Black Teach for Black Lives

As the country navigates the effects of COVID-19 and its implications on our economic, mental, and social well-being, Black people are also mourning for the victims of police violence. We are heartbroken, enraged, and exhausted. Our country’s callous and continuous assault on Black people through police brutality must end.

We are a collective of Black tech entrepreneurs, investors, creatives, changemakers, and workers, united to use our social, political, and economic capital for the advancement of our communities. We commit to acting in solidarity with those leaders working to create a more just world.

Tech is complicit. We as Black people in tech have a unique position and opportunity to respond to violence against Black people’s bodies. While we’re proximate to the pain, we largely avoid its most brutal physical outcomes. But we, too, feel the blows. We carry the scars on our psyches and hearts as our voices go largely unheard in the workplace and beyond.

No longer.

We carry a legacy from our ancestors to strategically lend our voices and resources in confronting the anti-Blackness at the core of systemic racism and oppression. While anti-Blackness in policing and policy exists nationally, we will lift up efforts of local Bay Area community leaders as an example for other cities to follow.

After consulting with local leaders and Just Cities, a local transformative justice organization, we, as Black people in tech, commit to doing one or more of the following and ask our Allies to do the same.

Demanding accountability and systemic change in response to the murderers of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade. I commit to signal boosting, volunteering with, and donating to groups like Center for Policing Equity or Color of Change that work for immediate action.
Supporting groups advocating for police accountability and justice. I commit to signal boosting, volunteering with, and donating to local groups advancing police accountability or structural reform. Statewide and nationally, The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights advocates for community reinvestment instead of prisons and policing. In Oakland, the main groups are the Coalition for Police Accountability, Anti-Police Terror Project, and the new civilian-led Police Commission, which is one of the strongest in the country. Critical Resistance - Oakland also advocates for alternative investment to imprisonment. In San Francisco, SF Interrupting Racial Profiling and National Lawyers Guild SF both work on the issue.
Pressuring City Police Chief and Police Union Leadership. I commit to demanding concrete advances in racial justice and genuine community policing. Some examples of what we would like include changes to police training, police conduct standards, and police personnel rules. In Oakland, contact Interim Police Chief Susan Manheimer, smanheimer@oaklandca.gov; Oakland Police Officers Association President Barry Donelan, bdonelan@oaklandca.gov. In SF, reach out to your local supervisor to ensure upcoming appointees to the SF Police Commission support reform.
Channeling resources to the Black employees at my company, Black founders, Black-led nonprofit support organizations that I am in a position to fund, and Black suppliers that my business can support. I commit to doing everything I can to ensure proportional representation in my hiring of Black employees and/or funding of Black entrepreneurs. I also commit to supporting organizations focused on increasing diversity in the tech industry hiring pipeline. Further, I commit to advocating within my organization for African American employees to be promoted, mentored, sponsored, and otherwise supported so they are positioned to succeed in the same way as employees from other groups. I understand ownership is the path to closing the racial wealth gap. I commit exploring a path for employees to become shareholders and decision-makers in our company. Finally, where possible, I will advocate for my company to use Black suppliers, Black vendors, and otherwise support Black businesses in the communities where we are located.
Electing progressive mayors, city councilmembers, and district attorneys. I commit to supporting local leaders with track records (not just rhetoric) of advancing courageous racial and social justice actions. This might look like helping with digital campaigns, donating money, or ensuring that budgets reflect the priorities of Black communities.

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Join us on August 20, 2021 at 5:00 PST for a Community Circle, we will focus on our community organization and political action efforts, sharing updates and ways that you can support

Revolutionary social change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires all of us to stand up and move beyond words to take brave, decisive action. We are committed to leveraging our privilege and position to end the structural and acute violence that plagues our people. As we stand up, we call on our Allies to support and transition to Accomplices. We welcome you to sign the pledge, share it to other Accomplices, and commit to taking one of the aforementioned actions today.

Recent events make it clear that we can’t go back to the way things were. Let’s unite to make sure that Black lives and Black futures both matter.

Move With Us

Signed,

Y-Vonne Hutchinson, CEO, Readyset | Aniyia Williams, Executive Director, Black & Brown Founders | Maurice Wilkins, Global Diversity & Inclusion, Fastly | Darrell Jones III, Healing, Liberation, & Joy, Just Cities; Co-founder, TechEquity Collaborative

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