Thanksgiving eve as America prepared to enter the holiday shopping season, the time of year retailers count on to push them over their revenue goals for the year, organizers in the Black and other communities planned a strategic intervention.
Black Voters Matter, the Mass Blackout initiative and more than 50 grass roots organizations across the country called for a national boycott of pre-selected retailers who traded loyalty to their consumers (particularly people of color) and instead, demonstrated fealty to Donald Trump in exchange for his political favor.
The strategic boycott targeted three of the nation’s major retail giants including Amazon, Home Depot and Target, during the time of year when most retailers expected to pull in about 20% of their annual sales.
What would it take for the boycott to make an impact, I wondered? Well, some analysts suggested that it would not take great numbers of people to abstain from shopping for these retailers to feel the impact. Some suggested that even if only 5% to 10% of holiday shoppers chose not to shop, it could result in a significant loss of revenue, particularly for retailers like Home Depot, among others.
These retail giants proved their lack of support for the Black and other BIPOC communities by cancelling DEIA programs or making it convenient for ICE to target immigrants at their facilities, etc. The reality is that these corporations shamelessly use the money we spend at their stores to help fund the president and his team as they contrive initiatives that directly harm people of color in every aspect of our lives. This includes everything from indiscriminate deportations that are sweeping up far too many American citizens; to layoffs facilitated by DOGE and/or members of the president’s cabinet; to draconian budget cuts to major social programs like SNAP, Medi-Cal, Affordable Care Act subsidies and more.
The goal of boycott organizers was for the Black community to flex its collective economic muscle and send a resounding message to corporate giants like those targeted that—”We Ain’t Buying it!” In other words, we are no longer spending our hard-earned dollars with those who do not treat us fairly and support our struggle for equity. The Black community was projected to spend between $1.8 and $2 trillion throughout 2025—including holiday shopping.
The boycott began Thanksgiving Day and continued through Cyber Monday. When the sales period ended, I searched through resources in an attempt to determine the success of the “We Ain’t Buying It” campaign. Meanwhile, the Trump administration was already pointing to Black Friday sales and proclaiming “consumers were in good health based on this data”.
Meanwhile, not a fiscal expert myself, I had difficulty sorting through all the spin related to what the sales data actually revealed of that weekend’s shopping results in an effort to determine the boycott’s impact.
MSN reported how data from Thanksgiving weekend showed folks shopped at what they defined as “encouraging levels”. This seemed far from a resounding acknowledgement of overall retail success.
Adobe Analytics (AA) highlighted how consumer spending reached $6.4 billion on Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday spending totalled $11.8 billion online. These numbers, AA asserted, “were record highs, noticeably higher than last year”. On its face this makes it sound like the boycotts failed but there was also a caveat. First, this year’s order volume was down by 1% compared to 2024 and sales prices were up 7%. In other words, it appears these record highs were probably driven by inflation and not by shoppers.
Although I am uncertain regarding a direct correlation, overall, November spending rose 7.1 percent year over year, according to AA. When this is compared to 7% inflation, it seems to indicate spending was basically flat.
A separate spending analysis by Mastercard noted a 4.1% increase over 2024. This reflects a combination of in-store and online shopping.
Again, admitting I’m no economist, it just seems to me, the powers that be are going through a laborious and tortured process to spin the Thanksgiving weekend shopping results as a success–though with very limited fanfare and lots of confusing explanations. They’ve even offered us a technical explanation to help put the confusing numbers in perspective—something called a K-shaped economy.
This is just a fancy way of saying what we know–that those on top spent lots of money over the holiday weekend, while most of the rest of us represent the bottom slant of the K–the part that is pointed downward to help explain from an economic perspective how the rest of America may have shopped modestly or not at all. Of course, this explanation conveniently ignores the national boycott.
In the meantime, what we do know for sure is that the ongoing nationwide boycott against Target is working. Its stock is down 33% and experts report it has lost more than $20 billion in market value since its leadership decided to slam the door on DEIA.
Something else is also happening to the American consciousness. Researchers report that about 45% of the people in this country now research a company’s values before they buy. At least 31% of those included in the study stated they have boycotted brands for ethical reasons. Also, more and more said they are beginning to target large corporations.
As we wrap up holiday shopping this year, I encourage you to keep the “We Ain’t Buying It” mindset. Remember to shop local and support small businesses. They help fuel our local economy.
