How to Hold your Company Accountable to Protecting Black Lives

Donations and hiring Diversity & Inclusion staff is NOT enough to absolve your company’s inherently racist practices. This is a guide to doing more…

8 min readJun 10, 2020

I have been spending my time supporting folks across the nation in talking to their company’s about the Black Lives Matter movement. People have reached out from the federal government, manufacturing, tech, philanthropy, healthcare, education, and more. Meanwhile, I’m watching many of my Black friends get overloaded with work now that their employers are waking up to the idea that their Black employees’ lives matter. This piece is written in an effort to empower individuals to push companies to think more critically about their participation in racism. One of my friends said to me:

“If [my employer] spent as much time thinking about racism as he does formatting his Black Lives Matter graphic, we wouldn’t be here.”

I want to explicitly encourage every individual to take note of what establishments you are connected to and in what capacity. Whether you are a founder, an employee, partner, or consumer- YOU HAVE POWER. For the first time in recent history, after 13 days of national protests and movements toward policy reform, the people have power. We hold power to pressure and question establishments in how they contribute to racism and what they plan to do to change that. Power is privilege, to not utilize our power is to be complicit in white supremacy.

Corporate America must think more critically in their response to the Black Lives Matter movement

Many companies are frantically reaching out to Black employees, adding to their workload this amazing question, “How can I make my company seem less racist?!” I have seen countless e-mails, Instagram posts, website graphics loudly proclaiming, “Black Lives Matter!” The better versions of these may state explicit solidarity with protesters and $X amount of a one-time donation.

Musician, NoName calls out brands for following this framework in their responses to Black Lives Matter protests

This is the floor of what a company should be doing to support Black Lives. For too long, we have all lived in silence and fear of establishment power. Companies build a culture of silencing Black employees and maintaining a status quo of white supremacy hidden under the guise of, “Professionalism.” Now, they are reaching out to those same employees begging for allegiance and fearing being called out for their racist practices.

Here, I have created a framework to get you started in supporting Black Lives. This framework is not meant to provide answers nor an action plan for your organization’s responsibility, rather it is meant to help you explore the many ways your organization contributes to racism and help you build out a comprehensive action plan. None of this is easy, but neither is the terror the Black community faces at the hands of police and an unjust criminal justice system. We have been procrastinating this work. We cannot wait any longer.

Framework for addressing how your company contributes to racism

This framework is something I created based on my education from Black activists. I want to honor Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Bell Hooks, and many more & elevate the framework from Black Tech for Black Lives…

Explicitly stand in solidarity

If your organization has not released your statement and internal communications, Start here! Stand in solidarity with protesters. We must acknowledge what is happening in the world. This is NOT business as usual.

2. Invest in Black Lives

Invest in Black employees: This goes far beyond asking them how they are doing today. Hire Black people, Pay Black people, Support Black people, Promote Black people. Assess your company’s hiring history and why it is the way it is. Change your workplace culture. Evaluate pay and promotion gaps and change them.
There is no pipeline problem. This is a racist myth.
Address your racist statistics: Every company, every industry has embarrasingly racist statistics which further affirm the marginalization of Black lives. These range from staff demographics, founders invested in, graduation rates. Take responsibility for the numbers.

Mona Chalabi creates infographics which consistently show how Black Lives are affected in all parts of society. These numbers only increase with intersections across gender, sexuality, and ability

Invest in Black communities: With rampant gentrification and displacement happening across the country in synchrony with defunding of public education- Companies must step up to invest in Black communities. Invest in education, health, and community programs.
Pay Reparations: I don’t want to know how much you’re donating today. I want to know how you plan to setup recurring payments to the Black community and beyond. How you are making sure the way your organization spends money is diverse? Money has never and will never solve racism. However, we must do our part to alleviate daily struggles.

3. Defund Police and Prison systems, Defund Racism
Where do you sit on the pipeline to police brutality and prison? We all extend power to these racist systems in some way or another.

Assess partners you work with. Here is a list of companies who exploit prison labor. Do you invest in companies that profit off of the existence of prisons and policing?

An infographic on companies who support ICE’s operations.

Use the influence and voice you have to pressure organizations to align with defunding the police
Do you invest in a police force? Many schools and tech campuses create their own versions of police. Find new ways to approach this.
Does your operating protocol involve calling the police? How could you change this?

4. Accountability

Build a framework for employees to hold leadership accountable

This could look like metrics specific to Black Lives Matter goals, a timeline of action items and goals, a council who can hold leaders accountable, etc.
This includes addressing non-Black employees. Professionalism is a product of white supremacist structures and policing behavior and appearance (read more here). Microaggressions against employees are very real. Create a safe way to hold employees accountable for their actions.
This does not look like outsourcing the work to Diversity and Inclusion professionals. This work must be central to the company’s every day operation. This is everyone’s job!

Transforming Capitalism in the Uprising

Let’s discuss a few core ideas to this framework. Capitalism survives on the unequal distribution of power and wealth. This is how we keep people hungry to work more for more “success” and fear of unemployment. This is inherent in its infrastructure, of which slavery holds an integral place (Read more here). Incidentally, we never really took the time to globally address racism. This means this power imbalance held is largely in favor of white power (you can see this in the C-suite and board of most companies in every industry). Therein, capitalism upholds white supremacy.

There are only two Black C-Suite executives at top tech firms, and they are both Chief Diversity Officers

This gets complex! This uprising we are seeing is, indeed, about race. Class also plays into this though, because many working class folks (largely folks of color), bear the brunt of the system. We saw this just a few months ago in the initial COVID outbreak, as workers put their lives and their family’s lives on the line to ensure that middle class society was able to order bath bombs on Amazon Prime. The difference being that for the first time, these workers’ “Sacrifices” were deemed “Heroic.” Now, we must ask the elite leaders, what “Sacrifices” they are willing to make to ensure Black Lives survive.

Let’s understand that we all have a part to play in upholding white supremacy. Now, let’s acknowledge that there are many things we could sacrifice to prioritize Black Lives for the first time in history, including individual power and wealth. We haven’t before. What will be different this time?

While capitalism may not be the ideal framework to build a truly anti-racist society, it is the systems we are currently working within. We can all do our part to make it less racist.

1. Do not limit your understanding of racism. This is more than police brutality. Every single industry plays into the devaluation of Black Lives in a different way. From social services to healthcare to the tech industry- we all have our own set of statistics reminding us that no matter what our social media post says, Black Lives have NOT mattered. I ask again, what will change this time?

2. What I’m about to say should not be taken lightly: Centering your work and impact around Black Lives inherently improves everyone’s lives. Our futures are deeply interconnected; our success is deeply interconnected. Protecting Black Lives is integral to a company’s commitment to serve its people and change the world. Similar to the logic behind the problematic nature of #AllLivesMatter, we must look at our market and clientele with the lens #BlackLivesMatter. What role does your company play in perpetuating racism?

3. The internal work is unavoidable. Do NOT try to outsource this labor. From the molecular level, we must start with the individual and every single organization to do REAL work to be anti-racist. Be careful of rushing to an action plan before really understanding the scope of the work at hand. Part of this work is sitting with discomfort. Ask yourself: How do I contribute to racism and police brutality? What am I scared to let go of in order to ensure that Black Lives Matter?

Strategies for Execution

Think through which tone makes the most sense. How will you be most heard? This is very urgent work, and people are finally listening. Sometimes this calls for a collaborative tone and sometimes, a more aggressive call out.
The People Have Power: I encourage non-black employees to step up! Do not leave this work to your Black colleagues. Bring your co-workers together. Chances are that many of them feel the same way you do, see the same things you do, but may be afraid to ask. Create a template and coordinate. There is power in numbers.
If your company is being avoidant, dismissive, or seeking to make small reforms, you can offer them public accountability. Sharing what you see on platforms like Medium and social media mean you do not need to wait for company and government infrastructure to support you. Magnify your voice however you can.
Do your research! There are so many resources and organizations out there well versed on these topics.
Keep the receipts. Document all interactions on the topic.

Stay tuned for an e-mail template I’m working on!

If you are interested in addressing your establishment and want someone to bounce ideas off of, etc. feel free to contact me at connect@meghna.space for support.