Why DEI Was Never More Than a Band-Aid for Corporate America

Feb 5

In 2020, we witnessed a horrid cycle of Black deaths—Ahmaud Arbery, Daniel Prude, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. Their names joined a long list of Black lives lost to systemic violence. While some on that long list never reached national headlines, their stories mattered deeply to the Black community - their murders were tragically familiar. We recognize all these deaths as modern-day lynchings, a brutal reminder of how our society continues to devalue Black lives.

During the pandemic, the world witnessed something people have long refused to see: an upfront and personal look into Black pain through George Floyd. It was the bystander videos capturing George Floyd’s final moments, his murder at the hands of police that ignited national and international protests. The weight of systemic anti-Black violence seemed too heavy to ignore.

During this time, the world was rallying to declare Black Lives Matter in protest of anti-Black violence. Corporations came forward and scrambled to release statements, professing their future commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standing with the Black community. Of these companies, in 2020, Brian Cornell, the CEO of Target, came forward to provide a note. As one of the most outspoken corporations, Target led an explicit charge:

We are a community in pain. That pain is not unique to the Twin Cities—it extends across America. The murder of George Floyd has unleashed the pent-up pain of years, as have the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. We say their names and hold a too-long list of others in our hearts. As a Target team, we’ve huddled, we’ve consoled, we’ve witnessed horrific scenes similar to what’s playing out now and wept that not enough is changing. And as a team we’ve vowed to face pain with purpose.
Every day, our team wakes up ready to help all families—and on the hardest days we cling even more dearly to that purpose. As I write this, our merchant and distribution teams are preparing truckloads of first aid equipment and medicine, bottled water, baby formula, diapers and other essentials, to help ensure that no one within the areas of heaviest damage and demonstration is cut off from needed supplies.
Our store and HR teams are working with all of our displaced team members, including the more than 200 team members from our Lake Street store in Minneapolis. We will make sure they have their full pay and benefits in the coming weeks, as well as access to other resources and opportunities within Target. We’ll continue to invest in this vibrant crossroads of the Seward, Longfellow, Phillips and Powderhorn communities, preserving jobs and economic opportunity by rebuilding and bringing back the store that has served as a community resource since 1976. In any of our other locations that are damaged or at risk, the safety and well-being of our team, guests and the surrounding community will continue to be our paramount priority.
It’s hard to see now, but the day will come for healing—and our team will join our hearts, hands and resources in that journey. Even now, Target leaders are assembling community members, partners and local officials to help identify what more we can do together and what resources are required to help families, starting right here in Minnesota.
Since we opened our doors, Target has operated with love and opportunity for all. And in that spirit, we commit to contributing to a city and community that will turn the pain we’re all experiencing into better days for everyone.

Similarly, McDonald’s released a statement titled They Were One of Us:

They Were One of Us
Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Alton Sterling.
Botham Jean. Atatiana Jefferson. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd.
The list goes on.
He was one of us.
She was one of us.
They were all one of us.
We see them in our customers.
We see them in our crew members.
We see them in our franchisees.
And this is why the entire McDonald’s family grieves.
It’s why we stand for them and any other
victims of systemic oppression and violence.
Today we stand with
Black communities across America.
Which is why we're donating to the
National Urban League and the NAACP.
We do not tolerate inequity, injustice, or racism.
Black lives matter.

Other corporations pledged to “stand with Black communities,” to “do better,” to “listen and learn.” Deep down, while I felt a fleeting sense of being seen, another thought loomed: Why did it have to take them so long to acknowledge what we’ve always known? Was the statement just to make a statement to ensure that Black patrons would continue to support them? Surely, we have seen this before.

As much as America likes to pretend, anti-Blackness is not some distant relic; it is foundational, as American as apple pie. The rush to champion DEI initiatives in 2020 wasn’t about a newfound reckoning of protecting and being a champion of Black life; it felt like damage control. To temporarily provide awareness about the needs of Black people. To appear as an ally, though performative. As history has shown, the pessimists in me knew that corporations would eventually buckle.

I say this because, in this society, support for Black lives operates in a predictable cycle. Black death occurs, outrage erupts, and corporations and institutions rush to perform solidarity, pouring money into Black organizations—yet the root causes of our oppression remain untouched. When the dust settles, and the news cycles move on, so does the so-called support, leaving us in the same conditions that made the tragedy possible in the first place.

Choosing to advocate for Black lives has always been met with tension—not because the truth is complicated, but because people are more comfortable in denial. White America clings to the illusion of peace, a false narrative where racism is “in the past” and white supremacy is an inconvenient ghost rather than a present, violent reality.

A violent reality we had to face again on May 14, 2022, in Buffalo, New York. When a white supremacist, radicalized by the Great Replacement conspiracy, live-streamed the murder of ten people (9 of who were Black) in a grocery store. This terrorist, steeped in neo-fascism, was arrested from the scene. The same country that suffocates us under the weight of over-policing, under-protection, and state-sanctioned violence somehow found restraint when it came to a white man executing a massacre. Though he would ultimately receive eleven concurrent life sentences— what does justice mean when the root cause of Black trauma remains?

America has not moved on from anti-Blackness hate. We are not removed from the past. Our existing reality continues to shine a light on this narrative.

Today, some of the same people who supported Payton Gendron’s ideology and upheld his beliefs are a part of upholding the cult of Trump. In an administration where white violence is excused, and white supremacy is safeguarded under the guise of patriotism.

Today, the same companies that stood in solidarity with Black people in 2020 are now gutting DEI programs, rolling back initiatives, and prioritizing profit over justice. Because, in reality, they never truly cared about Black lives—only the Black dollar.

For corporations like Target and McDonald’s to release statements, declare their commitment to racial equity, and then walk back their commitments a few years later shows it was a temporary bandaid for them that was meant to eventually fall off. They care more about maintaining power, masking their complicity, and co-opting the language of progress while actively working against it.

Because when it comes down to it, supporting Black lives requires something they refuse to do: disrupt the very system that upholds their corporations. Instead of dismantling structures of white supremacy, they apply thin, meaningless band-aids—hollow policies, superficial hires, and vague commitments with no real accountability.

The attack on DEI, which has now become a euphemism for what the right thinks is coded as Black, has been nothing but a strategy, a temporary shield against what they fear is in this administration's power. Their masks are slipping.

Though the rollback of DEI isn’t a surprise, it’s the inevitable result of a country that was never invested in addressing the root problem. Even deep down, marginalized people have seen DEI become co-opted and how the initiatives have not served us. DEI policies have disproportionately benefitted white women.

Today, living in a nation where a white felon—a man whose ideology has emboldened white supremacists—is sitting in the seat of President. A country where the backlash against DEI is not about fairness but about preserving a white patriarchal society.

I have no interest in reading another corporate statement when the next wave of Black pain inevitably comes. I don’t want to see carefully worded social media posts about ‘standing in solidarity’ when the next Black life is stolen. If corporations can shuck and jive when it’s most convenient, I’d rather they drop the act entirely and go back to business as usual—because, ultimately, that’s all that ever mattered to them.

They were never committed to justice, our safety, or our liberation. They were only committed to the illusion of change—just enough to shield their brands, protect their profits, and preserve their reputations. And now, as they quietly dismantle their DEI efforts, they are proving what we always knew: their so-called commitment to Black lives was never real.

For my community, this behavior is no longer surprising. The best thing we can do now is continue to be more intentional about where we spend our money—paying close attention to which businesses truly align with our values, not just in words but in long-term actions and investments. Most importantly, we must keep continue supporting each other. Because at the end of the day, we are all we’ve got.