The corporate world is tone-deaf. It has never been more obvious than in the last few years.
Dove announced a partnership with Zyahna Bryant, a BLM activist who accused a white student of threatening protesters – then admitted she misheard. The partnership involves making Bryant a ‘fat liberation’ ambassador for the brand. Why does Dove need to get involved in fat liberation? It’s mostly a soap company, right?
If the company wanted to hire a big black woman, weren’t there plenty of others to choose from, rather than to hire one with such an awful history against a white student? If Dove was determined to bend a knee to BML, surely there were other overweight women to hire. Instead, Dove is deliberately wading into a controversy of its own making.
If you’ve never read @emmma_camp_‘s story about Morgan Bettinger, you absolutely should.
She was the daughter of a police officer, a first generation college student, and dreamt of going to law school.
Zyhana Bryant ruined it all.https://t.co/x6444sE9cD
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 14, 2023
Her X (formerly Twitter) account is private, so there is no scrolling through it to see if she is promoting the partnership. She has been promoting the campaign on Instagram. She is described as a community organizer and student activist studying at the University of Virginia.
Zyanha Bryant, 22, announced in a video posted to Instagram that she was partnering with Dove Beauty to promote Fat Liberation.Zyahna Bryant / Instagram
Bryant, a student activist at the University of Virginia, had accused Bettinger of referring to BLM protesters as “good speed bumps” in the summer of 2020 — only to later admit she may likely “misheard” her.She campaigned to get the white student suspended from campus, and Bettinger’s record shows she faced disciplinary actions for her comments, which she fears may hinder her ability to get into law school.
Bryant is accused of wrongfully trying to get white University of Virginia student Morgan Bettinger expelled from campus over comments she admits she may have “misheard.”morgan.bettinger/Facebook
Bryant announced the partnership on her social media account last month.
Bryant made the announcement she was partnering with Dove as part of its Fat Liberation campaign late last month, posting a video to Instagram in which she said: “My belief is that we should be centering the voices and the experiences of the most marginalized people and communities at all times.”
“So when I think about what fat liberation looks like to me, I think about centering the voices of those who live in and who maneuver through spaces and institutions in a fat body.”
She captioned her video by saying, “Fat liberation is something we should all be talking about … Tell us what Fat Liberation means to you using the hashtag #SizeFreedom and tagging @dove to share your story.”
It is a horrible story. The 22-year-old Zyahna Bryant, given her history should not be rewarded for such disgusting behavior toward a college student, knowing it would ruin her life, certainly in the short term. Pardon my skepticism that is was all just a big mistake. Bryant, even if Bettinger’s alleged remark was correct, pushed for Bettinger to get suspended from school. She received disciplinary action and it is on her student records. Now she is on medication to sleep.
Bryant is reported to have “gleefully” watched the treatment of Bettinger and joined in as she was canceled. It wasn’t just torment from other students but also UVA staff. They ganged up on her and scuttled her future plans.
Dove has not commented to the pushback over the hiring decision. Dove Beauty and its parent company, Unilever, may be in for a Bud Light-style boycott. Those who oppose the partnership reward given to Bryant spoke out on social media. One commenter was Elon Musk.
X owner Elon Musk himself weighed in on Dove’s partnership with Bryant, which was first reported by DailyMail.com, by branding it ‘messed up.’
Agreed, Elon.
After hearing that Dove Beauty chose Zyahna Bryant – who ruined Morgan Bettinger’s life – for their “fat acceptance ambassador”, THIS lifelong large lady & now former Dove customer tossed out the last three bars of Dove product she will EVER buy. I have written to Unilever, too. pic.twitter.com/y3wbMXQ934
— Carole Thorpe (@CThorpeCville) September 14, 2023
This may be Dove’s Bud Light moment. Rightly so. Racists shouldn’t be rewarded for lying and ruining another person’s life with bullying behavior.
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