We Must Become Anti-Racist

The brutal murder of George Floyd and the ensuing riots and violence across the country are devastating and profoundly sad. Like so many over the last several days, the situation has caused me to reflect on how I can do better.

I certainly don’t have all the answers now and know this will be a long but very worthwhile process, both for me personally and as the leader of an organization. However, today I know one thing for sure, and that’s that I am committed to doing better. I am committed to making the promotion of justice an active part of my role as CEO of Radio Flyer, as a father, and as a good steward of my community. I look forward to doing this together.

Sharing what I expressed to my team this week as a way to hold each of us accountable to anti-racism:

“Dear Flyers,

It is a difficult time. Today, I want to try to focus my comments on the most recent tragic events – the brutal murder of George Floyd and the ensuing riots and violence across the country. For white people, this past week has dramatically pulled back the curtain on the systemic racism in our country. For people of color, this is nothing new. They have been dealing with it their whole lives.

What’s changed? Technology. The technology that puts a camera in everyone’s pocket now provides the indisputable truth that our black brothers and sisters have always known –George Floyd, Laquan McDonald, and so many other racist murders and violence against black people happens all the time, every day and it has happened in this country since the very beginning. 

Racism was part of the design of America. It is written into our constitution where slaves were counted as 3/5th of a person for the purpose of calculating a state’s population to determine the number of representatives they could send to Congress. In our own country’s Constitution, black people were defined as less than a whole person. 

So, today, things are still working as they were originally designed. And as we all know, when you design a mechanism (like racism) into a system, it is very difficult to “un-design” it.  That machine just keeps on doing what it was designed to do.

We have to acknowledge that these biases and inequities are systemic and permeate everything – our country, our schools, our communities, our businesses, our families, Radio Flyer, me. 

Aren’t we better than this? What should we do? What should I do? 

At Radio Flyer we do love and honor our differences in color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and every other difference that makes each of us unique.  We know that our company and world is a better place because of diversity. We all benefit when we harness our wonderful differences to build a better world. I believe that. You believe that.

But that is not enough. We need to do more. I need to do more. 

It’s become clear to me that our commitment to diversity is not enough. We need to commit to being anti–racist. Being anti-racist means calling out the racist ideas that are normalized in every aspect of our lives. It means talking about it and not pretending it isn’t there. Being anti-racist means acknowledging my own privilege and the privilege of those in our mostly white company. I am where I am today because of white privilege. Being anti-racist means recognizing, learning, and listening to how people of color in our company and in our community have internalized racism and how it has negatively impacted all of us.

We must commit to furthering our understanding to help build a just society by recognizing our bias and by being anti-racist in all aspects of life. We must be pro-active.  We must do better, we must talk less and listen more. I must do better as a leader on this issue.

So, I’m committed to doing better and to listening more. I’m dedicated to equipping every Flyer in our company with the knowledge and tools needed to combat racism. I’m committed to cultivating a community at Radio Flyer that is actively anti-racist. I will come back to you within 30 days with a plan for how we plan to step up.

Even in deeply troubling times like these I still believe -- as I have always believed -- the words of Martin Luther King that, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But the only way that happens is if we grab ahold of that arc and bend it toward justice.

Let’s do that together because -- we can do more. I can do more.”