offensive. Why is it that when a major corporation invested in a black owned business, it gets talked about like a handout? The first thing being, I think it was our second year, 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. Again, they didn't just say, oh, we're going to support black

businesses. They said, we're going to make a financial investment in these businesses. So as a small business, when you hear investment, especially when it pertains to marketing, that's an incredible opportunity. We 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 had, they believed in the product, so they had investors. Why is it that our business can't be a business that's taking an

investment? Why do you see it as a handout when it comes to a black business? Everybody builds a business on somebody else's money. Not everybody. Most people, most people build a business on somebody else's money, they get funding in order to get to a certain level. So all those inspirational target ads, the ones featuring traditionally marginalized creators and black-owned brands, the ones that gave me all those warm fuzzies and made me feel super seen? Yeah, it turns out that a lot of those creators had to pay Target out of their own pockets to make that happen. Let me say that again, the very people being spotlighted, the ones whose stories are being used to sell inclusion and progress, and make Target look really woke,

Those same people were often footing the bill themselves. So while I was busy watching those ads thinking, wow, Target really gets it. The truth is, a lot of that visibility came with a cost, like a real financial cost, not to target to the very people they claim to be helping and uplifting. So I would say like our second year in, we got all these emails about black history coming up,

and we would love to feature you. And, you know, I don't know if you remember, but they were doing all these commercials with the black or Latino brands, and all of these ads. And we were like, cool, that sounds like an awesome opportunity. You were going to give us visibility. We are paying for the rest.

To be clear, we were paying out of pocket with our own money for the warehouse. We were paying for the product. We were paying for insurance. There was no check that they gave us to help out. The only help was the visibility. So we have a meeting and they're like, yeah, we'd love to feature you for Black History Month. If you, here's the deck, here's the presentation. If you want to be part of, you know, this group of like 10 products on the web page on this random landing page, it's only $5,000.

If you want to be part of this, it's only $15,000. If you want your own feature, it's only for the low price of $75,000, you too can be. And I was like, wait a second. Time out. What's happening? Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

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Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series

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That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah. You figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can have opinions. can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At our back. So while Target was raking in warm, fuzzy PR from Roobes like me for spotlighting black-owned brands, they were also shaking those very brands down. for money just to be spotlighted. So while it looked like support, behind the scenes, it was more like a pay-to-play scheme dressed up as progress. I'm an entertainment attorney, right? I work with talent and brand partnerships. If you're on social media and Instagram, you know if a brand is partnering with talent and the talent is being paid, they're supposed to say, ad, hashtag whatever brand partner.

This is an ad. You see the links. The FTC makes it very clear. But with Target, they made it appear as if this was they were doing some philanthropy for the black community by giving us visibility when in actuality they were taking 50% of the product we paid for everything out of pocket and now you're asking me to pay for the marketing so it became something that it was like this feels like a marketing scheme it's more expensive to be in target like this isn't you investing in me this is me investing in your business like you're taking our money to build out your business and you pitched this as something completely different. When a company promises one thing, takes somebody's money and delivers a totally different thing,

I mean, I don't want to call it a scam, but it sounds like a scam to me. And they didn't just scam the brands. They scammed us too, the people who actually believed in what they stood for. I'm stunned. Like I knew. So doing my research on you and doing my research on my Black creators, I knew there was a lot of legwork and money that it took to be to play ball. some of these big brands. I didn't know it was like this. I mean, this sounds like pay to play. Like this almost sounds like, I mean, let alone the false narrative that they are giving you a handout.

This is them. It almost sounds like they're like low-key scamming you all. And that's what it felt like to me, if I'm honest, a marketing scam. And I've talked to other small business owners about their experiences who feel the same way. Some of whom had even worse experiences than we did, people who paid to. $10, $25,000 and Target forgot to turn on the shipping so people could see the ad, but no one could buy the product. So that's a waste of a small business of money. People just have really horrible experiences. And I think, again, it comes back to transparency. We know for most small businesses,

if you're getting into the retail game, it's going to cost a lot of money, which is why people get investors. If a company is saying, hey, we understand why the black community has this disparity, we understand that your ancestors built this country on their backs and were never compensated anything for it and have set you back probably thousands of years. So we kind of want to do our part to make things better. So we're going to make a financial investment. But then when you start to do the numbers, it's you're actually investing in them. To me, that is false. It's false advertising. It's deceptive. It's manipulative, not to the small businesses only, but to the consumers, to the customers because the people I know who were going to Target, yeah, they would go, they would buy

our game, they would buy the other black products. But then you're there on a Saturday and I'll speak for myself. I was buying everything else too. I was a Target girlie. So I would stop at Starbucks, get my coffee, do my runs, add the things to my cart. So people like to pretend like, oh, Target was doing the business as a favor. I'm like, no, Target was doing every business a favor. because the foot traffic they brought in by pretending to be dedicated to something that they actually were not was affecting everybody. Everybody was getting more foot traffic. Everybody was doing well. And they saw that when we left the stores, the foot traffic decreased. And a lot of times these businesses know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. They didn't understand the value

of supporting the black community, which is wild to me, especially because black women spend more money really on hair care and beauty and in that space than anybody. So you should be one, you should basically be doing whatever we say. Because if you support us, we're going to support you. That's the way black women are. I am loyal. Okay. If I decide, I like you, I like you. I don't even like going to another hairdresser because I'm like, I have a hairdresser. Not a lot of black men are the same with their barber. Like, we are very loyal people. So to the extent we're treated well, will continue to show up. But my mom did not raise no fool.

When our communities show up, we bring profit with us. The CEO of Target actually bragged about how diversity and inclusion efforts were profitable for the company on Fortune's Leadership Next podcast. When your teams, your leadership represents the consumer you serve, I think good things happen. So I can see the benefits for our shareholders. I know that focus on diversity and inclusion and equity has. fueled much of our growth over the last nine years. This interview was in 2023, when the political backlash against anything woke was really

taking hold. Target's CEO has asked how he will maintain Target's DEI stances in a changing political climate. We think about what's right for our team and what's consistent with our culture. And, Alan, when we do that, I think we make really good decisions. And we add value for our shareholders, and that's part of why we've seen explosive top line growth. So, I think the facts are in the results for us. And the things we've done from a D&I standpoint, it's adding value, it's helping us drive sales, it's building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests. And those are just the right things for our business today.

So 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. And all the stuff that you just said, Target knows. They clear as day their leadership went on podcast and said, oh, the investments that we made in black creators helped our bottom line. And 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. But 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. I 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. And I'm like, come again. And they're like, don't you think she'll be honored to be included in this campaign? And I'm like, no, no, no, no. You've never said that for any of the white creators that they'd be honored. you understand that their business, their brand actually is their income and you can't feature their

image or their likeness without paying them. Why is it when it comes to the Black Craters for Black History Month? You're like, they're just going to be honored to be mentioned. So 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, but we had meetings with our buyers at the time. We had, you know, all of these promises that were made, all of these campaigns we were supposed to be included in. And we were getting really excited based upon what we were told was going to happen, and then it didn't happen. And people started to talk about, oh, it's the ROI, the sales. We understand that. Like I said, black business, diverse businesses, was good for Target's bottom line, which is why they did it and why they continued to do it.

I 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. You can see yourself out. We good. We full here. I'm like, oh, okay. And I really really. believe, especially when it comes to supporting black businesses, that support without capital, it's counterfeit. It's not support. It's lip service. 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. I think it did give me warm fuzzies to walk around Target previously and see women who looked like me, you know, on the show. I'm not going to lie like 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. And if people knew it's like actually, like I read about 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. And I guess the question is like, I don't know, in my experience, that has taken some emotional work to be like, yeah, it sucks like, yep, it sucks to feel like you're going to

be included in this fancy thing and actually you have to pay to play. And 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 they don't see. A hundred percent. And so many of us were siloed in our experiences. So you start, I think it feels very similar. I tell people to like a bad breakup where you were really excited about the person.

You're posting them all over your socials and then they leave you and you're embarrassed and you're sad and you're like, do I take the pictures down? was it a good relationship? Did you ever love me? And then maybe you start questioning yourself, was I not enough? Could I have been better? Of course, we can always be better in some capacity. And there's a spiral that you kind of go down.

And it wasn't until that, you know, Target made the announcements about pulling back. And we were learning other, I was talking to other small black craters who had this exact same experiences, people who had taken out $200, $300,000 in loans, whose invoices weren't being paid, who were dropped suddenly. And I think what's hard for us. you is that we are a card game that was literally built on telling stories, being honest, having hard conversations. Small businesses have to forecast like a year out. People don't understand that either. Because if you're shipping your product, that shipping time, depending on

the state of the country, that shipping time can be a very long time. And it's very expensive to ship product quickly. And you have to order a lot of products in order to get a good rate. So we have to forecast. We can't afford to, you know, be in February. and we're planning for March, June, July, August, September, and then we already have all the product for the season, and then right before the season, you're like, yeah, by the way, what do you mean by the way? We've already made the purchase.

So even if there was going to be a conversation about scaling back, what I would have liked was some sort of notice. You know, meet with us a year in advance and say, hey, next year we're actually planning to scale back. This is probably going to be your last year in store. I'm going to give you an opportunity to plan according, So because we understand you're a small business, we made all these promises, we're taking the promise back. A nice runway would have been nice.

Right after Trump was elected, Target made a big shift. They abandoned all of their DEI goals and announced that all of those big commitments to the black community were coming to an end. Kiarra had just become a new mom. She had poured her time, energy, and a lot of her own money into making the partnership with Target work. And then, just like that, she was dumped. You've said that, like, there was no big announcement or anything. They just pulled back. And this was happening for you in your personal life.

And you were like a new mom. Congratulations on that, by the way. But, like, already all of these big personal life changes and Target just pulls back. Like, what was, what was, what, tell me what that was like. It was very confusing. As I mentioned, I think as a small business when you're forecasting, notice is everything. Communication is everything telling somebody, hey, next year, we're going to pull back. We've made all these promises. We're not going to keep them if they would have had the dignity to tell us.

Like, that's what we're looking at. So we're going to give you this year to finish off, you know, product, merchandising. So you guys can prepare accordingly so that when you're forecasting for next year, you know, that don't plan to come back. That would have been very sad, but it would have given us time. We were already, we had inventory already for Christmas because Christmas is like best-selling time, especially if you're in like the game and toy space. And so then when fall of 2024, then they made the announcement in, you know, early 2025, when they told us for the fall that they weren't going to move forward, I'm like, what do you mean? We already have all the inventory for the holiday here.

And there was no explanation. There was no talk about sales. I think the exact wording we got was there's been a shift in the lineup. good luck carrying on. And so even that felt very cold, especially because at the very beginning, again, there was a lot of conversation and convincing us to do it. And then, you know, but you got to go get your diversity certification so that we can put on our page that you're black.

We got to be able to tell people because we didn't really care. Like you could tell them or not tell them. We're a black business. But it was important to target because that's part of their PR to show how many black businesses they have. So there was all this courting. And then it felt like a breakup through a text message. Good luck.

hope all is well and, you know, that that was it. There was no additional conversation. Oh, and then they add and we'll let you know if we need you to buy any of the product back, which also terrifying for small business. So I actually have a journalist reach out to me, winter 2024 before the announcement independently from reputable news source. And she was like, hey, I've been doing some research and I've noticed that a lot of the black businesses that Target pledged to support in 2020 are no longer in the store or on the shelf. Like I'm just looking him up and it's like gone, gone, gone, what's going on? And that was the first time that felt a little validating because I was like, wait a second, is that true? So I started doing my own research.

She was right. They made the announcement. And then other small businesses started reaching out to me. And I started having conversations. And I was like, whoa, I thought that this was happening in a silo, but we're all having the same experiences. And so if anything, I think it's actually been such a blessing because we have now, I've created, I feel like, a community of other small black entrepreneurs. And again, these are like the small businesses. None of us are celebrities. We don't have celebrity names. There's like celebrity backing. We don't have millions of followers. I made a viral, you know, TikTok video talking about my experience. But I think at the time I had like 130 followers on TikTok or something. Kid you not. So we didn't have like these huge platforms.

It was really just the visibility that Target promised. And then they've removed. it after we'd all spent a lot of money and had a lot of product left and was kind of like, good luck. So I have so much things to say about this. One is that I firmly believe that, you know, business is business. I get it. But how you move in business is a choice. So as you said, they could have respectively communicated with clarity and transparency with you.

You wouldn't have loved it. You wouldn't have been throwing a party, but you would have understood and moved on and been able to make plans, yada, yada, yada. The choice to essentially break up with you via text, that's a choice. That's not business. No one forced them to handle business in such a disrespectful, sleazy, dirty way. That was a choice. And I think that communicates a lot about, like, that tells me a lot about the people

who are leadership at Target. I guess I'll say that. And then I, you know, when you were talking about how you felt quite siloed, I have to imagine that Target was sort of banking on you. as an individual creator, internalizing this negative feeling and thinking, I must have done something wrong. They must have had some information about my product, about how it wasn't going well. This must have been, I must have made some sort of mistake. They probably weren't counting on you, reaching out to other creators and realizing, oh, this is a pattern. They're doing this with all of us.

They probably just wanted you personally to internalize that you had like botched this opportunity in some way. I fully agree. And again, I'm an attorney, so I'm an investigator. even I think slightly before we got the announcement, there were stores where I'd pop up because we don't get any information from Target about our demographics. Like who's buying? Like what? They don't share any of that. So we also have no knowledge of that other than where it's selling and maybe what stores it's selling in. We would ask questions about which cities is it selling best. Which stores is it selling in? So I could figure out where we need to get our sales up. So some of these stores that they tell me we had product in. I live in Los Angeles, so there were a good number

stores here. Some of these stores I started to pop up in and I'd be, you know, walking through the game aisle in the section and I didn't see our product anywhere. I'd be very confused and I'd look online and I'd be like, okay, there's units, but it's not here. So I'd find a manager or something. There's one store in particular. Finally, I had a conversation with the human. I was like, hey, excuse me, I'm a creator. My product is supposed to be here. Can you go find it? And they went to the back and brought the product out. And they're like, oh, here it is. And I was like, wait, Why isn't it on shelves? And they were like, oh, sometimes if we only order a small amount of product, we don't actually put it on the shelf because then we have to print out the tags and it costs money for

the store. And that made me irate because, again, deceptive. I'm giving you almost 50% of my profits. And what you're supposed to be giving in return is shelf space. It's visibility. It's the idea that all these people who come to Target are going to see the product. Now I'm really feeling like Rosa Parks. because you're telling me, we did all this and the product is in the back of the warehouse. So there were so much that was going into it when people would talk about like, oh, but what were the sales? What were the sales? And like, you have no idea what was happening on the back end. Of course, you want a product to sell.

We did well. When our product was in the toy magazine, when our product was on stores, we were always like right in the pack selling well. Like there was never an issue of like no, right, no one's buying your product. of 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. I mean, it's not often that I am like speechless and flabbergasted, but the idea of putting your product in the back, that goes counter to how people shop at Target. When 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's,

specifically to buy it. And then if I didn't see it, I asked the cashier or something. People need to see the item on the shelf and then make the decision to buy it. And 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. Could that be the case? I can't speak to their intentions because I'm not in their minds. But I do know it's deceptive to say, we have a hundred something black people in our stores that we're featuring when we're not actually. being featured. Like, that's crazy to me. I, but they continue to get away with it. And I don't think these problems are unique to target. I think with big retail in general, there's a lot that I wish I knew

before we were in about the product. But I'm the first person in my family to have a product in stores. So this was definitely a level of education for all of us. But I think more so than that, it was the lack of transparency and being told one thing when another thing was happening. And we just kept experiencing that over and over again. And I don't like that. I don't like being lied to. Had 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 fight and like personal financial cost, it was going to come to be in, come with to being Target, would you still make that deal? Absolutely not. There's no way. We spent more money. We spent more money than we made.

There's, we would have taken, I would have taken those savings and put them into trying to reach customers. Again, 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. So 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 a shelf. Like y'all told us we needed a telescope box that would show nicely. If you weren't going to put it on the shelf, you could have let us keep the little hang tag boxes that what? Leave me a good $40,000. God. I mean, I know that you're not calling target scammers.

This, the whole thing just feels scammy to me. Like, it just feels like a bait and switch. Like, when you promise one thing and deliver a completely different thing, the word I have for that is a scam. Like, my God. A hundred percent. And, I mean, this sounds terrible. It is what it is.

Going to be honest. I grew up in the South, right? Like, I knew who was racist. I knew who flew the Confederate flags. I knew who the kid in my class, he was like, you're just going to get in because you're black. I'm like, actually I'm at the top of my class. I'm over 4.0 GPA and I'm president of everything.

That's why I'm going to get into a good school, not because I'm black. But like, I knew who to look at and be like, yes, no, yes, no. This was hard for me. I think this season has been hard, even living out in L.A. Because the racism exists, but it's all gaslighting. It's then behind closed doors. People say one thing to you. then you get behind a closed door and it's something completely different. The conversations

shift and at this level in my career, and now I've in rooms where a lot of decisions are made and I sometimes am screaming at the top of my lungs, everybody's lying. Like, you don't care about these communities. This is all about the ROI. You want to make money. And I'm not saying making money is bad. If you're a business, you want to make money. Hopefully the relationship is mutually beneficial, but that's the piece that's missing. It has to be mutually beneficial. It can't just be beneficial for you and detrimental for me. That's not a relationship. That's manipulation. I'm like, you could tell me a joke. You could tell me something I don't like, but don't tell me a lie. The lie is what triggers me. More after a quick break.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests. from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group?

The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Huber me.

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Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast's point game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without. Luca and Austin Reed.

And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup,

he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis our offense. And when IT's friends stopped by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying.

He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that IZAD, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can have opinions. You can have, like, strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our our relationships.

I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Essence Fest, the multi-generational celebration of black women, took over New Orleans earlier this month. But this year, some folks were side-eyeing the sponsors. because Target was one of them. And around this same time,

mega popular streamer Kai Sinat announced a brand partnership with Target too. Target also made a $300,000 donation to a black church organization, a move that, let's be honest, looked like damage control. So how does Kiarra feel about black brands, creators, and organizations

who still play ball with Target, even after the boycott, even after the about face? Honestly, she gets it. Because for a lot of black entrepreneurs, especially the smaller ones, this isn't just about values, It's about survival, visibility, what you have to do to feed your family.

And that's part of what makes this all so painful and complicated. Target built a pipeline that black brands bought into, emotionally and financially. And then they just walked away, leaving people to either stay in the game or lose everything they put in. Is 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? And 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?

Like, nobody's asking white creators like, oh, are you planning on pulling out of target, given the boycotts? But 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. Does that make sense? Yeah, it 100% does. And I tell people all the time, buy from black creators and 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 Biggers 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. They might have the right to license your name for the next two years without you. And if you pull out, you have to pay them a million dollars. As I mentioned, even for us, that they let us know, you might have to buy back your product if we don't sell out of it or if we take it off stores.

So it can be very expensive to get out of a situation. I think the best way to talk about it is somebody in the abusive relationship. It's very easy to be like, girl, why are you still with that man? There's just so much that goes into it. You don't know their financial situation. You don't know what traumas they have. 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. And again, very complicated. I think it really is kind of like a creator by creator case by case situation. That's a really eloquent way of putting it. And I appreciate it in your TikTok that I initially saw, but you were like, listen, people got to do what works for them, but here is where I personally am at, right? Like keeping it with like, here are the decisions that I am making

as it pertains to target. People can do what works for them. Here's where I'm at. A hundred percent. And I don't know if you've ever had this, like, experience of working in corporate America, kind of the same thing with the job. If you're at a job and managers are toxic and you're like,

this is crazy. They're racist. Girl, I'm out. If you have the luxury to be out today, that's good for you, but 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. Like everybody's situation is just so different. So it's hard to judge on the outside when you don't know what's happening on the inside. And 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? What do you make of that? I 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. Like I feel some type way about, I don't know, things that Mark Zuckerberg says, but I still have an Instagram. I feel some type of way about where products are coming from and whether they're being sourced in an organic matter or if it's harming the community. I 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, 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, I 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. So when things become, to a certain extent, when things become incredibly egregious, it's like, okay, like I got off X.

I 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. Yeah, 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 sometimes I feel like there's an expectation that we can all be these perfect advocates and perfect activists all the time. And yeah, if I, 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. Like, 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. Like, 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. And that comes back

to community. And the reason we created this game in the first place, like, people don't know their neighbors. So even the one-day boycott where it was like, we're not spending any money. Don't get gas, don't do anything. Black people don't spend. Well, if you have to get to work and you don't have gas, but you got to get to work so you can not lose your job and feed your baby, you got to get gas. In an era where we had community, we know our neighbors. What it meant to boycott was like, not only am I not going to drive, I got gas. So says, if you need a ride to work, I got you. We don't have that anymore. We don't have the neighbors and the grandmas and the aunties and the uncles and the dads, the people to rely on to help us through these situations. So people are wanting to

boycott for the good of the community. But then there's no community to support them through that boycott. So I think we have to be realistic. Like before you say anything to anybody, to your point, I had a friend literally text me. It was like, girl, I had to get diapers from Target. It was half off. It's right down the street. And I was like, you don't have to apologize to me. But unless you're willing to be the friend that's like, don't go to Target. I got extra money in my bank account, I'm going to send you diapers this month so you don't have to worry about. Unless you're willing to shoulder the responsibilities so that we can all carry it together, an aunt can't carry a cake by itself. It just can't. And I mean, you have this great quote saying, I'm boycotting,

not because I'm bitter, but because I want my money and energy into spaces where diverse communities are valued and included, not just black dollars. What does that look like to you? So for me, a lot of this has been shopping local. So I live in Pasadena, try to go to the farmer's market once or twice a week. And I think I mentioned, like, I know the people that I buy my honey from. I know the people I buy my yogurt from. I know the lady who I buy my pasta from. I know what they believe. I know what they're working towards in the world, or at least how they appear. Can we ever really know somebody? You know, like, what are you doing in your secret life? I don't know. But I know how you show up. I know the conversations you're having. I know that, you know, you notice that

single mom didn't have enough money and you told her, don't worry about it. I got you. Take it. I know. I that you'll give someone an extra three or four yogurts because they've been such a loyal customer. Like I know your heart posture. I know the care that you have for your community. So I'm actually able to put my money behind people who stand on business for what they stand for, what they believe in, as opposed to as some of these large companies that I've worked for so many of them, people are sitting in the room and they could care less about you or your mama or your cousin. And so much of us, we make money to spend money. Like the value of money in and of itself is nothing. Like, It doesn't help you breathe.

You can't hold dollar bills and then all of a sudden you have clarity in your mind. Maybe if it's psychological for you. But there's no actual value to money other than what it can afford you. Like what can you buy with it? What can you do with it? What type of power does it give you? So the question becomes not the money itself, but what is the person who has the money planning to do with that money?

And if some of these big businesses corporations, you know they're going to use the money to push forward narrative. and political ideologies and things that are going to make the world a terrible place for you and everybody around you, it just feels incredibly irresponsible to some extent, not try to boycott in a realistic way. Don't let anybody tell you that boycotts don't work because Target is feeling it. The store had measurable drops in foot traffic, sales, reputation, and stock price. Their CEO, Brian Cornell, even had to take a pay cut. But don't worry, he's still making millions.

Yeah, and I mean, we have to keep it real. That sounds like the boycott is working, you know, foot traffic is down at Target. Their CEO is 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, like, was signaling that he wanted companies to abandon DEI, Costco said kick rocks and they're doing fine. So, like, this was definitely a choice.

And it seems to be a choice that it's not working at in Target State. And I think that speaks to the loyalty of real community. Like we, I was a Target girly. Like I was the person who would go to Target if I was bored or just like wanted to be in the air conditioning. We just see like, I want to walk around to see what they got at Target. I want to get a coffee and walk around Target. Like that was my happy place. And I guess this is interesting to me how quickly this thing that was so ingrained in my behavior became not needed.

Like I don't miss it. I don't, I don't, I don't, I've replaced it with other things. And part of me is like, I probably shouldn't have been spending the money anyway. And I just, I, like, I guess it's just like, they really had something there and they gave it up for nothing because I have no desire to go back into a target. I don't even miss it. You create, again, normal is what you're used to. So I think that at first it was like, well, where are we going to go? But you find your new routines. I get, I, you know, again, we go to the farmer's market in my house like twice a week. We have our vendors. We have our things. And I don't miss. it either. I make my own coffee at home now. I don't have to stop at Starbucks and I'm saving money. So it's like, wait a second. In a lot of ways, this boycott is not just bad for you. It's financially, economically, and socially good for me. We're taking our power back a little bit, yeah. So if this is a story about a breakup between me and Target, let's talk about the last time we saw each other. I walked by the local Target, the one ride enjoyed so many Target runs in the years before. And Target,

it just looked kind of bad. I swear I can't make this up. There was a cardboard cutout of country singer Morgan Wallen right at the entrance, advertising his newest country album. And I couldn't help but wonder, had Target and I really had a relationship at all? What had we even seen at each other? And the target in my community is in like a shopping plaza. So I go into a big plaza and there's a target and other things. So I walk by the target still, but I don't necessarily have to go in. And the last time that I walked by the Target a couple weeks ago, they had this big stand with the country music artist Morgan Wallen who like, I don't know if you know him. He's, I'll just say he, yeah, he's known for some like, let's just say, racially insensitive behavior and comments and leave it

at that. But I live in a majority, like a majority black neighborhood. I live in a heavily black city. And seeing these like massive Morgan Wallen stands like literally at the entrance of the store, it just made me think that Target used to be for the gals, gays, and they's, and now they don't know who they're for. Like, I was like, it's not the white dads who listen to Morgan Wallen who are going to Target. Like, it just made me think, I don't know that Target knows who they're for anymore. Did you get that sense? And it's very confusing, yeah, because I, we got, we did get statistics about who's most likely to shop at Target. And it's women who were college educated, who have like one kid, I think, at least one kid.

It's like their biggest audience. I'm your audience, okay? I buy all your things. I buy the hair stuff. I buy, I stop for groceries. I get the black owned stuff. I get stuff for my son. Pretty much everything in your store is something I would buy.

So to me, again, it comes back to not the reason we created the card games, not knowing your community, not knowing people, not knowing what's going to affect them, what they care about, what they don't care about. I heard someone say who's, you know, won't give me names. pretty high up and people were worried about the boycotts and how it's going to affect business. And this high up white women leader was like, black people will forget about it. Like, give it a couple weeks, they'll forget about they'll move on. And I'm like, youth, the audacity to think you know us so well, how dare you think you

understand this movement and to feel like you know what's going to happen with it? And then, you know, I do start to ask myself the hard questions. is there a reason they feel like we're easily manipulated? Is there a reason they feel like we don't stand on business? Is it because we never fought for reparations? We've been letting white America get away with things for so long. We've let them tell us we have to wear straight hair in the workplace and not natural hair because our natural hair is aggressive. And we, like, have we conceded too much to the point where they're like, you've already told me how to treat you? So I'm just going to continue. Not that we should internalize it and say that it's our

fault. But I have been asking myself the question. Like, number one, where do you get the audacity? Number two, as a community, like, let's have a conversation. Are we contributing to that feeling of being able to bully us without us saying or doing anything about it? I know that you've been, since the shift with Target, you've been reinvesting in like education spaces, community spaces. How can folks support you? How can they support your work? Where can they get the book? Like, how can folk shop for you as a creator? Yeah. So my book, Therapy isn't just for white people. If you're not shopping on Amazon or Barnes & Nobles, they've had their own. Everybody has a thing right now. A lot of black owned bookstores also have access to the book or you can call your black own bookstore

and ask them to get the book. Tons of the black own bookstores in L.A. have the book. So, you know, shop according to your preference. Target, please don't. We're not, I think we're still listed, but they just says like out of stock recently it's out of stock. Either they actually sold out or they were like, ooh, this girl's talking too much. Take that product off the shelf. You can go to our website, L-I-K-E-U-Card's.com. We have our flagship game. We have games for parents. As you mentioned, we're trying to do more stuff with kids because I think at the end of the day, if we're going to shape the next generation, how we shape the people growing up is so important. So our kids game really helps parents step into their kids' psychological world and to get on their level and to not make assumptions about how they see the world and to really hear them. So that's also available on our website. And stay tuned.

We have some other fun ideas coming down the pipeline and just playing with new ways to bring the community together. Everything we do comes back to the same goal of bringing community together. Community has been such a big theme of this conversation. Do you have any closing thoughts about community that you'd like to leave folks with? In order to be part of the community, I do think it starts with ourselves. And a huge part of that is how you interact with your neighbor. So if we're going to get to this next phase of like coming together to like make a change, you see your neighbor outside, wave, say hi.

If they don't wave back, don't be like, well, that's why I'm never waving again because they didn't acknowledge me. You're not the center of the world. Maybe they just found out their mom has cancer. You know, like give people grace, find ways to connect, and ways that also are allowing people to show up as humans, not as these perfectly, like, robots. I don't know.

That's all. That's all I got. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

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