The events that have unfolded in the United States over the last few weeks, most recently with yet another tragic killing of a black person – George Floyd – at the hands of those charged with protecting us, have left the whole nation shocked. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are just the latest in a long line of brutal and senseless deaths of Black Americans.
Too often have we failed our Black community, and too often have deaths like these been met with silence. As a father of a young child, I can’t fathom a world where I need to have The Talk with my son when he grows up, and fearing for my child’s life every second despite that. Unfortunately, that is the world that every Black American grows up in, as has been made painfully evident by recent incidents.
At a time like this, silence can, and will, be construed as apathy.
However small our voices may be (as a small company, we realize that our voice is not the loudest), we need to stand up and make them heard at this time. We want everyone to know that Blueshift stands in solidarity with those working to end systemic racism, and that we will amplify our employees’ and our community’s voices towards this end. During this month, we will match up to $100 per employee in charitable giving to a set of organizations that support human rights and civil rights action geared towards ending racism. We are also committing that every member of our global team will undergo unconscious bias training[1]. As a further measure of our solidarity, our creative team came up with new visual treatments to our logo[2] that will be used on our website and social profiles for this month. These efforts by themselves may achieve little for the communities who are hurting, but they can amplify the broader chorus for change and reform.
Strength and solidarity against racism and prejudice.
When we founded the company, we chose the name Blueshift[3] to symbolize “movement towards one another, bringing us closer together”; as it applies to our core business and solutions, it symbolizes the movement of brands closer to their customers, by understanding each customer for who they are as an individual, and caring for them deeply. Yet, there’s a broader meaning as it applies to our employees and our communities: that we must respect each individual, and develop empathy and a deep sense of caring that brings us together instead of pulling us apart.
I hope that we will all pause during this time and take a moment to think about what we truly believe in. If we all do our part in expressing our beliefs, I am hopeful that we can create a better world for everyone.
Vijay
[1] As I spoke with our team, some of our employees pointed out that being an AI company, we also need to address the issue of potential unconscious bias in algorithms (for instance, the use of demographic data in making personalization decisions). I am heartened that our team has already been thinking about this, and intends to further explore this topic.
[2] The new logo colors represent strength and solidarity against racism and prejudice.
[3] “Blueshift” is a term that astronomers use to describe an object that is moving toward another object or toward us.” https://www.thoughtco.com/blue-shift-definition-3072288
