The Questions We’re Asking Around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

A note from Emily, Founder of Wholesale In a Box, One Mill Co, and the Making Do Podcast.

As a team and as a company, we say again (and will keep saying): Black lives matter. Black makers matter. Black store owners matter. Black communities matter. Black stories matter. ⁠ ⁠

The issues, dynamics, and histories being spotlighted right now are of deep importance to each of us on the Wholesale In a Box team. Structural violence and racism touch every person and institution in our country -- and so it is appropriate that recent weeks have been marked by deep emotion and turmoil. It’s also Pride Month -- a time that is both a celebration of our LGBTQIA+ community and also demands greater reflection and engagement and energy from all of us.

Intercultural, antiracist, feminist work is something I (Emily) have prioritized within my internal life, my family, and my business decisions -- and something that’s been a priority for us on, and within, our broader Wholesale In a Box team. Also, I have so much more work to do. I see my inaction, my silence, my power, and my privilege, and my prejudice. And one of the many blindspots and shortcomings I have is that Wholesale In a Box could be doing more (more / better / louder / braver) to advance social justice work. One of our strengths at Wholesale In a Box has been staying very focused on serving each of our individual makers to the best of our ability -- many of whom come from historically marginalized groups within this space. So we see that work as radical and progressive.

But the protests we’ve joined and watched around the country also held up a mirror to the ways that that “focus” can function as complicity in a broader broken and racist system. Even tiny businesses have a responsibility to their community that goes beyond their specific product or offering. And so we’re looking at how we can interrogate and reshape our practices to be more in line with our value of antiracist, feminist coalition-building.

One of the many places we’ve fallen short is by seeing ourselves as the underdog and slating more significant action for a future when we are more established. “We’ll be able to do X when…” But for us, this lie — of what level of safety and security is adequate to take risks time, money, investment, etc. — isn’t one we’re willing to accept any longer. That choice is one borne of privilege. It’s a dynamic of picking and choosing when it is practical for us to engage in substantive change-making work.

So now looks like: We're donating. We're identifying deep projects within our businesses to make them more antiracist. We’re consulting colleagues who can expand our vision of what’s possible within this area. We're listening. We're reading. We're not doing enough and our sight is obscured by blindspots and privilege and we're looking at that, too. ⁠

One of the most important ways we’re building towards a better future is by asking questions like these of ourselves:

• What are the specific, myriad ways that we advance and uphold a racist system, as individuals and as a company?

• What vibrant, antiracist, equitable, diverse, inclusive future is possible in our work? What are we willing to do to create it? Are there ways that it exists now, and if so, how can we build on them?

• What are our unique leverage points as people and as a company?

• What are the places / ways this conversation and exploration can happen most fruitfully for us? (e.g., Practice groups? Instagram? Journaling and reading? Something else?)

• How might we create brave spaces within our company and for the makers in our programs

The problem with sharing this process and these thoughts is that it risks being (or is, in part, no matter what), performative allyship. It risks centering our experience as a white-led company. And it risks, as Layla F. Saad puts it, making this moment serve us, rather than the other way around.

“Whiteness will make whatever is happening in that moment serve itself… Whiteness will be thinking about… How can I appear to be part of this movement while still keeping things very much the same?” - Layla F. Saad

That said, we’re sharing the post anyway, and here’s why. In starting and running our business, we’ve convened a space for a community and a conversation -- that space is open and the conversation is occurring. If we stay silent (or silent-ish… only posting periodically on social media), the people in that space could begin to feel unsafe, unseen, or undervalued. And that not only perpetuates structural violence but undermines our ability to help makers build their businesses and find freedom in their work. So I’m sharing these thoughts to give some insight into our process and be transparent about the questions we’re asking and the work we are committed to.

My experience has been that antiracist internal inquiry (the foundation for antiracist action and coalition) is deep, slow work. It’s not something that can be completed in 5 days or 5 weeks and reported on in an Instagram post. To be clear: this post is not a bullet-pointed summary of our action plan. But we are committed to that slow, lifelong work that is both internal and external facing — and through that work we intend to gradually build new braver, safer, more antiracist spaces within and outside of our company. I am hopeful that those spaces will be at least partially co-created, so we don’t know exactly what they look like yet.

Above all: I’m glad that you are all here -- and we commit to building a brave, imperfect, becoming space together.