A lesson in Cooperative Economics: The Honey Pot vs Racism

Whitney Alese
5 min readMar 3, 2020
Youtube

In February, Target, in celebration of Black History Month, released an ad discussing The Honey Pot, a black woman–owned company.

The Target ad highlighted Beatrice Dixon, founder of The Honey Pot, a plant based feminine care line of products which launched in 2014, as an “inspirational entrepreneur and diverse business leader”. In the ad, Beatrice says, “The reason why it’s so important for Honey Pot to do well, is so the next black girl that comes up with a great idea, she could have a better opportunity. That means a lot to me.”

This ad, which should have been at best inspirational, sparked a flood of not only negative, but nasty online reviews, accusing both The Honey Pot and Target of being “racist” to white people.

Following the ad’s release, a flood or reviewers descended on the major review website, TrustPilot, so much so that they have now limited the reviews that can be left for The Honey Pot.

What was interesting is that many of these ratings left on TrustPilot made it VERY obvious that the people who were actually leaving review had never actually used the product. Remember, The Honey Pot produces feminine care products, meaning products for periods such as tampons and pads, but also wipes and washes for regular daily use.

--

--

Whitney Alese

Whitney Alese is an award winning writer & creator featured in WIRED Magazine, I-D Magazine, NBC, & Chalkboard Magazine.