WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT
Thank you to everyone who has protested, donated and shared educational content these past couple of weeks.
WE ARE WITH YOU.
OUR CHANNELS WERE MUTE LAST WEEK TO:
- Allow our space to be filled with voices that are more relevant and important than ours during this inflection point in history.
- Take time to sit with the discomfort, not to just react in a cathartic outpouring of grief and outrage and feel like we did our part, but to really listen, actually start to learn and process enough to plan what changes need to occur both personally and as SV in order to commit to non-performative, ongoing activism.
WE CAN DO BETTER:
Before talking about the future, I want to acknowledge and own our bullshit, both as Santa Venetia and personally as Co-Founder of this business:
- Firstly, our content is way too white. Working with young Asian women, Latinas and Caucasians is just not enough. Our white and beige washed feed is unwittingly complicit in racism. It takes up visual space that we should be, at the very least, sharing equally with Black representation, but didn’t because “we didn’t have the money to hire models we didn’t know”. It’s lazy bullshit which I am sorry for. That ends now.
- As the daughter of a Black woman and Caucasian man, who passes as white, it has been time for me to face the uncomfortable truth about the privileges my light skin has allowed me. This is work I will do for the rest of my life. I commit to leverage this privilege to challenge white comfort and call out the racist words, racist actions, racist jokes, racist structures and racist beliefs people think they are safe to share with me.
MOVING FORWARD:
- We will leverage our platform to reflect vantage points and experiences beyond our own; across all ethnicities, genders, body shapes and sizes & ages.
- Our business will represent more womxn. To feel included, seen and be able to relate to the visuals you consume matters. This is easy and we should’ve been doing it already. We were lazy, which ends today. Doing what is easier, or what was less work for us, is not a valid enough reason to inadvertently participate in and perpetuate beliefs we do not align ourselves with.
THE ACTIONS WE ARE TAKING:
What you will see in our publicly facing work:
- Reallocation of our budgets so we can spend more on marketing, work with, and pay, a more diverse range of models.
- Amplification of, and monthly donations to, organizations working to dismantle systemic racism and/or to defund the police. This month we have donated to: Color of Change, Justice for Breonna Taylor, Peoples Program Oakland, Act Blue National Bail Fund and Black Earth Farms.
What you will not see, but is happening behind the scenes:
- Reallocation of our budgets to free up dollars that we will spend on hiring BIWOC mentors, photographers, stylists, business advisors, etc. to go beyond externally facing visual representation.
- Assess our current partner list - e.g. who do we work with on production, supply chain, tax preparation, bookkeeping, etc. for diversification opportunities.
- Reallocation of personal spending power; using my $ to only shop POC and/or female owned, independent businesses to be a part of changing the economic landscape. Ongoing list of businesses here, N.B. I am constantly adding to this so please share your favorites to include.
- Pulling our cashflow out of Wells Fargo that discriminate against borrowers of color, not to mention participate in a slew of other horrors, and moving to a local credit union.
- Calling and writing to our local government to demand police defunding; get in contact with representatives in your area here.
- What I am reading this summer: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism - Robin DiAngelo, How to Be an Antiracist - Ibram X. Kendi, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism - Safiya Umoja Noble.
Thank you for reading and for your ongoing support:
I share this not because I think my commentary is needed, but as you have chosen to follow us, and/or buy from us, it is important to me that this info is here for you if you choose to seek it out and that you know where we stand.
If you have thoughts to share, things to call BS on - I want to hear it; only in uncomfortable conversation is there any potential for actual growth. Email: info@santavenetiagoods.com