Actions speak louder than words. First, our role here is not to promote ourselves or take credit for any support we offer in this fight. With that said, we do need to be transparent and accountable about the actions we’re taking that substantiate our words.
Below is a list of actions we’re taking as a company to aid the international fight against police violence and systemic racism. As we’ve said, we feel our role here is one of financial support, listening, quiet consistent action, and accountability. In that spirit:
- We are working with the Vilige Project with a donation of green coffee which they will be roasting, selling, and donating 100% of proceeds to the Black-focused organizations of their choosing.
- This fight will continue long after immediate donations have been made. Because we want to commit in a sustainable way that this is meaningful and repeatable, we are planning to make a long term annual budgetary commitment to donate in support of Black-led abolition-focused organizations.
- In our own organization, we continue to recognize the link between global colonialism and the oppression of Black people, indigenous people, and other groups of color in the US and across the globe and fight it with high prices paid directly to indigenous smallholder communities. We commit to continuing to be ever more critical in our sourcing and aware of the thin line between our work and neocolonialism.
- In our own organization and as individuals within it, we commit to growth, listening, discomfort, and action. We commit to being aware of and sensitive within our role in this fight and supporting Black voices with white and non-Black dollars.
- We support the defunding and abolition of the police and the carceral system of which they are an offshoot and recognize this as a global issue.
We recognize that this is not and never will be enough, and we will never stop looking in the mirror and trying to do better and be better members of our local and global communities.