Visible Hands for Black Lives Matter

The past few weeks made us feel a range of emotions — from feeling infuriated to saddened to, at times, hopeless. In the spirit of Visible Hands, we have been researching how to promote racial justice and allyship through civic and workplace actions. We wanted to highlight racial justice resources for the Visible Hands community. We have shared some of these articles and resources on our social media in real time and will circulate this list in this Thursday’s email newsletter.

We acknowledge that we are not experts on racial justice and are very open to hearing your thoughts — we are here to listen, learn, and support.

As a consumer:

• The 15% Pledge is calling on major retailers to pledge 15% of shelf space to Black-owned businesses. Sign their petition here.
• You might have seen posts about books to read to learn more about the history of racism in the US and how to combat it. If you are buying a book, we encourage you to check out these Black-owned bookstores. And here is a free reader’s guide to Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility.
• Mark your calendars for #BlackoutDay2020: July 7, 2020. Check out their site to get involved and learn more about this economic boycott.
• Need another reason to support local businesses instead of Amazon? “Amazon “Stands in Solidarity” Against Police Racism While Selling Racist Tech to Police”… Also, check out We Buy Black and Buy It Black, an online marketplace for Black-owned businesses.
• Movies like Selma and Just Mercy as well as documentaries like I Am Not Your Negro are free to rent right now. You can also support content like this by buying movies (and checking out similar new releases in theaters when that is safe). The media industry is known for considering its bottom line when deciding what types of content to green light, whether overseas or domestically, so use your dollars to support the content you want to see (case study: #OscarsSoWhite). And please consider the implication of “white saviorism” in other popular movies.

As an employee:

• We recommend this article from last week: Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They’re Okay — Chances Are They’re Not.
• How White Managers Can Respond to Anti-Black Violence: “Yale SOM’s Michael Kraus, a social psychologist whose research focuses on inequality, offers a series of concrete steps that leaders can take to combat racism in their own organizations — and contribute to the societal fight against injustice. Remaining silent, he says, communicates support for the status quo.” And check out the advice in Speaking Out on Racism as a Company Leader.
• Do Black Lives Matter enough for you to hire them for leadership positions? “If these folks believe that Black Lives Matter, then why don’t they employ black lives in leadership positions at their organizations to start dismantling the economic imbalance between white men and virtually everyone else in this country?” We encourage you to read about the myth of meritocracy as well.
• Restructure Your Organization to Actually Advance Racial Justice: “While some of these changes may seem incremental, educating employees on concepts like allyship and justice, embracing authentic communication and connection, and re-designing systems and processes to reduce racial disparities are still radical changes for most organizations.”
• Edith Cooper, former head of Human Capital Management for Goldman Sachs, wrote this post while at the company regarding talking about race at work. Goldman is certainly not a poster child for diversity, equity, or inclusion, but Edith poses her response to the question of “how do the recent events affecting us as people, in turn, affect our interactions at work?”
• Is your company looking for freelance creative talent (like an illustrator, photographer, or designer)? We encourage you to check out People of Craft, which features creatives of color.
• There’s a lot of frustration at Facebook over the company’s handling of civil rights issues. Facebook employees participated in a virtual walkout. And business partners and advertisers are pulling out from the platform. If your work involves collaborating with Facebook, consider doing the same. More information here.
• So your company posted about #BlackoutTuesday or released a statement of solidarity? Let’s also make sure that we scrutinize how they have been / are complicit in systemic racism — and fix it! Take L’Oréal Paris as an example. Or Bank of America and its laudable $1 billion pledge versus its history of predatory lending towards people of color. Or even the SFMOMA (yeah, nonprofits don’t get a pass). Please read this on point Vice article for more context: “the vast majority of these companies have business models explicitly designed to profit from what MLK called the ‘triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.’” And don’t miss this spreadsheet scrutinizing the tech industry’s complicity.
• Don’t forget that so many other concerns, from climate change to healthcare, intersect with racial justice. The environment impacts of fossil fuel companies have disproportionately affected communities of color; just look at Chevron and Richmond, California. Clinical trials for healthcare innovation lack racial diversity such that “we can’t be sure whether the treatment will work in all populations or what side effects might emerge in one group or another.” Every single industry can and should step up to addressing racial justice.
• Leadership Now has put together some ideas on how companies can be proactive. For example, “Review your corporate political donations to ensure candidates and industry groups you support aren’t inadvertently enabling racist policies, for example in policing.”
• Publish your goals. Check out some guidelines from Project Include here.
• Give your employees time off to vote — For Racial Justice, Employees Need Paid Hours Off for Voting: “Residents in predominantly black neighborhoods waited 29 percent longer than those in white neighborhoods and were 74 percent more likely to spend more than 30 minutes simply waiting in line. The data showed that if paid time off on election days were universal, voting would be easier even for people who didn’t take direct advantage of the benefit.”

As an investor:

• Check out An Investors’​ Guide to Investing for Racial Equity for 7 steps to incorporating a racial justice lens in your investing decisions, from looking at company management teams to investor activism. And Racial Justice Investing for more resources.
• BLCK VC is pushing venture capital funds to discuss, donate, and diversify. Also read this Twitter thread from Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor, on how the VC industry can step up to support underrepresented groups, instead of perpetually funding their existing networks. And as much grief as we give SoftBank, we are encouraged to see them quickly pull together a $100 million fund to invest in companies led by people of color; more notably, they have also begun to rethink their fee structure in support of equality: “SoftBank will not take a traditional management fee…Half of its gains will be reinvested into subsequent Growth Opportunity Funds. The company will also donate a portion of its gains to organizations that create opportunities for people of color.”
• While we’re at it — how do investors ensure their funds’ limited partner (LP) base (which is usually composed on large pension funds and university endowments) is not compounding the divide in wealth and educational resources? Read up on how HBCUs are missing from the discussion of VC diversity. And don’t forget that LPs are often the ones pushing funds to be more responsible and accountable investors!
• Freedom to Thrive has been pushing for prison divestment. If you are not aware of the role of private prisons and other private companies in the current mass incarceration crisis, we encourage you to check out this ACLU report and 13th on Netflix (free here) and the Prison Policy Initiative’s Mass Incarceration Report.
• And here is a list of publicly traded companies you should consider divesting from / not investing in— the Robasciotti and Philipson team has listed reasons why these companies, from Aramark to Raytheon, exacerbate racial inequities.
• Need another reason to think private equity is complicit in society’s problems? The business of tear gas: “Two of the largest U.S. producers of tear gas are owned by private equity firms, but those firms have no interest in discussing their ownership.”

As a citizen:

• There are several national advocacy organizations, including Color of Change, National Bail Fund Network, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, ACLU, National Black Justice Coalition, the Center for Popular Democracy, Center for Policing Equity, and Campaign Zero, that are pushing for racial justice and fighting against police brutality. We encourage you to check out their petitions, donate if you can, and also look for local ways to get involved. A trove of additional resources on where else to donate, who to contact, what petitions to sign, and much more here and here. (Note: There have been concerns about Campaign Zero’s #8Can’tWait; we encourage you to check out their website to see how immediate harm reduction policies fit into transformative community safety reforms and ultimately dismantling the oppressive carceral and police state we have today.)
• Letters for Black Lives offers a template on how to talk about these issues with your family (including in different languages). They are also looking for help with translating their latest letter.
• Contact your local / state / federal officials (helpful script here from the Stanford Graduate School of Business community and a call to action for city officials). Here are some email templates specifically geared towards “reallocating egregious police budgets towards education, social services, and dismantling racial inequality.” Tools like Democracy.io and Resistbot are also available if you don’t want to do it the “old-fashioned” way.
• And of course, register to vote and continue making your voice heard.

Note: We will continually update this list as we find more information, but please note that this list of resources is by no means meant to be comprehensive.