Rev. Al Sharpton recently called for a 21-day boycott of PepsiCo in protest of the company’s decision to roll back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. While I understand the sentiment, the focus is misplaced. The real issue isn’t just the elimination of DEI jobs — it’s the fact that PepsiCo, like many corporations, has been harming Black communities for decades through exploitative business practices and toxic products.
Before we demand that Pepsi reinstate its DEI commitments, we must ask: who actually benefited from those initiatives in the first place?
A 2020 report from Catalyst exposed what many already knew: white women have been the primary beneficiaries of DEI, leveraging their proximity to white men in corporate and social spaces to climb the ladder. Meanwhile, the very communities DEI was supposedly created to uplift — Black Americans — have seen little to no systemic change.
Numerous studies and articles confirm this trend. Black Enterprise published a 2019 piece titled “How White Women Benefited From ‘Standing on the Backs of Women of Color,’” detailing the historical pattern of white women advancing their careers at the expense of Black and brown women. A 2023 Forbes report found that white women hold nearly 19% of all C-suite roles, while women of color collectively occupy just 4%. Articles from Workers World Today and Mediumfurther emphasize how DEI has often served as performative symbolism — reinforcing white dominance in leadership rather than transforming structures of power.
Read: The Failure of DEI: It Did Not Equate to Black Progress, So Why Keep Fighting for It
So why is Al Sharpton boycotting Pepsi in defense of DEI?
We shouldn’t just boycott Pepsi for abandoning DEI. We should boycott them for flooding our neighborhoods with sugar, sickness, and aggressive marketing campaigns that turn Black culture into profit while undermining Black health.
Let’s be clear: soda isn’t just unhealthy — it’s a slow killer. PepsiCo has long targeted Black communities with highly processed, sugar-loaded products, contributing directly to widespread health crises like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. These aren’t abstract numbers. They are the lived realities of too many Black families.
And none of it is accidental. Big Soda has deeply embedded itself in our communities by sponsoring schools, sports teams, and cultural events — using our own platforms to market the very products that harm us. They call it “brand partnership.” We call it exploitation.
Read: Did the Target Boycott Work, or Did It Hamper Black Brands from National Distribution
The most disturbing part is what Pepsi does to our children. Through aggressive advertising and strategic placement in schools and youth-centered media, PepsiCo conditions Black children to crave sugar-laced sodas and junk food from an early age. This addiction is not a coincidence — it’s by design. The result is rising childhood obesity rates, early-onset diabetes, and a generation of young people hooked on products that damage their bodies before they reach adulthood. While Pepsi sponsors youth programs and puts Black celebrities in commercials, it silently profits off the long-term illness and dependency it helps create.
Let’s be clear: soda isn’t just unhealthy — it’s a slow killer. PepsiCo and other Big Soda giants have aggressively marketed sugary, chemical-laden drinks in Black communities for decades, fueling a public health crisis that’s become generational. Regular soda consumption is directly linked to type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, fatty liver disease, kidney disease, and tooth decay — all of which disproportionately affect Black Americans. Studies also show that excessive sugar intake can contribute to cognitive decline, inflammation, and even certain cancers over time. These aren’t random outcomes — they are the predictable result of profit-driven campaigns that treat Black bodies as disposable. And while PepsiCo publicly celebrates diversity, it continues to profit from products that are literally shortening our lives.
We don’t need more partnerships — we need protection. It’s time to divest from corporations that use Black faces to sell us sickness. At this point, it feels like we’re fighting for representation in systems designed to destroy us.
Read: Big Soda Pushes Back: Governor Morrisey’s Health Reforms Face Corporate Resistance
This can’t be a 21-day performance. It must become a permanent shift in how we engage with corporations that exploit our communities.
We must divest from Big Soda, invest in Black-owned health brands, demand fresh food, clean water, and real nutrition in our communities, and push for reparative economic policies — not symbolic diversity statements.
Black people have the moral clarity and the purchasing power to lead transformative change. But we shouldn’t waste that power defending corporate initiatives that never centered us to begin with. We should wield it to protect our health, our children, and our future.
Pepsi isn’t just failing Black communities on diversity. It’s profiting from our destruction. That alone is reason enough to boycott — and never look back.
