Editor’s note: This story is part an ongoing series of journalism produced as part a collaboration between The Sacramento Bee, Sol Collective and other community organizations called the “Community to Newsroom Pipeline.” To learn more or to contribute, email us at voices@sacbee.com.
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Overnight, it seems almost every business has developed a Black Lives Matter marketing strategy.
Twitter declared Juneteenth a corporate holiday. Bank of America is dedicating $1 billion to “economic and racial inequality accelerated by a global pandemic.” Starbucks has had issues. Despite its day of diversity and inclusion training, the company refused to allow its employees to wear shirts in support of Black Lives Matter, and then retracted that policy when it received viral backlash.
Locally, businesses in downtown and midtown Sacramento have released public statements in support of Black Lives Matter, participated in the Blackout day on social media and even created sidewalk chalk and spray paint murals to express their support.
But is the support of the business community performative or have they really done the work?
Investing in diversity, equity, inclusion and justice work is significant because it requires a multi-layered approach. Racism can be internalized, interpersonal, institutional and structural all at the same time.
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Racism is difficult to unpack because being anti-racist is not taught explicitly in schools and is often reserved for college classrooms and masters programs. The untrained eye does not have the diagnostic capacity to understand how pervasive racism is in our society.
For example, on June 12 the Midtown Association on their Instagram page @exploremidtown released the following statement:
“Midtown will not tolerate racial injustice and we proudly stand in solidarity against racism with our friends, neighbors, businesses, and visitors. Midtown believes that our mission of creating a center for culture, creativity, and vibrancy cannot be achieved without equity for all members of our community and, especially at this moment, we need to listen, learn, advocate, and stand together to create perpetual change. Black lives matter. Compassion matters. Love matters. Midtown love.”
And yet, when asked directly whether the Association has any Black people on its board, executive committee or leadership, a public relations representative for the group would only say “up until now, the board, executive committee and staff members have not been asked to self-identify based on racial, sex or gender.” The statement continued that 35 to 40 percent of the board and staff “may identify as a person of color,” but it’s clear that the majority of the organization’s leadership is white. Nearly two thirds are men.
Then there was the decision the Midtown Association recently made to sever ties with a well-respected Black-owned business that has been operating creative, diverse and inclusive fundraising and community events in Sacramento for years.
The Saturday before its statement of support for Black lives was released, the Midtown Association sent letters to vendors stating the end of its relationship with Unseen Heroes, who had been running the popular Midtown Farmers Market. Unseen Heroes was informed that their contract to run the market is being terminated as of July 1. The Midtown Association said it has brought the contract to operate the market in house as it tries to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Organizations often come to us to help them conceptualize and execute their events in ways that are innovative and inclusive to everyone. It takes us leveraging relationships with our community and getting them to trust us to get involved because they’ve been burnt by these organizations in the past,” says Roshaun Davis, owner of Unseen Heroes.
He continued: “We did a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that people of color had the access and opportunity to have a space at the market because we understood that they couldn’t afford to lease a space in Midtown. I never really considered that I needed to take precautions with the Midtown Association to secure my space in what was supposed to be a partnership with the organization.”
If successful and highly visible businesses like Unseen Heroes, who helped the Midtown Association create fundraisers and grow the farmer’s market from 20 small business vendors to 90 small business vendors in six years, get treated like they’re expendable and not valued contributors, then how much does a PR statement really mean?
The Midtown Association is not alone in its lack of ability to properly diagnose issues of race and equity within their workplace culture, board engagement, hiring goals and organizational outcomes.
Many businesses boarded up their windows in the past couple of weeks and wanted to hire local artists to paint over them to show support for Black Lives Matter and the local demonstrations. In this example, there was an obvious opportunity to pay Black artists a fair rate for their artwork.
However, Black artists were underrepresented in the work that was produced and businesses were not able to cover the cost of supplies and offer a fair rate. There was some interest from the City Council to pay Black artists for their work in public spaces, but the intentional process will take some time to deliver.
B.A.M.R., a Black artist based in Oak Park, did get a Black Lives Matter community art piece commissioned on the grass on Capitol Mall. However, most Black artists in the city are rarely recognized, sought after or fairly compensated by the Sacramento business community in a way that isn’t performative.
Diversity is often where Sacramento gets stuck. Equity and inclusion is an afterthought. Having Black and Brown people in the room is not enough. If the business community wants to hang its hat on the diversity of our region, then the business community must be intentional in its learning and growth around equity and inclusion before making decisions that lead to inequitable outcomes.
The past couple of weeks have been indicators that the people want nothing less than real change, and Sacramento is being forced to reconsider the way it does business.
Paul Willis is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant, hip-hop and spoken word artist, social justice educator and community organizer. Paul also serves as an executive board member at Sol Collective, a CORO trainer and as a Senior Fellow with the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program.