Founders of Black-owned brands adapt their hopes and business plans for a post-DEI era

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Founders of Black-owned brands adapt their hopes and business plans for a post-DEI era

2025-03-27 00:19 Last Updated At：00:20

NEW YORK (AP) — The co-founders of a company that makes lip products for darker skin tones no longer hope to get their line into Target. A brother and sister who make jigsaw puzzles celebrating Black subjects wonder if they need to offer “neutral” images like landscapes to keep growing.

Pound Cake and Puzzles of Color are among the small businesses whose owners are rethinking their plans as major U.S. companies weaken their diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The initiatives mostly date from the end President Donald Trump’s first term and entered a new era with the dawn of his second one.

Some Black-owned brands suspect big retail chains will drop partnerships they pursued after the police killing of a Black man in 2020 reignited mass protests against racial injustice. In today's anti-DEI climate, other entrepreneurs worry about personal repercussions or feel pressure to cancel contracts with retreating retailers.

“It becomes a question of, are the big box stores going to be there? Do we even make any attempt to talk to these people?" Ericka Chambers, one of the siblings behind Puzzles of Color, said. “We are really having to evaluate our strategy in how we expand and how we want to get in front of new customers.”

Chambers and her brother, William Jones, started turning the work of artists of color into frameable puzzles the same year a video captured a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on George Floyd's neck. Amid the Black Lives Matter protests over Floyd's death, a fashion designer challenged large retailers to devote 15% of their shelf space and purchasing power to Black businesses.

The Fifteen Percent Pledge helped bring Puzzles of Color's creations to Macy’s and Nordstrom’s websites in 2022. Last year, they made it into select Barnes & Noble stores. Chambers said she's confident in the companies' commitments but recalled a backlash after news outlets covered the brand, which is based in Texas.

“It does make us think about how we envision ourselves as far as the safety of not wanting to be attacked, because some people are very vocal about being anti-DEI,” Chambers said.

Vibrant depictions of Black women account for many of her and Jones' puzzles. The pair figured they needed to provide more abstract designs for certain Barnes & Noble locations to give Puzzles of Color “a little bit of a fighting chance.”

The first prominent names in U.S. retail to end or retool their diversity programs surfaced last summer amid threats of legal challenges and negative publicity from DEI critics, who argue that setting hiring, promotion and supplier diversity goals for underrepresented groups constitutes reverse discrimination.

After Trump won a second term in November, Walmart joined the corporate pullback. Target's suspension of its comparable DEI targets in January stung Black and LGBTQ+ customers harder, largely because they regarded the Minneapolis-based company as more of a natural ally.

The company said it would continue working with a diverse range of businesses. Philadelphia-based Pound Cake's co-founders, Camille Bell and Johnny Velazquez, said they don't think they would agree at this point if the retailer offered to stock their lipsticks and lip oils.

“Target would have been a great boost to our business’s growth,” Velazquez said. “We’ll just find it elsewhere.”

Target's stance has created a dilemma for brand founders with existing distribution deals. One is Play Pits, a natural deodorant for children that Maryland resident Chantel Powell launched in 2021. The product is found in about 360 Target stores.

The retailer's DEI program “allowed us to employ amazing people, give back to our community, and exhibit Black excellence on and off the shelves,” Powell wrote on LinkedIn as civil rights leaders talked about boycotting Target.

She and some other product creators highlighted the impact boycotts might have on their businesses. They urged upset customers to intentionally limit their purchases to items from Black-owned enterprises. Some activists understood; others pushed the brands to join the protest by cutting ties with Target.

“The conversation around Black brands, that they should pull out of the retailers that they’re in, is unrealistic,” Powell said this month as a 40-day, church-organized Target boycott was underway. “We signed up to be in business. I understand why people are having that conversation of boycotts. As a Black founder, I also understand the side of how it can be detrimental.”

The owner of a Black-owned sexual wellness business with its own line of condoms has a slightly different take. Target started carrying B Condoms in 2020, and founder Jason Panda said the company told him late last year that it didn't intend to keep the prophylactics in the 304 stores that stocked them.

Panda says he isn't worried. The product is available through Amazon and in more than 7,000 CVS stores, he said. What's more, contracts with non-profit organizations and local governments that distribute condoms for free are the cornerstone of the business he established in 2011, Panda said.

“My money has never really come from mainstream,” he said. “We're going to be protected as long as I can maintain my relationship with my community.”

Brianna Arps, who founded the fragrance brand Moodeaux in 2021, notices fewer grants available to Black brand creators these days. She used to apply for 10 to 15 every week or two; the number is down to five to seven, Arps said.

“A lot of the organizations that had been really vocal about supporting (Black businesses) have either quietly or outwardly pulled back,” she said.

Moodeaux was the first Black-owned perfume brand to get its perfumes into Urban Outfitters and Credo Beauty, which specializes in natural vegan products. In the current environment, Arps is looking to expand her brand's presence independent shops and to support other Black fragrance lovers.

“The resiliency of brands like ours and founders like myself will still exist,” she said.

Aurora James, the founder of the Fifteen Percent Pledge, said nearly 30 major companies that joined the initiative remain committed to it, including Bloomingdale's, beauty retailer Sephora, J. Crew and Gap.

Ulta Beauty, another pledge signatory, and Credo Beauty carry Pound Cake products. Velazquez and Belle want to use social media to direct their followers to support retailers like Ulta and to bolster their online sales.

“It’s going to be fostering the community that we have and growing that,” Velazquez said.

While making a strategic decision “to appeal to a broader audience” when selecting puzzles for Barnes & Noble, Chambers said she plans to introduce Black faces and experiences to the chain's bookstores over time, in boxes of 500, 750 and 1,000 pieces.

In the meantime, Puzzles of Color expanded its “Pride” collection as a response to the DEI backlash. The subjects include Harriet Tubman, a mother and daughter tending a garden, and a little girl in a beauty supply store gazing up at hair accessories.

“Do we lean in all the way?" Chambers asks herself. "Part of why we started this was because we didn’t see enough Black people in puzzles.”

'Eid of sadness': Palestinians in Gaza mark Muslim holiday with dwindling food and no end to war

2025-03-30 23:55 Last Updated At：03-31 00:00

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had little to celebrate Sunday as they marked the normally festive Eid al-Fitr with rapidly dwindling food supplies and renewed fighting in the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli strikes killed at least 19 people, mostly women and children, health officials said.

Many prayed outside demolished mosques on the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. It's supposed to be a joyous occasion when families feast and purchase new clothes for children, but most of Gaza's 2 million people are just trying to survive.

“It’s the Eid of sadness,” Adel al-Shaer said after attending prayers amid rubble in the central town of Deir al-Balah. “We lost our loved ones, our children, our lives and our futures.”

Twenty members of his extended family have been killed by Israeli strikes, including four young nephews a few days ago, he said and began to cry.

Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas and resumed the 17-month war earlier this month with a surprise bombardment that killed hundreds, after the militant group refused to accept changes to the truce reached in January. Israel has not allowed food, fuel or humanitarian aid to enter Gaza for a month.

“There is killing, displacement, hunger and a siege,” said Saed al-Kourd, a worshipper. “We go out to perform God’s rituals in order to make the children happy, but as for the joy of Eid? There is no Eid.”

Arab mediators are trying to get the truce back on track. Hamas said Saturday it had accepted a new proposal from Egypt and Qatar. Israel said it made a counter-proposal in coordination with the United States, which has also been mediating. The details were not immediately known.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations while negotiating. He rejected claims that Israel does not want to end the war, while laying out conditions that go far beyond the signed ceasefire agreement and have been rejected by Hamas.

“Hamas will disarm. Its leaders will be allowed out. We will look out for the general security in the Gaza Strip and allow for the realization of (President Donald) Trump’s plan,” Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting.

Trump has proposed that Gaza's population be resettled in other countries so the U.S. can redevelop Gaza for others. Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland. Human rights experts say the plan would likely violate international law.

Israeli strikes on Sunday morning killed at least 16 people, including nine children and three women, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Two girls appeared to be wearing new clothes purchased for the holiday, according to an Associated Press cameraman, including spotless sneakers.

On Sunday evening, a strike hit a tent in Deir al-Balah and killed at least two people, according to an AP journalist at the hospital.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 14 bodies were recovered in the southern city of Rafah, including eight of its emergency medical technicians and five members of Gaza’s Civil Defense, all who had been missing for a week. Israel’s military has said it fired on advancing “suspicious vehicles” and later discovered some were ambulances.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Hamas is still holding 59 captives — 24 believed to be alive.

Israel's offensive has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.

Netanyahu’s security Cabinet approved the construction of a road for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Critics say it will open the door for Israel to annex a key area just outside Jerusalem, further undermining the feasibility of a future Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s office said the project is meant to streamline travel for Palestinians in communities near the large Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim.

Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group, said the road will divert Palestinian traffic outside of Maaleh Adumim and the surrounding area known as E1, a tract of open land deemed essential for the territorial contiguity of a future state.

That will make it easier for Israel to annex E1, according to Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert with the group, because Israel can claim there is no disruption to Palestinian movement. Critics say Israeli settlements and other land grabs make a contiguous future state increasingly impossible.

Several roads in the West Bank are meant for use by either Israelis or Palestinians, which international rights groups say is part of an apartheid system, allegations Israel rejects.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three for their future state. A two-state solution is widely seen as the only way to resolve the decades-old conflict.

Jahjouh reported from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war