Black Lives Matter. These words must resonate. They must be repeated loud enough often enough, and forcefully enough for the sentiment to become second nature to all. While Karl Groves’s personal feelings on racism have been made clear and, as the Founder & President of Tenon, it can be assumed that his feelings are also Tenon’s feelings, we decided that the best approach at this time is to make our feelings on the current political climate clear regarding where we stand on civil rights in general and race relations specifically.
Black Lives Matter
We do not want – or need – to convince anyone that racism is bad. Xenophobia in any form is reprehensible. Specifically, the United States has, unfortunately, a history of unequal and discriminatory treatment of the black population. This has manifested itself in systematic racism in the US justice system and enforcement of its laws. This discrimination is severe enough that the time for us to stop tolerating this discrimination is long overdue.
Tenon fully supports the Black Lives Matter movement. We encourage everyone – globally – to support efforts to fight against all efforts to discriminate against others based on gender, gender identity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or race. Furthermore, we encourage that support to be explicit and as forceful in nature as is necessary to invoke real, tangible, and long-term systemic change.
Accessibility is Political
Tenon supports BLM because we are advocates for Civil Rights. There can be no equality until all persons are considered equal. There can be no justice until the Justice System treats all persons equally. The concerns one has for accessibility are the same as one should have for sexism, racism, and any other form of discrimination.
Zero Tolerance
To be as clear as possible: Tenon has zero tolerance for racism. If you are racist, we do not want your business. If you are a racist, we do not want you to apply for jobs at Tenon. If you are a racist, the best thing for you to do at this moment is to step back and spend some time to consider the folly of your ways. Racism is wrong and must not be tolerated. While we may not be able to solve the problem of racism in our world, we certainly do not need to encourage it and, in fact, we should use our privilege to actively discourage racism.
Doing our part
From here on out:
- Tenon will offer free accessibility consulting for black civil rights organizations.
- Tenon will offer free accessibility training for black civil rights organizations
- Tenon will provide free access to our products for black civil rights organizations and web development agencies who serve them.
To take advantage of the above offers, email talktous@tenon.io