Medias – Page 9 – Color Of Change

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Fashion May Actually Become More Equitable, Thanks in Part to Joan Smalls

This articles talks about why the Black in Fashion Council was created and the launch of #ChangeFashion with supermodel Joan Smalls and talent agency IMG. Its aim is to make the fashion industry more equitable by wielding its economic and cultural power. A hallmark of #ChangeFashion is to make it easy for companies to make measurable progress with a roadmap for taking action. The first recommendation is to hire independent security for photo shoots and events rather than police. The others all focus on investment, into Black representation, portrayals, talent, careers, and communities.

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George Floyd’s Killing Started a Movement. 9 Months Later, What’s Changed?

George Floyd’s legacy will determine which America the next generation grows up in: one where record numbers of voters elect a Black woman to the White House or one where Breonna Taylor’s killer doesn’t face trial, but the officer who shot her neighbors’ wall does. As jury selection begins for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the House is set to vote on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It would ban chokeholds, end racial and religious profiling, eliminate qualified immunity for cops and mandate data collection on police encounters. Erika Maye, Color Of Change’s Deputy Dir. of Criminal Justice says, “It was really heartbreaking to see just how little progress was made to the point where a police officer could kneel on someone for almost 9 minutes, with people videotaping—and they could see folks filming them, with the whole world watching and not care.”

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IMG, Joan Smalls, Black In Fashion Council Join Forces with Color Of Change for #ChangeFashion

#ChangeFashion invites companies to take responsibility for their impact on the world and provides concrete steps that will ensure the industry is working toward racial justice. Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson is quoted: “Fighting racism can’t just be the trend of the season. And there are two fronts to the fight: ending the longstanding discrimination and mistreatment of Black creators and other professionals working across the industry and ending the longstanding pattern of misrepresenting Black bodies and diminishing Black lives, which perpetuates the dehumanization of Black people in society at large. Color Of Change is proud to work in partnership with any organization that is serious about doing what it takes to drive real change.”

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Law Enforcement Diversity May Improve Policing, Study Shows

Goerge Floyd’s murder by MNPD led to widespread protests and calls for reform, including hiring more non-white and female officers. But there was little research to back up the idea, until now. In a study on 3M Chicago PD assignments, researchers found Black and Hispanic officers made far fewer arrests and used force less often—especially against Black people. Erika Maye, Color Of Change’s Deputy Director of Criminal Justice Campaigns, eschews the notion that hiring more BIPOC cops is the answer. “Police violence is not an issue of representation. To really protect Black lives, we feel we really need to upend the current policing system.” And invest in healthcare, education, and job training in Black communities.

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Most Black Voters Support Eliminating Student Loan Debt, New Survey Finds

Color Of Change’s newest survey shows Black voters consider student loan debt forgiveness crucial to addressing racism and inequality. 9 in 10 Black women support some form of debt forgiveness; 5 in 10 support total loan forgiveness. 40% of Black people say they wouldn’t vote for someone who opposes it. Color Of Change Vice President Arisha Hatch is quoted, “The elimination of student loan debt is incredibly related to the eradication of racial wealth disparities. It is impossible to talk about an economic justice agenda that doesn’t include… how Black people in this country are indebted in ways that require them to not realize their dreams, or to stay in discriminatory workplace situations.”

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Activists Chart Course for Black America’s Progress After a Year of Turmoil

Despite a slew of promises from politicians following massive racial justice uprisings, activists say leaders need to prove they are accountable and make changes that benefit Black and Brown communities. Years of Black grassroots organizing led to record-breaking Black voter turnout in 2020 that propelled Biden and Harris to victory and overturned Georgia’s seats to flip the U.S. Senate. Color Of Change’s Vice President Arisha Hatch is quoted. “The win unlocks the full possibility of the restorative and transformational agenda that Black voters and organizers worked for in November. This improbable and hard-won victory will allow President-elect Biden to pursue the agenda he laid forth in his victory speech, one that centers the needs of Black communities.”

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Color of Change’s Essential Black History Month Reading List

Color Of Change’s President and Vice President Rashad Robinson and Arisha Hatch, two of the moment’s most powerful civil rights leaders, tell us what they’re reading. In recent years, the two have pressed Hollywood studios to diversify their writers rooms, pushed for banks to stop processing payments from hate groups, and helped launch a prominent ad boycott of Facebook last summer for not doing enough to limit hate speech. With an eye toward creating lasting, structural change in America, they hold businesses accountable for the consequences of their products and where they put their money. Here are their book recommendations for understanding how to create change today.

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I’m a Writer on Emily in Paris. I May Destroy You Deserved a Golden Globe Nomination.

Color Of Change’s reporting on Hollywood — where 91% of showrunners are white and 80% are male — is cited in this article on how the film, TV, and music are still held back by largely white (and often close-minded) gatekeepers. Emily in Paris writer Deborah Copaken says the fact that her show was nominated for a Golden Globe for best comedy while I May Destroy You was passed over completely for nominations reveals “what is wrong with everything.” After a year of uprisings for racial justice, it turns out, when it comes to our cultural industries, America still has a long way to go. She asks: when we will start giving awards to shows that deserve them, no matter the color of the skin of their creators?

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For Black Pioneers Harris and Obama, Different Times Mean Different Approaches on Race

While Barack Obama campaigned for president in 2008 with explicit advice from his inner circle to downplay anything “that might be labeled racial grievance” or would emphasize him as a “the Black candidate,” things are different now. A dozen years later, Kamala Harris is able to lean harder into her public identity as a Black woman taking her place as second-in-command in an administration that has made closing the racial wealth gap one of its policy pillars. Color Of Change Chief of Campaigns Arisha Hatch is quoted. “Both of them are candidates that act as translators on race. We’re just in a different place as a country.” Democrats have realized they would not have won the presidency or control of Congress without the high turnout among Black voters and Black women in particular.

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PPP Loans Failed to Reach Communities in Most Need

Truthout republished this investigation by the Center for Public Integrity citing Color Of Change’s survey on the Paycheck Protection Program. The program, intended as pandemic relief for small businesses, never reached most minority-owned businesses. Entrepreneurs say the process felt Byzantine and inequitable. Most loans went to businesses in communities that already had access to resources according to the Center for Public Integrity. Meanwhile Black-, Brown-, women-owned businesses and those in lower income communities have gone under or hover on the verge of bankruptcy. COC Vice President Arisha Hatch is quoted. “We believe that instead of providing desperately needed relief to qualifying small businesses, the PPP propped up so many barriers and reinforced so many racial inequities.”

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Rashad Robinson Has Had Enough of Corporate America’s Empty Platitudes

Fast Company features Color Of Change’s work to push companies to get on the right side of history—whether they’re ready or not. What began 15 years ago as a scrappy digital upstart focused on mounting an online response to racial injustice is now one of the heavy hitters in American activism. Their latest victory is getting COPS taken off the air. It also led the charges to demand Facebook and other social media companies take aggressive action to rid their platforms of hate speech, pressuring hundreds of advertisers to temporarily pull their money. And now it’s targeting fast-food companies like McDonald’s and Burger King and retailers such as Nike for talking about racial justice without paying its workers a living wage.

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The Loudest Voice: Corporate America Needs to Get on the Right Side of History. Color Of Change Gets It There.

Fast Company profiles Color Of Change’s 15 years of groundbreaking to build a new racial justice movement and hold corporate America responsible for their role in holding back change. Our work to harness the uprisings after George Floyd’s death and turn that into real victories, from the cancelation of Cops to a corporate reckoning on race and equity is described in this article. “The organization’s presence can be felt in nearly every racial civil rights battle currently taking place in America—from corporate boardrooms to television sets to prosecutors’ offices and judges’ chambers.”

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