EVERYONE DESERVES AN EQUAL CHANCE AT JUSTICE
Q4 BLM
The death of George Floyd recently saw a well overdue focus from society on the Black Lives Matter movement and highlighted the extent of systemic inequalities with regards to race throughout the world. George Floyd didn’t deserve to die and it’s awful that it took something as tragic as his death to shine a light on these horrific inequalities and the desperate need for police reform. It’s fundamentally wrong that we all have different privileges purely because of the colour of our skin. We can’t begin to imagine how it feels to walk around your local community feeling unsafe because of the colour of your skin. The reality of knowing the people who are paid to keep you safe could pull the trigger on you at any moment for no reason other than your race is something nobody should have to face.
We believe that education and being informed is one of the most important things in terms of helping the movement. We did some research into the history of the movement and discovered that in 2012, in the US, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was tragically, fatally shot by a policeman called George Zimmerman as he walked home from a supermarket. The policeman was eventually changed with murder. In 2013, Black Lives Matter was founded in response to this tragic incident.
The Black Lives Matter movement is doing some incredible things and it’s a cause we feel strongly about supporting. Upon researching the ways to donate to the cause, it is clear that there is some confusion over the Black Lives Matter Foundation and Black Lives Matter Inc. Both being separate organisations but naming themselves the ‘Black Lives Matter Foundation’. In fact, there is currently an investigation happening in California due to large corporate donations going to a different organization because of confusion around the name. Despite both organizations doing incredible work to support the movement, we feel strongly about being transparent and clear on where our donations are going and what the money is being spent on. With this in mind, we are continuing to do our research into charities supporting the movement and will be announcing our charity of choice over the coming weeks, however, we do commit to sending all proceeds to a registered charity or Not for profit Organisation supporting this movement specifically.
An example of an area we’re looking into is the concept of ‘bail funds’ in America. Through our research, we’re shocked to learn the extent of mistreatment of black people by police officers. Bail funds raise funds to free people who have been imprisoned without being convicted of a crime, who cannot afford bail.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of bail, when someone is arrested, the judge sets a bail amount, where the defendant can avoid being imprisoned before their trial. It’s supposed to incentivise attendance at trials since the money is returned once the defendant attends court.
Often bail can cost upwards of hundreds of thousands - an amount that is unfeasible for many people. What this means is that unless you are rich enough to afford bail, you have to suffer months or even years in jail, living in these conditions, without even being convicted for a crime.
We know that many black people are wrongly arrested for absolutely no legitimate reason aside from racial motives. We can only imagine how many innocent people are sitting in jails subject to violence and the mental challenges of being confined.
The bail funds address the systemic issue of people being imprisoned because they cannot afford pretrial bail. We consider the bail funds to be a channel where we can use donations to directly impact the movement. Bail funds are arranged by state so we are continuing our research into which one(s) we’d like to support.
We are proud to be supporting such an incredible cause and we’re excited to share with you the exact charity we’ll be donating to in the upcoming weeks.