ATLANTA — Outside the Lululemon store at Ponce City Market in Atlanta on Thursday, Donna Martin, a Black woman searching for yoga gear, learned that the company’s founder, Chip Wilson, had publicly criticized the idea of the brand embracing diversity.
“I don’t understand it,” said Martin, a project manager at a telecommunications company. “But I get it. This is the world we live in now, where the person who created a brand doesn’t want everyone to support that brand. It’s so ridiculous.”
She shook her head. “I got the memo,” Martin said as she left the store.
DEI experts like Tiffany Brandreth said Martin had the right idea: Black consumers concerned about Wilson’s recent rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion should consider boycotting the retailer.
“There needs to be a loud call to action for a broad boycott of companies that openly disparage AI as practices rooted in racism and discrimination,” said Brandreth, an organizational psychologist who specializes in DEI. “It is important for anyone claiming to be a DEI ally to send a strong message that these reactionary values will not be upheld that goes beyond mere rhetoric.”
Wilson founded Lululemon in 1998 and stepped down as CEO in 2013, but still owns a majority of the company’s stock, which is valued at $4 billion, according to Forbes.
During an interview with Forbes published on January 2, he criticized the company’s “complete diversity and inclusion.” He also took umbrage at Lululemon ads because they featured people he described as “unhealthy,” “sick,” and “uninspiring.”
“They’re trying to become like the gap, everything to everyone,” Wilson said. “And I think the definition of branding is that you’re not everything to everyone. You have to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in.
Wilson has made similar controversial statements in the past, including defending one line of yoga pants that were unintentionally see-through for some wearers because “some women’s bodies actually don’t fit them.”
Following his latest comments, Lululemon distanced itself from its founder, who has had no role in business operations for more than eight years.
“Chip Wilson does not speak for Lululemon, and his comments do not reflect the views or beliefs of our company,” the statement read. “Chip has not been involved with the company since resigning from the board in 2015, and we are a very different company today.”
Genesis Emery Foley, a marketing leader, entrepreneur and DEI advocate in Los Angeles, sees Wilson’s statements as short-sighted, from a business perspective only. The goal of creating products is to attract consumers. However, harnessing exclusivity can lead to people who do not fit the company’s target groups being “shunned.”
“This perpetuates the larger and complex challenge of lack of diversity and inclusion representation not only across corporate organizations, but also in consumerism and our social climate more generally,” Emery Foley said. “So, for me, it is quite disappointing to hear that someone of such power, stature and greatness would promote the idea of separation and exclusion.”
However, on a consumer level, Brandreth said Wilson’s remarks should serve as a turning point for the county — not one that will “fade into oblivion,” she said. Brandreth added that the boycott should be applied to any company affiliated with “reactionary values.”
“The combined purchasing power of diverse groups is enormous, so the boycott doesn’t need to be noisy,” she said. “Consumers’ economic choices themselves send a silent but powerful message. The most impactful way to create change is to make the consequences felt, directly by impacting the financial gains of these individuals.”
Far from boycotting, Emery Foley encouraged supporting Black-owned businesses instead.
“The most powerful way to get a company’s attention is to actually start doing what we should be doing anyway,” she said. “This is investing in our communities, creating pathways to democratizing entrepreneurship and Black rights.”
“There is no reason we should wait for companies to do what is right,” Emery Foley added. “Change will arise when we come together as a larger community and create our own ecosystem of all the things we have fought for all these years.”
DEI experts told NBC News that Wilson’s statements reflect a growing and alarming attitude from business leaders that has weakened and threatened the field, which aims to ensure fairness in hiring practices and inclusive work environments for all employees.
This is especially troubling because in 2020, after the killing of George Floyd sparked a social justice movement, Black entrepreneurship soared and countless companies announced their commitment to ramping up DEI practices to address significant disparities in Black representation in the workplace. But over time, the commitments faded.
Google, which announced in 2020 that it would make a big push for DEI, scaled back those efforts significantly last year, without much fanfare. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has let go of leaders and employees who worked on DEI. The Supreme Court’s June ruling dismantling college admissions on racial grounds gave “carte blanche permission for companies to deprioritize DEI and further defund DEI,” Brandreth said.
The backlash to the recent wave of DEI efforts came to a head this week with the successful campaign to push Claudine Jay, the first black woman president of Harvard University, from her lofty position.
None of this is surprising to Crystal Allen, founder of K.Allen Consulting, a New Orleans firm that coaches companies and other entities in DEI. She said Wilson’s speech was motivated by the shortsightedness of his stature.
“When you talk about the franchise, from a business perspective, it’s not surprising that they may not see the importance and value of seeing human justice and human rights issues as tied to the bottom line,” Allen said. “These individuals don’t understand how inclusion, equity and embracing diversity actually leads to your bottom line success because you are able to provide a more enhanced customer experience. You are able to increase employee retention and are able to operate with a heightened sense of excellence, because you are not targeting one group.
Danny Monroe, who founded the Martha’s Vineyard Chief Diversity Officers Summit, said this is the moment for civil rights groups like the NAACP and the National Urban League to move to the forefront. “They need to start standing up for their voices and using them to support diversity, equality and inclusion, and become more organized about how we advocate for ourselves and speak out,” she said, noting that the wave against DEI is gaining momentum.
Monroe said this momentum comes from prominent voices.
“I feel like we have a billionaire bully club that keeps going Elon Musk“Chip Wilson and other wealthy people are attacking DEI,” Monroe said. “And you have to ask why. The reason is because DEI is a very powerful strategy for achieving justice. And the motivation that’s driving this attack on DEI is that there’s a strong bias that they’re operating in. These are very entitled men. Some people have the impression that diverse people are getting things or opportunities that they don’t deserve.” , are not qualified for it, and should not be entitled to certain seats of power and privileges.
The irony is that black consumerism is what drives many corporate leaders to success.
“Individuals like Elon Musk continue to take advantage of the same individuals who have biased views against them,” Brandreth said. “There is little incentive for them to re-evaluate or change their discriminatory and oppressive views if we continue to work for their companies and continue to buy their products. By choosing not to work for such companies and refrain from purchasing their products or services, it directly impacts what matters most.” .
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