Sure, Boycott Dove and Unilever, but Not Over Zyahna Bryant

Boycotts seem to be getting more common nowadays. Though it is hard to have enough power to take down large companies, certain groups are giving it their all, and the latest company experiencing consumer backlash is beauty and skincare giant Dove. Turns out some white people are totally mad! Dove has a new partnership with Black Lives Matter activist Zyahna Bryant, promoting fat liberation in a new campaign with the personal care juggernaut. 

There are two angles to the anger coming from (mostly white) people. Their first issue seems to be the term “fat liberation.” That phrase in and of itself is stirring up controversy. Some people seem to think a beauty campaign like Bryant’s is only going to encourage people to be fat, which many people still believe means someone is automatically unhealthy. Take a look at some of the comments from The New York Post on this topic and you will see how disgusting some people’s views truly are.

It’s one thing if you don’t necessarily agree with the campaign’s angle, but I am always shocked at people’s urge to spew such rudeness and nastiness online. We already know that fat people in general aren’t celebrated, and the fact that Bryant is a fat Black woman just makes it harder on her. How dare she be comfortable? How dare she be a part of a personal care brand campaign? We are not her doctors, and we do not immediately know if she is healthy or not. I believe that what is healthy is for someone to love and celebrate themselves, which seems to be what this campaign is mostly about.

Secondly, Bryant, who is a student at the University of Virginia, has come under fire for an incident in which she pushed for the expulsion of Morgan Bettinger, a white UVA student, over comments made at a Black Lives Matter protest. Bryant claimed that Bettinger said the protesters would make “good f***ing speed bumps,” while Bettinger has claimed that while she doesn’t remember her exact words, she was thanking a truck driver for blocking the road and preventing the protesters from becoming “speed bumps.”

Regardless, I am intrigued by what conservatives choose to be angry about concerning Bryant’s Dove campaign. Conservative commentator and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly discussed the situation on her podcast, and it’s clear she is not a fan of Bryant’s. Kelly claimed Bryant tried to “ruin the life of a white student” and that she “couldn’t care less about [Bryant’s] fat body.” Kelly said she’s more upset about her “anorexic mind” and wants Dove to get the same treatment as Anheuser-Busch. Of course, Kelly is referring to Bud Light sending some personalized cans to transgender content creator Dylan Mulvaney and the ensuing conservative backlash. Now, unsurprisingly, a BLM activist as a spokesperson is too much for them to wrap their heads around.

Regardless of what Bryant did, I wonder if conservatives will ever boycott white people and larger companies for something other than offending their twisted ideals. Aren’t conservatives supposed to be against “cancel culture”? This so-called boycott against Bryant and Dove is just another example of their hypocrisy run amok. Whatever actually happened at that protest, body positivity is important. I don’t care about Kelly’s stance on body shapes, but I am sure Bryant being fat makes these people hate her even more. I mean, they really hate this young woman—so much so that a GoFundMe has been created for Bryant to help provide her with security.

Conservatives hating Black people and being threatening!? Shocking!

Dove’s parent company, Unilever, has been facing backlash since even before Bryant was announced as Dove’s latest ambassador. A few months ago, Unilever was added to Ukraine’s National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP) list of “international sponsors of war” because of their ongoing presence in Russia. They claimed that their profits have gone up since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. True to form, conservatives are more concerned about a single person who doesn’t fit in with their worldview than about a corporation being terrible.

As with any company involved in the beauty industry, questions of ethics arise. However, do not boycott Dove over this incident in particular—conservatives would just love that. To nobody’s surprise, their priorities are always aligned with white people, even those clearly in the wrong. These are many of the same people who embraced killer Kyle Rittenhouse and paraded him on different networks and at speaking events.

What really matters to them? Zyahna Bryant deserves to have her voice heard and to make a statement, and in all honesty, if the conservatives are boycotting something, it just makes me want to support that brand even more. 

(via New York Post, featured image: Eze Amos/Getty Images)

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