• Criminal Justice Reform

by Derek Major

June 29, 2020

Atlanta to Transform City Jail Into Justice and Equality Center Community Space

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The City of Atlanta is moving forward with a plan to transform its city jail into a space for community services.

According to Fast Company, the city is turning the Atlanta Detention Center, an 11-story jail, housing 1,300 inmates for low-level crimes, into a new center for equity. The project may also include mental health services, re-entry programs, and a credit union, along with room for urban farming, housing, classrooms where students can work on getting a GED, and other community spaces.

Calls to eliminate the current criminal justice system in Atlanta have been growing. However, the death of Rayshard Brooks, who was killed by a police officer after he fell asleep at a Wendy’s drive-thru, has applied even more pressure to the city. The cop was fired by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms less than a week after the incident

Last May, Lance Bottoms signed legislation closing the jail, saying use for the jail was shrinking since the city ended cash bail.

“The final closure of this Detention Center symbolizes a new era for the city of Atlanta,” Mayor Lance Bottoms said at the time. “Transforming this space into a Center for Equity replaces City-subsidized incarceration with something more effective—equipping residents with the tools they need to succeed. Taking this critical step will both result in meaningful change for Atlanta and set a new standard for the rest of the nation.”

Plans To Remodel The Former Detention Center

The city is now working with architect Deanna Van Buren, in order to redesign and remodel the building. Van Buren has worked with cities in California, including Oakland, on remodeling spaces.

“We developed a lot of tools, everything from games to interactive models, that we could bring into the community to get their input on what should be put in what’s now called the Center for Equity,” Van Buren told Fast Company.

Van Buren has sent the city various options for the site, which the community will now consider. One proposal will tear down cell walls and create a new facade that floods the space with light. The proposal would also turn existing outdoor recreation spaces into urban farms, bringing a new source of healthy food to the area.

Another proposal includes knocking down the detention center entirely to build three new structures that fit more naturally into the neighborhood. The last proposal includes replacing the detention center with a park, then build smaller “Centers of Equity” throughout the city, instead of at just one central location.

Atlanta community members leading the project’s task force believe replacing the jail will make the city safer.

“People need services, not jail cells,” the group wrote in a new task force report. “The best way to make our city safer is to make it an equitable city. To ensure that opportunities, jobs, and wellness are available to all our city’s residents, including the most vulnerable and marginalized. People do not steal food from the grocery store because they love committing crimes—they steal because they are hungry. It is in everyone’s interest to allow all people to have economic opportunity.”

• News

by Derek Major

June 29, 2020

Starbucks to Pull Ads From All Social Media Platforms

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Starbucks announced Sunday in an online statement it will pause advertisements on all social media platforms over ineffective policing of hate speech.

According to MarketWatch, the announcement comes two days after the coffee giant said it will pause U.S. advertising on both Facebook and Twitter through the end of the year due to ineffective policing of hate speech. The announcement led to a sharp Friday selloff in both stocks.

“We believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech,” Starbucks said in a statement. “We believe both business leaders and policy makers need to come together to affect real change. We will pause advertising on all social media platforms while we continue discussions internally, with our media partners and with civil rights organizations in the effort to stop the spread of hate speech.”

A Starbucks spokesperson said the decision is not part of the official #StopHateForProfit boycott organized by civil rights groups. Starbucks joins a growing list of companies pulling advertisements from social media platforms in order to force them to change.

Starbucks said it will continue to advertise digitally, but will not post ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. Last year Starbucks spent more than $200 million on advertising on those platforms.

Starbucks joins Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Verizon Communications, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi beverages in joining the advertising boycott. Facebook shares dropped 8.3% on Friday, eliminating $56 billion from the company’s market value after British-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever joined the advertising boycott.

The boycott has cost Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg more than $7 billion in personal wealth and the social media giant has announced it will begin flagging political content that violates its policies.

“Often, seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest, and in the same way that news outlets will report what a politician says, we think people should generally be able to see it for themselves on our platforms,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on Friday. “We will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case.”

Facebook also announced it will begin banning a “wider category of hateful content in ads.” It will also “create a voting information center to share authoritative information on how and when you can vote.”

In early June, Facebook announced it will donate $10 million to social justice causes, but many have been calling for the social media giant to go further.

With all of the strife regarding racial injustice and police brutality, some NFL players are planning to express their right to protest on the field when the football season begins later this year.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently stated, “We, the NFL, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.” One player has already stated he will “definitely be taking a knee” in the spirit of former quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Arizona Cardinals’ quarterback Kyler Murray, the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year, is committed to speaking out in the same way that Kaepernick did while he was still playing in the league, according to NFL.com.

• Lifestyle

by Dana Givens

June 29, 2020

Singer Kelis Partners With The Spice Suite For New Collaboration Box

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Many Black professionals how found success in the food industry as they continue to thrive and create innovative brands. Five years ago, Howard University alum Angel Gregorio was inspired to open her own spice company after leaving her job as an assistant principal. Today, her company, The Spice Suite, has over 104 spice blends for cooking in addition to her own cookbook, The Little Black SpiceBook,  and now she is teaming up with singer Kelis for a new food collaboration.

Gregorio and Kelis, who owns a sauce line called Bounty & Full and also hosts the Netflix show Cooking With Cannabis, announced the partnership on their Instagram Together, they curated the new collaboration box. “Kelis found me on Instagram, we were DMing, and then we got on the call and just vibed,” Gregorio said in an interview with ESSENCE. “We talked through a collaboration box together, what we were going to put in it, we were going to do an Instagram live to announce it late June.”

“My tribe of customers have been relentless in their support of me and The Spice Suite,” Gregorio said. “Its been absolutely amazing. And fortunately, this is a time where everybody’s at home having to cook way more than they wanted to. They’re tired of making salmon the same old way. A lot of first-time customers tell me, ‘I’m really bored with this chicken and I need something to do, so what do you have?’”

Gregorio went on IG Live to talk about The CollabBox with Kelis while sharing their stories about growing their businesses, and how Black women can support one another. “You had a block full of Black women riding for you,” Kelis said of in the video. “That is the most beautiful, most empowering thing. The fact that we do support each other, we can support each other and we show up.”

 

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A post shared by Angel| SpiceGirl+ Curator (@thespicesuite) on Jun 23, 2020 at 2:45pm PDT

• News

by Moguldom

June 29, 2020

Virginia Pastor Arrested After Calling Cops On White ‘Mob’ Threatening To Kill Him

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Virginia Pastor Leon McCray, 61, called the police for protection after being threatened by a white “mob” in front of property he owned and instead of arresting them, the police arrested McCray.

McCray said he was visiting an apartment property he owns in Edinburg when he saw a man and a woman who did not live there dragging a refrigerator to his dumpster, the pastor told his congregation. When he confronted them, they left and returned with three others. The five allegedly assaulted and threatened to kill the pastor.

According to McCray, the group surrounded, jostled, and threatened him, “telling me that my Black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff, they don’t give a darn about that stuff in this county, and they could care less and ‘We would kill you,’” The Washington Post reported.

McCray, in turn, pulled out his legally concealed handgun.

The group was “threatening my life,” he said during a sermon at his Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International.

“Being threatened and fearing for my life, I took and felt compelled to pull my concealed weapon — my legally concealed weapon — to save my life,” he told congregants in the June 7 sermon, The New York Post reported.

“This act, through the grace of God, saved my life,” the pastor insisted, saying it bought him time to dial 911.

When the police arrived, however, he said they “made a beeline” for him instead, arresting him even as the group continued making threats against him.

“The hate-crime assaulting criminals watched me being handcuffed and carted off like a dog while the deputies stood with them,” he told his congregants, saying he was charged with brandishing a weapon despite his Second Amendment rights.

“This was indeed the most humiliating, dehumanizing, demeaning and violating event of my life,” he said, calling it “a day that changed my life.”

“I felt, literally, like I had been lynched, without being killed,” he added.

The group also allegedly hurled racial slurs at the pastor, telling him, “We will kill you,” McCray told WHSV.

News of the incident did not sit well with social media users on Twitter. “How many more of these stories do we have to hear? How do people still think these are isolated events when almost every POC has a story like this?” Amy Arnold @a81arnold posted on Twitter.

Atraylle @atraylle tweeted: “We call the police and we the ones that get arrested, punched, tackled, or/and killed.”

And Eric Edlund @EdlundEric tweeted, “Fkn!!!! Ridiculous!!!! The Sheriff apology is meaningless. This is exactly why ppl kneel. This is why ppl want a complete overhaul of policing.”

McCray is a retired Alexandria and Baltimore real estate investor, and 24-year Air Force master sergeant with no criminal record who has never been arrested.

Deputies rushed to judgment in “disarming a Black male brandishing a gun against five white individuals, despite my Second Amendment right to defend myself against five attackers that tried to take my life,” he told The Washington Post.

Five days after the sermon, Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter announced that the charge against the pastor had been dropped. He also added that hate-crime charges were being filed against the alleged attackers.

Donny Salyers, 43, Dennis Salyers, 26, Farrah Salyers, 42, Amanda Salyers, 26, and Christopher Sharp, 57, all face charges for hate crimes and various degrees of assault, The New York Post reported.

Donny and Dennis Salyers are also charged with assault and battery.  Sharp and Amanda Salyers are charged with trespassing.

Two police supervisors involved were put on unpaid administrative leave during an investigation of the case.

“I have apologized to Mr. McCray,” Sheriff Carter said, conceding that the “charge of brandishing was certainly not appropriate.”

“Actually, as I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing,” the sheriff said of the pastor defending himself.

Two sheriff’s office supervisors have been placed on unpaid administrative leave over the incident, which occurred June 1, Carter said.

In a video posted on Facebook, the sheriff said, “I want the people of Shenandoah County to know that I and the sheriff’s office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our black community, in Shenandoah County.”

McCray said his arrest “was totally unacceptable; it would not be acceptable if I was white, and I believe all you know it to be true.”

This article was written by Ann Brown for The Moguldom Nation.

• Entrepreneurship

by Joseph Heller

June 29, 2020

Even Though Less Than 1% of Venture Capital Goes to Black Founders, Here’s How I Raised $11 Million

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As an African American entrepreneur, I can tell you that you’ll face tremendous obstacles in building your vision. But there is nothing more personally liberating than seeing your dream come true—and right now, as an African American entrepreneur, your platform for change is growing exponentially as VCs are slowly starting to understand that they need to be more inclusive and that there are vast opportunities outside of their small network.

I encourage all African Americans to pursue their dreams of being an entrepreneur—and if your dream is to change the world, you should raise venture capital. There will always be difficulties—yes, unique to you. My goal in this piece is to encourage you to keep moving in spite of them. So here’s my story on how I raised an $11M Series A.

It begins when my father came home one day and handed me a copy of Black Enterprise’s 1995 edition of the BE 100s. From that day forward, I decided that I would be an entrepreneur. I grew up in a mostly white neighborhood and went to a mostly white private school. On the weekends, I would work at my grandparents’ business in South Central Los Angeles, which was a historically black community in L.A. At a young age I was very aware that African Americans lived in relative poverty compared to most white people. That was compounded by overtly racist experiences I had throughout my childhood that made it clear that society viewed African Americans as inferior. But the individuals on the BE 100s my dad gave me told me there was hope.

I had a burning desire from an early age to prove to the world that I could do something great despite society’s perception of me. I always had this feeling that I would not be treated fairly in a large corporation—and the BE 100s were the perfect catalyst for my imagination to envision a reality where I would be totally liberated to create my own rules and vision for the world.

A few months after receiving that Black Enterprise magazine, I was inspired to start my own web design business in high school. In college, I raised angel investment to build a platform that would allow artisans to sell their products online. And after graduating from UC Berkeley, I went to China where I ended up starting an import/export business. Our customers were large companies that needed supply chain management consulting to help them navigate the myriad process of working with Chinese factories.

Around the same time, I realized that there was a growing trend of small businesses that were being empowered by tools like Shopify and Instagram, where literally anyone could start their own business and sell products. But the back-end manufacturing—how products actually got made—was still extremely complicated for these small businesses.

I wanted to create a technology company that would solve this problem, but I didn’t have the necessary connections in venture capital to raise money back then. So I decided to build TheStudio.com and later SuppliedShop.com with my own capital—slow but steady. Our vision was and is to democratize manufacturing for small businesses using software.

After having built the company to eight digits in revenue with over 100 employees in four countries, I decided that it was time to go back to the U.S. and raise venture capital—surely now the story was convincing—and with the numbers to prove it! I had seen companies raise a lot more money with no revenue and a less compelling vision for the future. I was confident that given the fact that we had obtained a relative level of success completely bootstrapped and had a compelling vision and technology that actually worked that we would be able to easily raise money.

I soon found out that it would be much harder than I anticipated.

The big problem with the venture community is that it really operates like the stereotypical good old boys network. Forty percent of VCs went to Harvard or Stanford. It’s a pretty cynical testament to the insular nature of VCs that out of all the brilliant people they could hire in this country, 40% of them hail from just two schools. Seventy percent of VCs are white and only 3% are black; LatinX only represents 1%. Less than 1% of venture capital goes to Black founders.

I’ll be very clear: I think the vast majority of VCs are well-intentioned and are not overtly racist. But because the VC model encourages firms to hire and invest in people that they have previous relationships with, the entire ecosystem ends up looking like a country club. Furthermore, there are extreme but unconscious biases of what a successful entrepreneur should “look” like—and our natural human instinct of pattern recognition thinks a successful CEO looks like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos. When I walked in a room, I didn’t look like a CEO to investors, and that perception hurt me when I was raising money.

Every African American knows that intangible feeling where you know you are unfairly judged by a room full of white people, just because of the color of your skin. I felt that.

I have the data to back up my feeling. I pitched roughly 150 VCs and about 80% of the partners that I pitched were white and 20% were non-white. I received zero term sheets from the white VCs and five-term sheets (out of 30 pitches) from non-white VCs. The data is quite clear that although VCs don’t want to acknowledge biases, these biases do exist.

Raising VC money was the most agonizing thing that I have ever done in my life. I had spent years preparing the company to raise VC money, poured all of my savings into the company, and was literally being told on a daily basis that we weren’t good enough to raise money. It was really a heartbreaking experience. But through hard work and perseverance, we were able to raise an $11 million Series A.

To entrepreneurs in the stage I was a few years back, I say this: raising money is hard for everyone—including white males. But it will be more vastly more difficult if you are Black. If you’re in the middle of doing so, you must continue pushing hard to make your dreams come true. There’s no other way.

To VCs, I say: the entire venture capital community must take a hard look at themselves. Is your mandate to perpetuate inequality and do what is easy? Or is it to further equality and bring real value to your LPs by getting exposure to different types of businesses? If the venture community continues to be insular and ignore that things are changing, history will judge VCs as being part of the problem and maintaining inequality in our country—and being quite shortsighted in missing out on what was the best, most profitable outcome. Now is when the venture community can really step up and do the right thing both for society and for their investors.

The good news: there has never been a better time for black entrepreneurs. Because of the Black Lives Matter movement and other sources of pressure, the venture community is finally starting to pay attention to the problem. I encourage all Black entrepreneurs to take the leap now, not later—start solving complicated problems and light the path forward for others.

Joseph Heller is the CEO & Founder of The/Studio Technologies, which operates TheStudio.com and SuppliedShop.com. TheStudio.com makes it easy for companies to make custom manufactured products and SuppliedShop.com helps small retail stores buy inventory directly from factories. 

In the last couple of weeks with the fallout from the brutal and senseless police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, companies in retail, advertising, technology, media, entertainment, sports, finance, healthcare, and other industries have posted great messages on LinkedIn and other social media platforms about supporting Black Lives Matter and committing to diversity and inclusion. It’s easy to release a PR statement, but where is the action? Now is the time to see them walk their talk. Supporting a race of people is more than a hashtag or a temporary black square on your Facebook page.

We are already seeing how some of these Black Lives Matter statements ring hollow. Many companies have a history of racial discrimination and exploiting people of color and have failed to hire, promote and fairly compensate their Black employees. The comments in their posts tell you a lot—current and former employees sharing stories of being overlooked, overworked, underpaid, and abused. Hypocrites and exploiters are being exposed. Leaders are being fired or forced to resign.

Authenticity matters, even more so in 2020. Companies have to decide NOW which side of history they will be on. It could be the reason they thrive, or the reason they go out of business. The token responses don’t cut it anymore. This is the time for companies to be the leader in changing the status quo, recruiting and promoting Black professionals, and offering inclusive workplaces.

With nearly 50 million Black people in the United States, Black consumers spend more than $1 trillion a year, with one-tenth of the wealth of white Americans. African Americans continue to outpace spending, giving us a large share of the buying power in this country. But we still don’t have the titles or the voice to drive positive and inclusive change in terms of fair and healthy products, services and treatment.

I’ve asked every organization I’ve worked for why they don’t hire more Black people, and the answer is always the same: “We can find Black top talent” or “We tried so hard but didn’t get a return on the investment.” Hearing this consistently for over 20 years is not just frustrating; it’s maddening. This can’t be their excuse anymore, especially when we see the number of Black college and Master’s graduates steadily increase.

Even the companies who do a decent job at recruiting employees of color have a problem retaining diverse talent. We need to know how companies are making their workplaces more inclusive. What training and development programs do they offer people of color? How are managers held accountable for their Black employees’ success? How are they leveling the playing field?

Some statistics from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, via the Center for Talent Innovation:

• African Americans make up 10% of all college graduates, yet there are only four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500, which is fewer than the number of Black CEOs 10 years ago.
• Only 3.2% of executives and senior managers are Black.
• 58% of the Black professionals surveyed said they have experienced racial prejudice at work.

We have all figured out that real change comes from the top. Companies need people of color in senior leadership roles. Having Black representation on boards is key. So is replacing white management when they hesitate or make excuses.

Companies need to set specific and measurable recruiting and retention goals. Recruiting leaders and managers should face consequences for not meeting those goals.

They must also share their diversity numbers and pay equity metrics. One company told me they don’t publish diversity numbers because they don’t compare themselves externally. What a load of nonsense! How else will they attract more diverse talent and hold themselves accountable?

I applaud companies who are investing in social impact and education programs that work to close the racial inequality gap, but how are companies addressing these disparities in their own offices?! Are they hiring some of the participants of these initiatives? Are they employing them as vendors and professional service providers? Are they investing in their current employees? Throwing money at things won’t solve the problem if you refuse to take the steps to clean up your own backyard.

If corporate America truly wants to affect change, the formula is way more straightforward than posting Black Lives Matter and chasing likes on social media: hire, train, promote, grow, and repeat.

Tiffany Hogan is a Diversity & Inclusion consultant with over 20 years of experience in the Technology, Higher Education, Retail and Banking sectors. She helps companies create and execute global D&I strategies, develop creative recruiting sources and strategies that support diverse candidate attraction, and manage employer brand communications.