Three Corporate Giants That Don’t Deserve Your Dollar
Ben Cable (Originally posted on Substack, Nov 26, 2025)
By Citizen Ben
While America tramples each other for “doorbusters,” three mega-brands are quietly rolling back inclusion, cozying up to power, and looking the other way when vulnerable people are targeted.
Target: Bullseye Missed Its Mark
“Target sold you progress on a poster — then folded the second bigots got loud.”
Target once marketed itself as the friendly face of corporate progress: Pride collections, inclusive advertising, and glossy language about diversity and equity. Then the backlash came.
Under pressure from far-right activists and organized boycotts, Target pulled or relocated Pride merchandise and scaled back its public posture on diversity, equity, and inclusion — a move widely reported as a corporate retreat from its own supposed values. According to multiple news reports and internal accounts, the company chose “de-escalation” over standing firm with the LGBTQ+ community and workers of color.
In plain English: when equality became inconvenient, Target ducked.
“If your commitment to inclusion disappears at the first sign of controversy, it was never a commitment — just a marketing strategy.”
Black Friday verdict:
Don’t reward a company that treats basic human dignity as a seasonal promotion.
Alternative:
Shop local brick-and-mortar stores and independent vendors’ websites that don’t need a PR crisis team to decide whether your existence is “too controversial” for their shelves.
Amazon: Prime Pipeline to Power
“Every ‘lightning deal’ lives in the shadow of political backroom deals.”
Amazon’s public image is convenience: one click, same-day, anything you want. But behind the home page is a sprawling empire of political donations, federal contracts, and tax games that help keep billionaire power entrenched.
Campaign finance and lobbying records show Amazon and its executives have poured millions into political action committees and candidates aligned with corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and union-busting agendas. Reporting by watchdog groups has documented how Amazon benefits from favorable tax treatment and large government contracts, while ordinary workers face punishing productivity quotas and aggressive anti-union campaigns.
“Your package arrives in 24 hours. Worker protections and fair democracy? Those can wait.”
Warehouse workers’ injury rates have repeatedly been flagged as higher than industry averages, and employees who try to organize routinely report surveillance and retaliation, according to labor complaints and investigative reporting.
Black Friday verdict:
Don’t feed the beast that treats your democracy like another product in the warehouse.
Alternative:
Buy from local businesses, cooperatives, and independent makers online. They pay taxes in your community, not lobbyists to rewrite the rules.
Home Depot: Hardware and Human Collateral
“The aisles are neat, the ethics are not.”
Home Depot is where you go to rebuild a kitchen — and where powerful people helped rebuild a political machine.
Billionaire co-founders and executives have been major donors to hardline conservative causes, including politicians and policies pushing anti-immigrant agendas. At the same time, immigrant and day labor rights groups have repeatedly raised alarms about ICE operations in or near Home Depot parking lots, where vulnerable workers gather looking for jobs.
When your properties become staging grounds for fear and detention, you have a moral obligation to respond. Instead, Home Depot has offered corporate boilerplate while communities live with the fallout.
“If your parking lot becomes a trap and you say nothing, that silence is a choice.”
Black Friday verdict:
Don’t hand your money to a company that looks away while people are targeted on its doorstep.
Alternative:
Choose Ace Hardware and other locally-owned or cooperative hardware stores that still recognize what “community” actually means.
The Real Cost of Black Friday
“Black Friday isn’t a holiday — it’s a ritual sacrifice of our values at the altar of ‘50% OFF.’”
These brands don’t just sell products. They sell a story: that everything is fine, that your purchases are neutral, that politics and power stop at the automatic doors. They don’t.
Your money is a message. Every swipe, tap, and scan tells these corporations what you’re willing to tolerate. Rollbacks on inclusion? Fine. Political pipelines that benefit the few at the expense of the many? Fine. Silence when vulnerable people are targeted? Fine. Unless you say otherwise.
What You Can Do Today: A Real Black Friday “Doorbuster”
Here’s the call to action for Citizen Ben readers:
1. Don’t Shop There on Black Friday
- Skip Target, Amazon, and Home Depot this Black Friday.
- If they don’t feel your absence, they’ll never feel your outrage.
2. Shop Local Instead – Make It “Support Small Business Friday”
- Spend your money at local brick-and-mortar shops, independent bookstores, corner hardware stores, co-ops, and indie creators online.
- When you buy local, you’re funding your neighbors — not another billionaire’s tax shelter.
“Every dollar you pull from a corporate giant is a vote of no confidence — and every dollar you hand a local shop is a vote for the future you actually want.”
3. Email Corporate and Tell Them Exactly Why You’re Not Shopping There
Silence is their favorite customer feedback. Don’t give it to them.
Go to the corporate or investor relations page for:
- Target
- Amazon
- Home Depot
Find their customer service, corporate office, or investor relations email/contact form and send a short, clear message.
You can use this Citizen Ben boilerplate:
Sample Email to Corporate
Subject: I’m Boycotting Your Store This Black Friday
Dear [Company Name] Corporate Leadership,
I am a long-time customer, and I’m writing to let you know that I will not be shopping with you this Black Friday.
My decision is based on the following concerns:
- Your retreat from genuine diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives when they became politically inconvenient.
- Your financial and political entanglements that prioritize tax breaks, deregulation, and corporate power over workers, communities, and democracy.
- Your failure to meaningfully protect vulnerable workers and respond to serious human rights and labor concerns connected to your business practices and properties.
Until you demonstrate real, transparent change — not just marketing — I will direct my spending to local businesses and independent vendors whose values better align with mine.
My money will not be used to undermine the very communities I live in.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[City, State]
Copy, paste, tweak, and send this to all three companies — and to share screenshots on social media, tagging those brands and #SupportSmallBusinessFriday and #BoycottBlackFriday.
“Boycotts are the new ballots. Spend like democracy depends on it — because it does.”
This year, don’t just skip the line — change the script.
Refuse to fund cowardice, complicity, and corporate capture of our democracy.
Choose community over convenience. Choose people over profits.
And let them know exactly why their registers are a little quieter this Black Friday.
– Citizen Ben
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