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Target's New Badge Makes It Easier To Shop Black-Owned Brands

You'll see a brown circle with five skin-toned hearts.

by Syeda Khaula Saad
SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Recently, it seems as though companies across the board are making efforts to support Black-owned brands and businesses. And while you can definitely argue that for many it's too little too late, it's also a good thing that Black-owned brands are finally getting the attention they deserve. One company participating in highlighting Black brands is Target.

Thanks to a new badge, online Target shoppers will be able to identify which brands they're shopping are Black-owned or Black-founded.

Now, in the same spot you'd be able to find Vegan and Clean badges, you'll be able to see a brown circle with five skin-toned hearts that indicates that you're looking at a Black-owned business. Some highlighted businesses include The Honey Pot, One Love, and The Lip Bar.

According to Target's Instagram post, highlighting these brands is "just the beginning" of their continued efforts to include more Black brands, founders, creatives, artists, guests, and team members in their social content. The post garnered more than 42,000 likes.

Since the post, Target has kept its promise and dedicated all six of its latest Instagram posts to highlighting Black individuals, promoting Black brand owners, quoting Black revolutionaries, and recommending Black authors. The company has even dedicated one of their Instagram Highlights reels to information about how Target is promoting Black brands.

Target isn't the only brand stepping up to honor Black-owned businesses. Vans, the shoe brand, has also showed its solidarity with Black communities in multiple ways. Aside from pledging $200,000 in total to the NAACP, Color of Change, and the GSA Network, Vans also encouraged customers to spend money at Black-owned brands on Blackout Day rather than shopping from them. When customers went to their site on July 7, they saw an announcement titled "A New Pair of Vans Can Wait." Under this, the brand suggested Black organizations people could donate to as well as additional information about what Vans was doing to support Black communities that customers could access.

There are plenty of Black-owned businesses out there that you can support today and every other day. And if other brands follow the leads of companies like Target and Vans, shopping more consciously will become a whole lot easier. It might even become the norm.