Quoted: Buying products with racial equity in mind can make some people feel absolved from doing harder anti-racism work, like attending protests or advocating in their workplaces, says Aziza Jones, an incoming business professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But Jones says other people respond differently. “Other people will see what they’ve done, this purchase of a product from a Black-owned business and take that as a signal to themselves, as a symbolic signal, of how important this cause is to them,” she says.