pro tips if you really are about change

“A person’s name is to that per­son, the sweet­est, most im­por­tant sound in any language.”
—Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and In­flu­ence People

 

In busi­ness
tak­ing the ex­tra ef­fort to learn someone’s name can make or break the relationship.

As some­one with an un­com­mon name I was very un­com­fort­able cor­rect­ing peo­ple grow­ing but work­ing in brand­ing teach­es you how im­por­tant your name tru­ly is.

A lady re­cent­ly reached out on Twit­ter ex­cit­ed to tell me I had the same name as her daugh­ter. She had spoke to her hus­band about me lat­er in the week and his re­sponse was,

“is that the Tirzah from the Word­Press con­fer­ence in Sacramento?”

The crazy thing was they were from Flori­da and that talk was in 2016 🤯.

Your name is in so many rooms you’ve nev­er walked in. Make sure peo­ple treat it with the re­spect it de­serves. My name is He­brew. It means pleas­ant or de­light­ful, and it’s im­por­tant to me.

 

Re­cent­ly
I have had sev­er­al com­pa­nies reach out to me across plat­forms to help with writ­ing their Racial Justice/ BLM/ George Floyd sol­i­dar­i­ty state­ments and I’ll be hon­est I haven’t re­spond­ed to any of them yet …

I get why they thought to reach out to me – but feel that this is why you should have more black peo­ple in your staff and lead­er­ship teams.

I spent years be­ing fol­lowed at con­fer­ences and events when all these com­pa­nies want­ed to look more di­verse and fig­ure out how to get more “women like me” into the doors but it has been clear that many haven’t been do­ing the work.

That said, here are some notes for any busi­ness own­ers that need a start­ing point:

PRO TIPS if you re­al­ly are about change:

Say, “Black Lives Matter”

Don’t Say, “All Lives Matter”

If they did, we wouldn’t have to tell peo­ple that Black Lives Matter.

Please do not say “peo­ple of col­or,” “col­ored”, “col­or­ful com­mu­ni­ties” or any am­bigu­ous group to make your­self feel comfortable.

It is not the same thing and will not be well re­ceived by the Black community.

Say the names.

Don’t sug­ar­coat or leave room for guess­ing your stance.

De­nounce the ex­ces­sive force that led to the mur­ders of George Floyd, San­dra Bland, Bre­on­na Tay­lor, and Ah­maud Ar­bery as well as all the oth­ers who have been killed at the hands of “law en­force­ment.”

These were real peo­ple with real fam­i­lies. Real ambitions.

They are dead now.

Say their names to hu­man­ize them to hon­or them and more im­por­tant­ly to RE­MEM­BER them.

Re­mem­ber: WE don’t have the lux­u­ry to for­get them even when you go back to busi­ness as usual.

Also leave the, “we don’t see col­or” out.

Black is beautiful.

See it.

Ac­knowl­edge it.

Ap­pre­ci­ate the beau­ty it adds to me­dia, sports, busi­ness, pop cul­ture, mu­sic and every­thing else. We’re not ask­ing you to be col­or blind. We’re ask­ing you to help us le­gal­ize black skin in America.

It is not a weapon.

De­nounce po­lice brutality.

Fun Fact: It does­n’t mean you hate the police.

This is about equity.

De­nounce ha­tred and share re­sources of the ef­forts you would like your au­di­ence to sup­port along with it.

Here’s a datasheet shared with me of com­pa­nies that have spo­ken out about it for reference.

DO NOT try to prof­it off this moment.

I am see­ing com­pa­nies be called out dai­ly across plat­forms for per­for­ma­tive allyship.

Please note: I will NOT take on PR clients to help com­pa­nies save face and con­tin­ue to prof­it in this so­cial cli­mate around the death of my broth­ers and sis­ters when these things should have been but­toned up 3 mur­ders ago.

A fi­nal note, though I ap­pre­ci­ate the sol­i­dar­i­ty state­ments please know that you may see push­back when/if your com­pa­ny cul­ture doesn’t show enough in­clu­sion to match your statements.

A state­ment is the beginning.

The mag­ic is in the work of com­mit­ting to change and cre­at­ing a more eq­ui­table society.

Send­ing light,

—tirzah mon­eè

Flom­mist Tirzah Mon­eè is a De­sign­er, De­vel­op­er, Speak­er & En­tre­pre­neur an­a­lyz­ing her world one step at a time. Copy­right © 2020 Tirzah Moneè.

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