Black Lives Matter

Hi apologies
Apologies if I’ve missed this but is there a directory of black own businesses on Folksy?
As folksy customer, I’d especially like to support black crafters.

Folksy opted to not collect ethnographic data about shop owners when we set up our shops so the necessary information doesn’t exist to put together a directory as you describe.

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Hi Sasha,
Thanks so much for your quick reply. I just wondered, because Etsy have done this:


Ravelry have done something similar.
I completely accept Folksy’s decision not to collect ethnographic data but couldn’t Folksy contact all sellers with a very simple message along the lines of ‘If you identify as black or a person of colour would you like to be included in a BPOC directory to help shoppers make positive choices in their efforts to be anti-racist?’

Thanks for reading.

Surely, choosing to buy something based on the colour of the shop owners skin is more racist than the current situation where you have no idea of the ethnicity of the seller…unless that person has chosen to put a picture of themselves within their shop details (which most of them don’t)?

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Yes Folksy could contact everyone but gathering that sort of data poses a GDPR nightmare. At the moment it is not obvious from a shop’s frontage what a shop keepers back ground is, the ethos is very much ‘we don’t care what your age, sex, race, gender, sexual orientation, social back ground are, we care that you care about craft’. Directories highlighting a certain aspect of a person’s background could be abused - are Folksy going to need to double check that when a shop keeper says I’m a person of colour that they are being honest? Are some shoppers going to use a directory to exclude shops that they will buy from? The current rather anonymous system allows the item to be at the forefront of a person’s choice to buy.

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You are obviously coming from a good place with this, and I applaud that you want to give positive support but I think we should all be moving towards embracing and accepting each other on our personal merits and what we have to offer as individual and collective makers rather than focusing on differences that shouldn’t matter. However, I can see the merits in positive discrimination too. It’s certainly a complex area and maybe Folksy could run a survey to see what people think.

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What’s going on right now has NOTHING to do with race! There is an agenda behind this and people, knowingly or not, support it. I don’t think Folksy should do anything. Anyone who sets up a shop should be who they are and leave it at that. Racism goes both ways.

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Thank you for your comments
I’ve recently listened to ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race’ read by the author Reni Eddo-Lodge on Audible (I’ve also bought a paperback copy and read and listened to other black voices.) I’ve learned a lot.
I can wholeheartedly recommend the book…

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I joined Folksy as a crafter (I mostly sew) a few years ago I think, though I haven’t done a lot with my shop as I then got distracted by other projects ( I write stories too)! Yes, I joined the forum yesterday because I wanted to find out if I could specifically support black businesses on Folksy as I saw on Etsy. I too prefer Folksy to Etsy because it’s UK based and I’m more likely to find a UK seller and so avoid high shipping costs and flying stuff around the world. Also the stuff on Folksy is lovely and I like the design of the site. I have recently bought on Folksy.
I am a real person, you can check me out at jmcarrDOTcom, twitter @jancarr and my author FB page JMCarr
Apologies for not introducing myself before asking my question. I hope I’ve done that now.
Thank you again for your comments.
Jan

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I would love to see a gift guide of black-owned businesses or suchlike! I’m making a concerted effort to put my money where my mouth is and diversify where I shop, and I can’t think of a better place to start than with indie Folksy businesses.

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I’d be very supportive of Folksy seeking advice on the best way to encourage sellers and shoppers from all backgrounds - I know Folksy welcomes everyone, however I wonder how much diversity we actually attract.

A parallel that springs to mind is from the world of financial services recruitment (bear with me!). Just welcoming candidates from all demographics didn’t necessarily translate into applications. So they now take measures to encourage a more representative range of applicants to connect with the proposition. Not only was it the right thing to do – It also makes good business sense.

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So well put!

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I don’t think of the colour behind the business. If I like something I will buy it. Surely this is like everyone else? Why should it matter? So no. I don’t think there should be preferential treatment. I wouldn’t want someone to buy from me in this way.
Please just buy because you want it.
Or am I completely missing the point here?

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There is no such thing as “positive discrimination”. Discrimination is discrimination no matter how you try to dress it up.

I agree with @KBCreations - having the ethnicity of a shop owner on display and then as a customer choosing to purchase from someone based on their skin colour is extremely racist and perpetuates racism behaviour.

What Etsy has done is extremely racist and they have opened themselves up to a legitimate legal case of racism against non-black shop owners unless of course they also create directories of white-owned shops and other ethnic-owned shops.

Does anyone look at the Black Lives Matter movement and think that the movement itself is actually racist? Is it saying that no other lives matter? Should the movement be more correctly called “All Lives Matter”?

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This is also a double edged sword, and could go against ethnic shops. I’d hate to think someone bought from me because of my skin colour…that smacks of patronising particularly from a white person. I applaud Folksy for keeping neutral on this.

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Does anyone look at the Black Lives Matter movement and think that the movement itself is actually racist? Is it saying that no other lives matter? Should the movement be more correctly called “All Lives Matter”?

Not at all. If you say “save the tigers” no one ever thinks that means don’t save the rest of the animals. If you say “happy father’s day” that doesn’t mean everyone else have a horrible day. Just because you’re focusing on one thing it doesn’t mean nothing else matters, it’s just that that one thing needs a little more attention. Blacks have suffered a lot of discrimination, without helping them and making sure that all stops then there won’t be equality and all lives won’t matter.

If you start a race but one person’s starting point is 20m behind the rest, that isn’t equality. They’re in the same race, but they still need help to be brought forward for things to be equal, even if you treat all the runners the same once the race starts.

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For ‘Black Lives Matter’ please read ‘Black Lives Matter Too’ - that’s how I understand it, maybe avoid some confusion. I agree with Kim @konyskiw - bringing attention to a particular issue doesn’t mean you exclude all others.:blush:

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Yes, you’re absolutely right it shouldn’t matter but when the world is organised in such a way to put black and people of colour at such disadvantage(structural racism) and to promote ignorance of that disadvantage particularly in white people (also structural racism and white supremacy/white prvilege) it does.

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I strongly recommend reading up about structural/systemic racism, white supremacy and white privilege. This book was recommended by Arne and Carlos (the Norwegian knitting designers). https://www.meandwhitesupremacybook.com/?fbclid=IwAR20qcgwAHJr-fYSM8R3JjMDzrZtNoW5x4SQE8xOSCk5fpMcU4MmUBs0wg8 I haven’t read it yet but it looks just as good as the Reni Eddo-Lodge book. I always considered myself educated and a good ie not racist person. In the past I’ve said many of the things that have come up in the comments but I was so ignorant about structural racism and white privilege etc for such a long time and therefore unwittingly upholding racism. I am trying to change that. Thank you for reading and your comments.

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Excellent point! I also didn’t see any movement about the three people killed in Reading. No riots, no symbols, no flags, no protest, no looting. And that person who committed these crimes was even protected by the media with labels like ‘psychological problems’ and ‘war refugee’. So looking at it from a different angle…a foreighner came to this country and killed some people already living here. It’s interesting how those ‘psychological problems’ kill, usually, white people. But let’s sweep it under the carpet because some lives matter and some don’t!

Also, in Nigeria many thousands of black Christians have been killed in recent years by other groups of black people, and that still continues, but those black lives don’t matter one bit! No protest, no mentioning of that.

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