Dear Target

Thanks for making this easy

So, you are scaling back your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative to appease the new White House occupant. You are also ending your programs to help black employees build their careers and to promote black-owned business through partnerships selling their products. Way to teach power what it can do. What a breathtaking display of greed and cowardice… the two defining characteristics of this moment in the American story.

I have to tell you, Target, I am discombobulated by this news. And, suddenly, I can no longer use retail therapy in your stores to help cope with this big cup of chaos we’ve all been served! Thank you for that. Thanks for waking me up.

Like many women of my age and education level, I have an unfortunate weakness for what you’ve been selling for years. Target opened a new store in my suburb back when I was in high school. I couldn’t afford real Doc Martens, so I bought your knock-offs. I have nice memories of shopping there with my mom. We used go to the little cafe and get a pizza before browsing around the store. (I miss those cafes. I was sad when they went away and got replaced with Starbucks.)

I also remember coming back after living overseas in Lebanon where shopping choices were more limited. I needed shampoo and became completely paralysed by the infinite array of choices on your shelves. After reading maybe 15 labels, I just stood there, staring into space, unable to make a decision.

At some point, it seemed like you knew you were a store specifically for my demographic and leanings. You knew I read fashion magazines but couldn’t afford to shop for brands so you reproduced the September issue on your shelves at a much lower price-point. I didn’t know it at the time, but this is what we would later understand as fast fashion. Sure, I had vague notions that it was maybe not ethically-produced but, somehow, when I would walk through your doors, I just couldn’t believe that you could be so wrong.

You must have hired pretty brilliant minds to keep someone like me coming back and falling into all of your little fantasy traps. Because it is a fantasy you were selling. For years you kept your stores filled with things I didn’t know I wanted so badly. But there was always something on your shelves I could not resist. Will you be able to attract and keep that talent now that you have sold your customer base out?

It had to be a pretty smart employee who suggested partnering with the quilters of Gees Bend to create a special line of clothing and other products, the proceeds of which went to help support that community. I was really excited by that. I suppose, now that you will no longer be thinking outside the box, your stores will fully embrace the greige aesthetic of Chip and Joanna Gaines… could two people create a more boring, monotonous empire?

Loretta Pettway's Medallion Quilt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside products from Target's Gees Bend line.

But I should thank you, Target, for reminding me that I am a citizen, not just a consumer. My choices everywhere in my life are a vote for the world I wish to see. I actually don’t want to live in a world dominated by a few huge corporations. I don’t want to support companies that encourage dangerous, exploitative, and environmentally-destructive manufacturing. I don’t want to support supply and waste chains that wrap around the world more than once, contributing to ever-growing CO2 emissions.

I will always love to shop and fill my life with cool things because I am part magpie —an aspect of being an artist, I think. But I’ve found it’s much more satisfying to go on the hunt in thrift stores, antique malls, and estate sales. And thanks to Ebay and the planet-size mountain of products you’ve mass-produced for decades, I could still be shopping your products for many years to come.

Those dollars just won’t be going into your coffers anymore.