Be a Voice, Not an Echo: Speaking Up Against Injustice

Silence is compliance. As Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor, says:?

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”

The most difficult conversations are the most important.

And the injustices our Black neighbours suffer as a result of their skin colour is an issue we must be vocal about.

There is a problem with the way our system works to exclude minority groups, specifically BIPOC. Racism is embedded in your community, institutions, and organizations, through their policies, procedures, and practices, whether we are mindful of it or not. For example, not only are Black mothers 3 times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts, but Black and Hispanic mothers are more than twice as likely to not receive proper prenatal care, while Native American mothers are more than 3 times less likely to receive proper care. This is what we call systemic racism, and it affects BIPOC through wealth gap, employment, housing discrimination, incarceration, education, and more. Society favours the White majority and provides fewer opportunities and options to Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic minorities. To understand this concept better, here is a great video to start:

How to Be a Voice

Overcoming and understanding your fears, insecurities, and ego is what will lead you to outsmart your own unconscious biases. The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. The third is being educated, and the fourth is using your privilege for the good of all (not just yourself), whether you choose to donate, protest, or speak up online.

Give back to the world and to your community, especially in times of crisis. Take the effort to educate yourself, inform yourself of current issues and how you can help, make use of your resources to increase awareness.?

Step 1: Awareness

Step 2: Acceptance

Step 3: Education

Step 4: Using Your Privilege

I understand that many of us may feel afraid to speak up, especially if you believe that nobody is listening, or it’s not your place to speak. It is our job as people who are not being silenced by the world to recognize our privilege and use it to amplify Black voices. Don’t be afraid to speak up–even if you think your platform is small or insignificant, one step makes a big difference.

One way you can help within your family is to talk about world issues, and have conversations about poverty, war, racisms with your kids. It’s crucial that we educate ourselves and educate others or encourage others to educate themselves as well. For education resources, please take a look at this document: Education Resources

Speaking Up in the Corporate World

Moreover, as a company, making a statement isn’t enough to create change; change occurs from within. Many companies who are speaking up are doing so in an act of performative activism. To break this trend, I encourage all CEOs, managers, VPs, or anybody with authority in the workplace to look at who is working for you. Whom are the people surrounding you? Among the 6,435 employees at LinkedIn, 5.9% are Latino, and 3.5% are Black, representing only a 1% increase over the previous year. LinkedIn’s leadership is 3 percent Latino and 1 percent Black (https://careers.linkedin.com/diversity-and-inclusion/workforce-diversity-report).??

At AXIA, recognizing our impartial bias with predominantly Asian employees, we are working on bringing 3 Black Grade 8 girls into our team. This is our initiative in an effort to be more actively inclusive in our work, while also providing young Black women with more opportunities to learn real-life skills outside of the educational system.

Stand up for what you believe in, and be a voice for what’s important to you. If you don't have a voice, learn to develop your own. By doing so, you give permission to other people to also speak out, even if they are afraid.

As Mother Teresa says, “If everybody sweeps their own front door, the whole world will be clean.” The path towards a more peaceful, innovative world is one that we can definitely reach, but it will require effort from every single person.

Even you can be part of the change.

For ways you can help and additional resources, please take the time to navigate through this website: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

Jocelyn Landes: Using Your Voice

The next section is written by one of the Axia Agency’s interns. Jocelyn Landes is a rising third-year student at New York University studying Communications and Drama. As a millennial, she is a prime example of someone who is unafraid to use her voice.?

There are no words that will sufficiently match the anger, grief, and or trauma that many of us are experiencing during this historical time. On behalf of the AXIA Agency, I wanted to speak out about our agency's shared beliefs against all forms of discrimination that are, but not limited to, the blindingly disproportionate statistics of police brutality, racism in healthcare, and mass incarceration against the Black and Brown community.

As a Eurasian woman, I will never fully understand the Black or Brown experience as I have not lived it myself. But my proximity to whiteness is the reason why it is imperative for me to further educate myself to stand and defend Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).?

The three things that I have learned the past couple of days is this:

1. Activism cannot start and finish with a black square and a hashtag.
2. Racialized discourse necessitates the evaporation of the white ego.?
3. Complacency has never achieved justice.

I do not discount digital allyship as I believe that it can help prompt positive change.?However, we must not cradle ourselves into imagining that this form of activism is enough to help deconstruct the conditions and institutions that made the very acts of terror against Black and Brown people possible.

In the past few days, I have taken the time to donate to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp. To further educate myself on the Black and Brown experience, I used my resources to read these three pieces of text that I have found insightful and would recommend if you wish to learn more about the issues at hand: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence by Derald Wing Sue and The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. A link to a google doc with resources is provided here.

Complacency and reform do not go hand in hand. In fact, you or your company’s bystandership is destructive and obtuse. Regardless of your race, gender, age, or class, the time we use now is to practice active listening and take action through the many mediums available to us. Whether it be donating, signing petitions, having “uncomfortable” conversations in corporate settings or at the dinner table, your voice and actions are valued and needed more than ever.?

As Audre Lorde says in her essay Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, "I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood…Your silence will not protect you."

Black Lives Matter is not a trend, but a movement that will persist until justice is found. It is a starting point for real change as we turn our words into action. If we continue to fight, one day we as a society will learn from our mistakes and most past judgement to live harmoniously as members of the human race.

Until then, continue to raise awareness. Continue to speak up. Continue to educate yourself. Become part of the change.

Jocelyn Landes and Margaret Yeung