If you’re not livid, you’re not listening
It’s up to all of us—Black, white, everyone—no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out.
The tragic and unnecessary loss of George Floyd has been a moment of global awakening to the power structures and systemic racism that is prevalent in the UK, America and throughout the world.
While we, at Maido, are united; our challenge is to create meaningful change beyond this moment in time. When the solidarity posts have been forgotten, how can we avoid falling back into the complacency of our privilege?
Maido is committed to delivering long-term programmes to cultivate an inclusive culture and acknowledge systemic racism:
Active participation
We are going to create a programme for our team to reflect and educate themselves on black British history, the global Black Lives Matter movement and to rally around the supporting political causes.
Over the next 3 months, our entire team will read/watch and discuss:
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
- Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala
- Stephen: The Murder that Changed a Nation, BBC documentary series examining the Stephen Lawrence murder
- 13th, Academy award winning Netflix documentary looking at the impact of structural and systemic racism in America
Reshaping priorities
As an organisation we need to hold ourselves accountable for the change we want to see in the world. We have been too slow to act and have not prioritised this. As such we are now making changes at an organisational level to become more diverse and inclusive.
- Diversity quota: we will be implementing changes to our recruitment strategy and hiring process to ensure we have measurable targets around hiring black and ethnic minority groups into our team.
- OKRs: We will be implementing social/racial awareness objectives into our OKR framework.
Looking to collaborate
Finally, as a British organisation we have a critical role to play at home. The existing education system and media outlets don’t support truth when it comes to the histories, realities of race and oppression in the UK. This is why Maido will be donating our digital design and development skills/services to a charity tackling these injustices in the UK.
If you work at or know of an organisation that would benefit from our help we would love to hear from you — hello@maido.com.