I suppose it depends on what geographical area you are refering to. If you think about say, Africa, then what you are saying is true. But the people who have the money and power and various organisations should all get together and go there and help the people in their own countries. They know how to help, they have the knowledge, the connections and the power. But they don’t do much. Instead, they do much more to displace these people from their countries and bring them to Europe. Also, I don’t see why various organisations cannot stop the wars and genocides in those countries. Many European countries can’t cope anymore with the huge volume of foreigners of different backgrounds and needs. And paying benefits for millions of them. When the locals react, that is not racism!
Now, if you are refering to USA or Europe…well UK in particular, as far as I can see all people have rights and access to precious things like, education, health services, voting, employment etc. So I don’t see where the complaints are coming from.
Hi everyone. I’m aware that we haven’t replied to this post yet.
In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, we have been reflecting on what we do as a business – if there are any systematic or structural barriers to starting or running a shop on Folksy as a black seller or being able to take part in the community aspect of Folksy, and if there is more we should be doing to ensure Folksy is an open and welcoming place for people of colour and of diverse backgrounds. It’s important to us that we do this work properly so that our response is not simply tokenistic and reductive. We’re still in the process of doing that.
As @SashaGarrett says, we don’t collect ethnographic data about our sellers and there are data privacy issues around us holding that information, although @SlapdashandBodgit is right that there is the option of contacting sellers and asking them if they’d want to be included in a guide to Black-owned Folksy shops. Where we are at the moment on this is that Folksy was established as a meritocracy, on the basis that anyone can open a shop and be part of Folksy, as long as they are based in the UK, their work is original and/or made by hand or they provide craft supplies. Our principle is that the work should stand for itself. However, we are also conscious that 1) meritocracies only work if there is a level playing field with no barriers to entry, and 2) that, as far as we can tell, the majority of sellers on Folksy are female and white. So we want to look why that might be and if there is more we should be doing to have a more representative community, and also if there is work we should be doing to ensure that the craft industry as a whole is open to all.
Another issue that this thread has raised is around how we talk to each other, especially when the topic is as complex as this one. We set up the forum as a shared community resource – a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through conversations.
This should be a safe place to ask questions, listen, offer opinions and learn from others, where people’s points of difference are heard and celebrated.
Please do bear that in mind when posting comments, and avoid personal criticisms, responding to or making assertions on a person’s character rather than their views, questions or opinions. Before posting, consider whether your comments could be hurtful to others - and aim to make a positive contribution to this amazing community. We really want this to be a friendly and welcoming space for everyone. Our community guidelines are here if you are unsure https://talk.folksy.com/faq
I have removed what i wrote as it seems to have upset some poor snowflake what a wonderful world we live in when a comment not even racist in anyway gets flagged
I understand your logic, but how about reversing it. What do you think the perception would be if a movement was started called “White Lives Matter”. What’s the likelihood that the majority of people would condemn that as a racist movement? Can you imagine the public outcry? It would be massive.
The problem we have in society is that there is so much over-thinking about diversity and inclusion, that itself becomes discriminatory/racist/sexist/ageist/etc-ist. You see this all the time in the corporate world. There is a big movement to get more female representation on company boards yet without any thought as to whether the person is actually correctly qualified for the role. As a company director, when I was hiring I asked the recruiters to remove any personally identifiable information from the CVs they sent me so that I did not know whether the person was female/male/young/old/white/black/pink with purple polka dots. I determined whether the person was right for the role based on their qualifications, skills and experience, not their appearance/gender/age/sexual orientation etc.
Personally, I would like to live in a world where we don’t put labels on things or people. We are all one race - human.
“there is the option of contacting sellers and asking them if they’d want to be included in a guide to Black-owned Folksy shops.”
Does this mean you will also be contacting sellers and asking them if they’d want to be included in a guide to White-owned Folksy shops, Indian-owned Folksy shops, Mixed-Race-owned Folksy shops, Japanese-owned Folksy shops…If you created one you’d have to create them all, and it’s still racist. You would be bringing back the bad old days of segregation and I think most people would find this offensive.
“as far as we can tell, the majority of sellers on Folksy are female and white. So we want to look why that might be and if there is more we should be doing to have a more representative community, and also if there is work we should be doing to ensure that the craft industry as a whole is open to all.”
The simple answer is: if the only people who want to open a shop on Folksy are female and white, then that’s what you’ll have - shop owners who are female and white. If the majority of people who wanted to open a shop on Folksy were male and black, then that’s what you’d have - shop owners who are male and black. There’s no barrier to entry into the craft industry and you can’t control who comes along and asks to open a shop. What will you do - reject white females who ask to open a shop so that the black/orange/indigo-owned shop statistics change to be a “level playing field”? In what way does crafting something handmade require you to have white skin or black skin or any other colour skin?
And I’m curious - you say that you don’t collect ethnographic data about sellers - so how have you come to the conclusion that the majority are white females with no data to tell you this?
I’m so glad I chose to join Folksy and not Etsy. Please don’t join Etsy’s racist behaviour.
@PoppyKayDesigns That’s ignoring the race analogy though. White lives do matter, but they don’t need to be brought forward to put everyone at an equal starting point. Deer’s lives matter, but as they’re not endangered animals we don’t need to focus on “save the deer” in the same way we need “save the tigers”. They all matter, but if one is disadvantaged or in danger, you specifically give help to that one to get them to the same point as the rest.
If you start by equally giving help to everyone, that doesn’t solve the problem. Everything is getting the same amount of help, but because the tigers were in desperate need of it and the deer weren’t, now the tigers don’t get as much attention and still go extinct. If you give help to the one that needs it and once the problem is solved treat everyone equally, then that works.
What will you do - reject white females who ask to open a shop so that the black/orange/indigo-owned shop statistics change to be a “level playing field”?
I don’t think Folksy would ever reject someone like that, but if you notice you’re missing a large demographic, it might be because they’ve never heard of you or they don’t think the site seems to be for them (and if we’re missing those sellers we might also be missing those buyers). So you might decide to target some advertising in places they’re more likely to see, maybe focus on the crafts that appeal to them more so they think “I make that, maybe I could sell there too”. It’s not excluding anyone, it’s just making sure everyone knows about you and feels welcome.
I doubt Folksy know for definite the majority are white and female, but like us with our buyers, they will be able to see some of it from who interacts with them on social media (where there are often photos of the people), who they see at fairs, and male/female you can often make a good guess at from names.
I do understand how you have reached your viewpoint, but singling out one ethnicity, or the tigers, is by its very definition discriminatory. When you choose to elevate one above the rest - you are discriminating. It’s hard, but it’s true.
If a white person went for a job interview, and the only other candidate was a different skin colour, and the other person got the job solely because of their skin colour so that the company could tick a D&I quota, how would you feel about the white person filing a complaint of racism? Would you think they had a legitimate case? Or would you consider it to be an outrageous claim?
It’s not a bad thing to help one particular group when they need it.
It should come down to qualifications. If both people are equally qualified for the job then it doesn’t really matter who they pick, and I would certainly never think to complain if someone of a certain skin colour or disability got picked over me to do a job when we both had the needed skills.
That’s exactly my point, which I made in an earlier post. It should come down to qualifications, not skin colour, or gender, or sexual orientation, or any other defining parameter.
As I also said earlier, I would like to live in a world where we don’t put labels on people - we are all one race and that is human, so let’s just be human and stop referring to people by their appearance.
That’s great that when you were in a position to hire staff you requested the removal of any personally identifiable info.
However …
This is not about discrimination on the basis of race / skin colour.
This is about challenging structural racism which is the way the world is geared to favour one ‘race’ over another. This is about POWER. Toni Morrison said, like you, that that there is only one race and that’s the human race, but she went on to say that racism is a social construct - it’s the world we’ve grown up in. The world has skewed so that the power is with the white ‘race’. It’s why we don’t learn black history, it’s why many black scientists, artists, writers for example aren’t well known. It’s why white is the default for say characters in fiction, actors in films - white is assumed.
It’s been like this for centuries, so long that it’s hard for white people to see it. I didn’t see it for a long time - I’m 60. But when you do see it, it’s a revelation. For instance, a few years ago I decorated my downstairs toilet with flyers from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I believed that I didn’t particularly choose them, they were just A5 flyers that were lying around in the venues or I was given on the street. So every time I use the downstairs loo I am surrounded by LOTS of comedians’ faces. I certainly wouldn’t have considered my self racist, at the time, in fact I thought then I was anti-racist. BUT out of the hundreds of faces on the flyers only 2 are not white. That might be because there are significantly fewer black comedians that can afford to perform at the festival - in which case WHY is that - certainly not the case that black people can’t do comedy. Or it might be that I just gravitated to the flyers that were familiar, that was what i was used to, white faces because I’m white and it’s the world I live in - I was just going along with the norm - structural racism that favours white over black.
I too would like to live in a world where we don’t put labels on people but to achieve that we have to acknowledge were we are now, find out the true state of the world. We must educate ourselves, we must read/ watch/ listen to the voices and experiences of black people and people of colour, not assume it’s all about America or Africa, read about their experience in the UK and NOT assume we know.
That is so eloquent. It’s not enough to be not a racist; you have to be actively anti-racist and think about the structures in society that most of us have never noticed. Onceyou do notice them, they’re impossible to ignore.
It’s a revelation but to have that revelation you have to be open to the possibility that’s true, do a bit of reading, listening etc. Isn’t it the case with marketing that you have to hear a message or see an advert so many times for that message to sink in or for it even to register? So keeping the conversation going in a respectful way is a good thing. I’m not always good at that - I can feel very strongly! But this is such an important conversation, we have to.
I really did just come on here, quite naively I suppose, with a genuine question. I’'d had the Etsy email about supporting black owned businesses, I thought I’d like to do that closer to home.
I read a really interesting article about the marketing thing (won’t be able to find it for the life of me!). You have to see X so many times to believe it, e.g. to realise that white privilege is a thing, you might have to encounter a lot of examples and discussions.
But in the same way, we’re all taught things from infancy that we might later have to make the effort to unlearn, e.g. we’re taught from a young age that pink is only for girls, that we’ll feel better about ourselves if we buy a certain product, etc. It’s why diversity on TV is so important, because if we never see, for example, a black man sewing, then a small black boy might grow up thinking that men don’t sew and/or that black people don’t sew, and then it might never occur to they that they could, in fact, learn to sew. And even though they have potential to become the next big thing in fashion, they’ll never even begin to realise that potential.
It sounds silly, but having representation in culture can really shape how we think. There’s that saying ‘if you can’t see it then you can’t be it’ and I feel like it rings true in so many ways. We know girls are dropping out of STEM subjects after GCSE, we know there’s a lack of racial diversity in so many industries and although it’s not all down to public perception (there are so many other factors like background, family’s economic status, access to opportunities etc), arguably if our cultural landscape was more diverse and held more reflections of real people (because there are women working in STEM, there are black men who sew and whatnot), then our real life society could start to shift too.
I could yack on about this forever, I find advertising/marketing its impact on culture fascinating. Culture reflects society but society reflects culture, I guess.
I think your suggestion was great, and the conversations that you’ve started can never be a bad thing in the long run.
Jessica Whitaker, a white 24 year old mother, was shot dead by Black Lives Matter supporters for saying that ALL lives matter. BLM supporters have been rampaging all over her public Facebook page celebrating her killing. Absolutely sickening.
