While Walmart’s Juneteenth ice cream and other brands’ similar blunders (see Juneteenth watermelon salad), may have been operating from a place of positive intent—to affirm the value and history of Black people—the impact was clearly the opposite. It leaves one wondering: who was consulted, and how many of them were Black?
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This past Monday, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day–a national holiday to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King and his tireless fight for civil rights for Black Americans. On MLK day, every year, we are flooded with quotes on social media and in the news. Politicians make statements commemorating Dr. King, while at the same time enacting or opposing legislation that disavows the ideals he lived and died to advance. I want to maintain the same hope that Dr. King had in his speech: “And I tell you why we shall overcome. Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
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Joseph B. Hill was ready to start his new role as Vice President, Chief Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston. His high was quickly brought down, however, when he received a two-sentence email rescinding his job offer, just four days before he was set to start. Among other senseless rationale was that he was “too sensitive on race issues.” Is the diversity executive role just performative?
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The case of Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito, the 22-year-old white women who went missing while on a cross country road trip with her fiancé and was subsequently found dead, has captivated the nation for weeks. Every news outlet has covered this case in some form or another making both Petito and her fiancé a household name. The exhaustive coverage has brought to question, why don’t BIPOC missing persons get the same type of attention? It further begs the question, by whose standards do missing people’s lives matter? By whose standards are missing people’s lives worthy?
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Equal Pay Days should not be a “thing” anymore, because there are tangible action steps organizations and institutions can take to close the gap. Closing the pay gap is not rocket science. Those in power just have to want to do it. This is not complex; this is tangible. Just fix it already. Pay Black women… and all women… their worth.
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