The Black-owned business Honey Pot, faced backlash after its founder said in a Target ad that the company’s success is directly connected to the success of other black and brown girls.
Many white people didn’t take the comment in stride, deeming it as racist towards them. Now, the owner, Beatrice Dixon, has opened up about the response to the ad.
“My reasoning for saying that is because of the disparities that are happening in the venture capital world,” Dixon said Thursday on The Breakfast Club, around the 4-minute mark. “We get less than 1% of funding—we get 0.06% of funding. I’m one of only 50 black women that have raised more than a million dollars. Think about that. … If we are not selling businesses, we are not scaling businesses, black wealth can literally die. That’s the reason why we have to be successful.”
“A lot has happened,” she continued. “We’ve been inundated with emails, we’ve been inundated with social media posts, bad reviews but not on product. … [White people] said that I was racist—and guess what? That’s their opinion. I know I’m not racist. … They called for their people not to buy [Honey Pot] and support it. We didn’t even really have to say much because our beloved customers formed like Voltron and just got in there. Not only did they reverse like a one-and-a-half, two-and-a-half star on Trustpilot, but it went to like 4.9 stars. The shelves have just been ravished. Everything’s poppin’ online and everywhere else.”
Target shot a commercial where they highlighted the brand in stores. At the end of the ad, Dixon spoke on her company’s success: “The reason why it’s so important for Honey Pot to do well is so that the next black girl that comes up with a great idea, she can have a better opportunity,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”
While the ad has been out for almost a month, negative reviews started flooding in on Monday. Most of the one-star reviews originated from the customer review site Trustpilot, where people attacked Honey Pot and Target for “discriminating against white people” in the ad.
