Black Lives Matter.
Instead of sharing tea right now, we wanted to let you in on what we’ve been doing behind the scenes to be better anti-racists everyday.
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Lisa, founder and CEO
- Steeped in Heritage, The Racial Politics of South African Rooibos Tea, Sarah Ives. A book about colonialism and the supply chain red rooibos. Relevant to our industry and salient reminder of the work we have ahead of us.
- We March, Shane W. Evans. This is great kids book and so relevant for our talks about protests in our city. There is a lot of room for conversation with my 5-year old.
- Meals, Music and Muses, Recipes from my African American Kitchen, Alexander Smalls. Food and music are my two favorite things, this more than a cookbook, it connects the dots between African American cuisine, music and its ancestral roots in West Africa.
- How To Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
- The Burning, Megha Majumdar
- Raising Equity - Conversations on raising anti-racist kids led by Dr. Kira Banks and Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
- The Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates (or anything from this author)
- A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn
- St. Louis American my 'go-to' for St. Louis news
- Real News STL for live streaming footage of St. Louis protests
- Miles: The Autobiography, Miles Davis
- Blues People: Negro Music in White America, Amiri Baraka
- I Put a Spell On You, Nina Simone
Kunthearath, VP of Operations and Supply Chain Sustainability
- 'So You Want to Talk About Race' by Ijeoma Oluo. It's an honest and blunt book about race and racism. It's written with a lot of empathy. I'm looking forward to reading this with the family.
- 'My Vanishing Country' by Bakari Sellers. It's a memoir that recently came out. Personal experiences of rural poverty, food desert, food insecurity and policies that shape the lives of everyday black families and structured racism. I learned about Bakari back in 2006 when he defeated a 26-year incumbent State Representative to become the youngest member of the South Carolina state legislature and the youngest African American elected official in the nation.
- The kids are reading 'Between the World and Me' by Ta-Nehesi Coates.
- Movement for Black Lives: They are working to influence national and local agendas in the direction of shared vision for Black lives
- National Bail Fund Network: It's made up of over 60 community bail and bond funds across the country.
- Campaign Zero: I just discovered this. They put together a comprehensive platform with policy solutions guided by research to end police brutality.
Olivia, Marketer and Storyteller
What I'm currently reading:
- 'Emergent Strategy' by adrienne maree brown ("radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live")
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (eco-feminism and decolonization)
Becoming antiracist and decolonizing your mind is a journey, not a destination. My biggest recommendation to non-Black folks is to listen to voices that make you uncomfortable! Specifically: Black women, queer Black women, Black trans folks, and indigenous folks. Here are my recommendations <3
Watch:
- Whose Streets?. Please, please watch this film. You will see exactly what happened in Ferguson in 2014. If you only watch one documentary, make it this one.
- I Am Not Your Negro
- 13th
- America's Prisoners of War (concerning lands involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline)
Read:
- Everyday Feminism: Race and Ethnicity Articles This is an accessible starting place. Everyday Feminism helped me out a lot back in 2014 and 2015 when I was first beginning my antiracist journey. It also lends helpful language for those sticky convos with family, friends, and coworkers.
- Free Library on Black history and thinkers! It was compiled by a Black trans person, which gives me confidence that there won't be missing voices / histories that often get overlooked.