Our Commitment To Act For Change
Together Art Print by @natoyaista natoyaista.com
To the Black Women and Women of Color in this community:
We will not allow you to go through this alone. We will advocate for you and amplify your voice.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT
YOU ARE VALUABLE
YOU ARE LOVED
YOU ARE WELCOME HERE
YOUR VOICE DESERVES TO BE HEARD
If you've been a part of our community for a while now, you know that we hardly ever stray from the topic of Business. Our values at Business Babes Collective have always been and will continue to be education, community, and impact.
We feel it is important to speak up and address the pain that the members of the Black community are feeling right now and have been for hundreds of years. This is a human issue and we have a responsibility to address this as a collective.
We recognize that we should have been doing better and that it should not have taken all that has transpired for us to show up as the leaders in our community that we strive to be. We are here to listen, learn, and act. This is not the end of the conversation, it is only the beginning. We are committed to doing better as a collective to support and lift up the Black Community and Women of Color.
How can we help and be advocates for change?
As a collective, this is something we’ve spent the past couple of weeks thinking, learning, and discussing as a team. How can we make a difference and create a positive impact not just in our own communities, but throughout the world?
Here are some of the steps we are actively taking for change:
1. COMMITTED TO AMPLIFYING BLACK VOICES AND BUSINESSES OF COLOUR.
As a community, we are committed to doing better and using our platform to amplify Black women; sharing their stories and featuring their businesses. We silenced our regular content for almost 2 weeks in order to feature women of color and amplify their stories and perspectives. We took the time to educate ourselves, listen, and learn. We have had conversations with incredible women who are inspiring us in so many ways.
We will continue to amplify voices that need to be heard as well as continuing to have conversations on diversity and inclusion within our team. We are committed to buying from, hiring, and including the Black community in business decisions.
We will continue to support black-owned businesses and increase speaking opportunities for Black entrepreneurs as well as continue to include them as vendors, sponsors, and partners. We are committed to making sure partnerships we choose to engage with are in line with our values of supporting the BLM movement.
2. COMMITTED TO CONTINUING TO LISTEN AND LEARN.
We understand learning about how to become a better Ally doesn’t happen overnight. It is a marathon, not a sprint.
Our team is committed to listening, learning, taking workshops, and classes on how we can do better and work together for change for the long term. We are diversifying accounts we follow and content we consume. We are also committed to sharing these resources with our community as we find them.
To start, here are some resources, books, and films that we have been learning from and will continue to learn from:
To Read:
So You Want To Talk About Race
White Fragility
Me and White Supremacy
Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together
The New Jim Crow
How to be Anti-Racist
To Watch:
13th
When They See Us
The Hate U Give
Selma
American Son
Comprehensive Anti-Racism Resources here - which includes books, films, podcasts, articles, and organizations.
3. COMMITTED TO CHALLENGING OUR COMMUNITY TO ACT FOR CHANGE.
We love our community, but we recognize that all of us as a collective can be doing a better job at stepping up.
We will continue to encourage this community to keep learning, listening, and amplifying with us, and continue to be an ally for the Black community long beyond this topic is “trending”. We will be challenging this community to diversify their own businesses and to look at ways their businesses can take action steps for change and support our vibrant Black community.
So, we want to challenge you and your businesses to take action! Diversify your collaborations, staff, content, suppliers, and opportunities you choose to be a part of. There are so many ways, big or small, to apply this movement in your own business. Take what you’re learning and action it.
Thank you to all the women who are using their platforms to speak up and educate us - we have been listening! Thank you for inspiring us. We understand that is not your job, but thank you.
As a collective, we’ve always valued community and collaboration. So, no matter what your background is or who you are, we want this to be a place where you feel welcomed and included. We realize that by not doing this work earlier we were missing the mark, but we are committed and we want to apologize for not acting on this sooner. We will do better as a community and as a collective.
We want this to be an open discussion! We encourage constructive feedback, if you have questions, ideas, or thoughts for us, please email us at info@businessbabescollective.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Let’s work together for change!