To our INK communities:
It’s been almost three weeks since George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. Three weeks in which our collective beings have been rocked by outrage, anger, sadness, hopelessness, confusion, and guilt in seeing the senseless violence and discrimination Black people continue to face in America. It’s 2020. How are we still in a place where our society does not consider all people as equal, and what role have we played – each of us as individuals and business leaders, our businesses and institutions overall – in making that so?
Individually, we have spent time in reflection of our own unconscious biases. We know that we have more introspection, education, and retraining ahead of us. With our INK family, we’ve spent the past weeks having open discussions about how we can and will take meaningful steps forward together. Not only in regard to how we can prioritize opportunity for Black people in our company and industry, but also how we can fight against racism in our larger communities.
Talking is an important first step, but we’ve been here before, as a nation and as a company. To truly take a stand against these injustices and make a sustainable difference, we have to first acknowledge INK’s lack of diversity, examine the ways we’ve been complicit contributors to racist systems, and hold ourselves accountable to take action. These are the actions we at INK pledge to take:
- Donate money and time to organizations supporting the Black Lives Matter movement
- Build and advance a diverse and inclusive team as we grow
- Commit to ongoing diversity and inclusion training of our staff
- Ensure inclusivity and racial sensitivity in our counsel to clients
- Pursue diversity in our clients
- Pursue diversity in our vendor base to include more Black-owned companies
- Use our social channels to promote Black voices in the communications and technology industries
- Mentor Black high school and college students to grow diversity in the communications industry
- Create space to discuss these issues consistently within our company
This is our starting point. There is more work to do. Join us.
– Starr, Kari, and Blair
