December 1, 2025
Brown admitted to having to heighten her security team over the backlash she received.
Tabitha Brown is speaking out against the backlash she received over her response to the Target boycott.
The content creator and entrepreneur reportedly had to ramp up security after her input got caught in the crossfire of the protest against Target. Many in the Black community called out the retailer for its scaling back on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives earlier this week.
While supporters of the boycott followed suit, Brown took a different view of the demonstration. Brown emphasized how the refusal to shop at Target would hurt the Black and Brown business owners whose products were still on its shelves. According to Afrotech, Brown also has a licensing deal with Target for her haircare line, which is stocked in stores.
Although Brown felt she was advocating for small businesses, others called her perspective tone-deaf. She has since clarified her take on the matter on iHeart’s “Not My Best Moment” podcast, hosted by fellow influencer and comedian, KevOnStage.
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“I own multiple businesses. Don’t worry about me. But these other people, and I said this in the video, some of these Black-owned businesses, it’s their first time being in the store. This is why I was really so upset because Target, y’all really did this right before the Black History Month launch. Y’all know what it’s going to do to these businesses. You know how long it take to get in there,’” she explained.
She wanted to be a voice for the other side of the coin if the mass protests did occur. She warned that if sales for these companies looked abysmal, Target could take them off the shelves, thus snatching this exposure opportunity.
“I was trying to educate people on this is what’s going to happen for these small businesses. ‘Cause some people are like, “I ain’t boycotting.” I’m like, “Listen, I understand. But if you do, great. If you decide not to and you still go in Target, please only buy Black. Only support those businesses because the numbers don’t lie.’”
She called out the misinformation spread about Black businesses in Target, while wanting to convey an apparent reality if Buy Black supporters did not patronize these companies.
“There was like a lot of lies going around saying like, ‘They just took all the Black businesses out of Target’. I was like ‘No, they didn’t do that yet,’” continued Brown. “They didn’t do that because they can’t legally, but they can when the fiscal year rolls around, and they start looking at the numbers, say, ‘Oh, this was your forecast, and this is where you came in. You didn’t meet the numbers.’ Now, they have reason to remove them. That’s what I tried to convey.”
While organizers of the boycott, like Pastor Jamal Bryant, spoke out against Brown, she says they falsely claimed that she had more power and agency in her Target deal than she actually did. Brown could not easily remove her products from stores without incurring legal and financial risks. However, the controversy shaped her business savvy moving forward.
Brown also mentioned that she had to ramp up security after people approached her about the boycott. She doesn’t forget her time in the negative light, but still believes that she had good intentions, sticking up for the future of small businesses.
Now, she includes a dual-morality clause in all her contracts, allowing her to legally disassociate from brands that no longer align with her values.
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