Category: Diversity / Inclusivity

An Important Read About Black-Owned Businesses In These Days

Ami Colé is closing. The brand’s story has implications for the Black beauty industry.

Aug 04, 2025

This story was originally reported by Marissa Martinez of The 19th. Meet Marissa and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Next month, beauty brand Ami Colé will shutter, marking an unfortunate reality for many Black-owned businesses — what happens when financial interest dries up?

Founder Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye’s July announcement, which she detailed for The Cut, shocked many across the beauty space. 

In the piece, N’Diaye-Mbaye outlined the journey of starting her business, from growing up in her mother’s Harlem braiding salon to pitching Ami Colé — known for their innovation in lip oils and shade-inclusive makeup — to over 150 investors in 2019. After a surge in support for Black entrepreneurship following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, N’Diaye-Mbaye said she received more interest in the brand, becoming one of 30 Black women to raise $1 million for her start-up within months. 

But four years after her official launch, N’Diaye-Mbaye said growth at Sephora couldn’t compete with corporate brands, and scaling up production to meet potential demand came at a steep cost when online influence fluctuated.

“Instead of focusing on the healthy, sustainable future of the company and meeting the needs of our loyal fan base,” N’Diaye-Mbaye wrote, “I rode a temperamental wave of appraising investors — some of whom seemed to have an attitude toward equity and ‘betting big on inclusivity’ that changed its tune a lot, to my ears, from what it sounded like in 2020.”

This sentiment isn’t unique among Black entrepreneurs. Five years after venture capital firms, investors and consumers alike followed a wave of support for Black-owned businesses, interest in diverse brands has waned significantly. Through TikTok and other social media platforms, access to an audience has never been greater, but the capital needed to sustain brands at a high profile has dropped off. 

Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, Founder and CEO of Ami Colé.
Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, Founder and CEO of Ami Colé speaks at an event on October 15, 2022 in New York City. (Craig Barritt/Getty Images)

Nationally, there has been a societal swing — in tandem with pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration — against intentional incorporation of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in creators’ paths, with waning urgency to support these businesses en masse. And the amount of money flowing to Black-founded companies has hit a multiyear low, according to the business publication Crunchbase News. Only $730 million — 0.4 percent of all funding — went to startups with a Black founder or co-founder last year, down more than two-thirds from 2021. The startups that did receive funding were mostly in the tech or health spaces.

Esthetician and beauty influencer Tiara Willis said she has noticed that cultural shift in support over the last five years. Brands rushed to onboard diverse creators in the summer of 2020. Now, the long-term partnerships, increased shade ranges and targeted marketing seem to have wavered. N’Diaye-Mbaye’s struggle to meet demand as influencers promoted her products is something that would have been covered by investors who were in it for the long haul, Willis said. 

She pointed to celebrity founders like Hailey Bieber, whose Rhode makeup and skin care brand began with millions of dollars to swing big while starting her business. Rhode was acquired by e.l.f Beauty for $1 billion in May.

“They rarely ever start by themselves, like the rest of us do — they already have someone on their team,” Willis told The 19th. “Trying to build your own brand while trying to compete with companies who are able to launch products every two seconds, and are able to fill retail space and have less obstacles than brands like Ami Colé — it’s not entirely surprising she wasn’t able to keep up.” 

Black creators voiced concern immediately following N’Diaye-Mbaye’s announcement, calling her brand’s shuttering “disheartening” and indicative of larger trends in the Black beauty space. Being able to trust that a brand like Ami Colé would have inclusive shade ranges and products by virtue of their leadership made shopping simpler, some said on social media.

Sephora store shelves reflect a mad dash to support Ami Colé and restock on favorites before the brand officially closes in September. Sales associates told The 19th that the lip oils had sold out online and in store immediately following the announcement, though the demand for other products has slowed since. 

But consumers should not feel the pressure to support Black-owned businesses when the larger issue is who has access to capital and investors, some creators pointed out. The issue isn’t the lack of customers, Javon Ford, a cosmetic chemist and entrepreneur, said in a recent TikTok video. 

“That is not a sustainable business model. The issue is money. It’s capital. Operating in a retailer like Sephora is expensive,” Ford said. “That’s how cutthroat retail is when you scale to a certain extent, and this is also why exit strategies are important, because it’s really hard to keep up with legacy brands.”

Willis echoed the unstable environment in which Black influencers like herself find themselves: “It creates financial insecurity, where I get the most support of brands based on what’s going on in the news, versus getting support because of my work and my talent and the things I provide to the table.”

Ruined Afternoon Swim

sigh.

A Trans Woman and Her Friends Were Violently Assaulted at an Austin Swimming Hole

The incident is being investigated by police as a possible hate crime.

By Samantha Riedel

A transgender woman and several friends were harassed and assaulted in Austin, Texas last weekend, and one bystander who stepped in to defend them was hospitalized, in an incident police are investigating as a possible hate crime.

On July 26, the trans woman — who has requested anonymity during the ongoing investigation — and several friends visited Barton Springs, a public swimming hole in Austin’s Zilker Park, as Chron reported Wednesday. During their visit, three men they didn’t know flirted heavily with members of the group, the woman told Chron, but soon began harassing and pointing at her, making remarks about not “support[ing] that lifestyle.”

The three men then reportedly began shoving members of the group and poking the women “near their breasts,” according to a Reddit user who posted about the incident on Monday, claiming to be a friend of one of the victims. At that point, a bystander — identified as Jarod — intervened, and was attacked himself.

“The three men then proceeded to get violent and aggressive, yelling at us and getting in our faces until one of them decided to start swinging and punched Jarod in the jaw, knocking him unconscious,” the anonymous trans woman told Chron. “I quickly ran over to him in an attempt to help Jarod out but was then punched in the face by the assailant in the orange shorts.” The men then shoved another of the women to the ground and left the scene soon after, according to video footage of the incident posted to social media.

The Austin Police Department (APD) released a statement on Tuesday stating that the alleged assault was under investigation and could be declared a hate crime by the city’s Hate Crime Review Committee. “APD remains unwavering in its commitment to fostering a secure and inclusive Austin community,” the department stated. (Community leaders called for APD to be investigated for excessive force in March this year, after videos circulated online that appeared to show officers throwing a trans woman onto the ground during an arrest.)

Austin-area drag performer Brigitte Bandit posted about the assault on Instagram Monday, asking locals for help identifying the attackers. In a follow-up post the next day, Bandit stated that the men had been identified and the information had been shared privately with the victims. “I will not be posting their information without consent of the people involved in the attack,” Bandit wrote, adding, “[l]et’s let them decide which routes they decide [are] best.” (snip-MORE. Also embedded tweet. Then, if you click through, you’ll see they’ve gotten the suspects ID’d.)

ICE is thugs targetting brown people who are US citizens, detaining them, taking their ID and not returning it, assaulting them, then making up charges against them.

https://www.tumblr.com/reagan-was-a-horrible-president/790723408167092224

David Bruce, Laurie McBride, 13,000 PATCO Members, & More, In Peace & Justice History for 8/3

August 3, 1882
Congress passed the first U.S. law to restrict immigration of a particular ethnic group into the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Act. It stopped all further Chinese immigration for ten years, and denied citizenship to those already in the country, most of whom had been recruited by American railroad and mining companies.
The law remained in effect until 1943.

Chinese rail workers
Very cool site from the National Archives and Records Administration
August 3, 1913
Four died and many others were injured in the Wheatland Hop Riot when police fired into a crowd of California hop pickers trying to organize (with the help of the IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World). At the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, the state’s largest single agricultural employer, hundreds of workers—whites, Mexicans, and Filipinos—had put down their tools because of terrible working conditions, low wages, and an almost complete lack of sanitation and decent housing. It was one of the first attempts to organize agricultural workers.
The story of the Wheatland Hop Riot 
August 3, 1981

Nearly 13,000 of the nation’s 17,500 air traffic controllers, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), went on strike.After six months of negotiations with PATCO President Robert Poli, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had offered less than 10% of what the union had sought. Due to the stressful nature of their jobs, managing the nation’s ever-increasing volume of airport landings and take-offs without up-to-date equipment, they had asked for a shorter workweek, an increase in pay and retirement after 20 years. 95% of PATCO members rejected the FAA’s final offer.
The union had endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1980 (one of very few to do so), but President Reagan said they were violating U.S. law banning strikes by federal workers, and would all be terminated unless they returned to work within 48 hours.
A Reagan Letter to Robert Poli, PATCO (October. 20, 1980) 
Dear Mr. Poli:
     I have been briefed by members of my staff as to the deplorable state of our nation’s air traffic control system.  They have told me that too few people working unreasonable hours with obsolete equipment has placed the nation’s air travellers in unwarranted danger.  In an area so clearly related to public safety the Carter administration has failed to act responsibly.
     You can rest assured that if I am elected President, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety….
     I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
More about the strike 
August 3, 1986
Laurie McBride and seven other Motherpeace members of the Nanoose Conversion Campaign were arrested for picnicking on Winchelsea Island, east of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. They, along with dozens of volunteer witnesses and supporters who had set off by boat from the town of Nanoose Bay, were protesting the ten-year extension of free use by the U.S. of the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental Test Range (CFMETR). It is a joint Canadian-American facility for torpedos, other maritime warfare and detection equipment; the island held the command and control center. The Campaign advocated conversion of the area back to peaceful purposes.
Laurie McBride’s story 
August 3, 1988
One hundred forty-three white English and Afrikaans conscripts from four cities in South Africa announced their refusal to serve in the South African Defense Force. The SADF was engaged in actions to preserve apartheid, the social and economic system of racial separatism, in South Africa, and to occupy and thwart independence for South Africa’s neighbors, Angola and Namibia
[see July 31, 1986].

24-year-old David Bruce had just been sentenced to six years in prison for refusing to serve; he was released after two. He works today with The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation on issues of integrity, conduct and accountability in democratic policing.
 David BruceThe Police That We Want .pdf 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august3

“Hanging on in Hawaiʻi”

ʻAlalā (Hawaiian Crow)

A Positive Way To Take Back Identity:

Black Indigenous Chefs Are Reclaiming Identity Through Food — One Dish at a Time by Michael Harriot

Black Native food workers are passing down culinary traditions, restoring lost connections and feeding body and soul. Read on Substack

Crystal Wahpepah (Photo courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)

The Indigenous food movement has seen a renaissance in North America, with restaurant openings, cookbook releases and community initiatives that announce the presence, expertise and heritage of Indigenous food workers. Amidst this moment, Black Native food workers have seen both the beauty and the harshness of living at the intersection of Blackness and Indigeneity, as the dominant settler colonial culture of the United States often tries to erase or flatten all parts of their identities.

But those attempts at erasure have also provided moments of reflection and insight, and a realization that the mission of Black Indigenous food workers is profoundly spiritual and political healing work. For Stephan Oak, a Black and Lakota forager and woodworker who lives in Detroit, the threads of connection that Black Indigenous people hold in their family stories that are “steeped in violence, but also steeped in love and resistance” are also guides that allow them to connect in the past, present, and future — a shared cosmology.

Crystal Wahpepah, who is Black and Kickapoo and the executive chef and owner of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, Calif., says that often, through representation and education, Black Native people in the food industry come to a deeper peace about their identity and heritage. At Wahpepah’s Kitchen, over cornbread dishes from the Ute and Kickapoo people, wild rice from the Great Lakes tribes and bison from the Great Plains, people often find themselves.

“I meet so many people who are Black and Native but never felt connected to their Indigenous side, and when they meet me, they start talking about it, about culture, about those things that have been lost,” she says. Wahpepah is also opening a new restaurant, A Feather and a Fork, which is also the title of her upcoming cookbook.

That loss is something felt in both Black and Indigenous communities and can often feel pronounced because of family separation through residential schools, land expulsions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trade that broke up Black families across the country. “Because of colonial violence, there’s a fractured relationship to home or your connection to your ancestors,” says Oak. “The intent of the colonizer is to stop you from looking … to accept the identity of the conditions they’ve placed on you.”

Food is one of the ways Oak and others are reclaiming autonomy over their identities, especially as governments use food as a weapon by depriving communities of affordable, culturally relevant food. Oak points out that even amidst food deserts on reservations and urban Black communities, people find ways to be more self-sufficient and connect back to the land, which helps them reconnect with the essence of who they are. (snip-MORE; lots more but not too long)

Crystal Wahpepah’s wild rice salad with strawberries and pecans (Courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)

Last Day Of July In Peace & Justice History

July 31, 1896
The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was established in Washington, D.C. Its two leading members were Josephine Ruffin and Mary Church Terrell. Founders also included some of the most renowned African-American women educators, community leaders, and civil-rights activists in America, including Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Margaret Murray Washington, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

Mary Church Terrell
The original intention of the organization was “to furnish evidence of the moral, mental and material progress made by people of colour through the efforts of our women.” 
However, over the next ten years the NACW became involved in campaigns favoring women’s suffrage and opposing lynching and Jim Crow laws. By the time the United States entered the First World War, membership had reached 300,000.
The NACW and its founders  
July 31, 1986
25,000 people rallied in Namibia for freedom from South African colonial rule. In June, 1971 the International Court of Justice had ruled the South African presence in Namibia to be illegal. Eventually, open elections for a 72-member Constituent Assembly were held under U.N. supervision in November, 1989. Three months later Namibia gained its independence, and maintains it today.
More on Namibia’s independence 


Namibian flag
July 31, 1991
The United States and the Soviet Union, represented by President George H.W. Bush and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I. It was the first agreement to actually reduce (by 25-35%) and verify both countries’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons at equal aggregate levels in strategic offensive arms.
The Soviet Union dissolved several months later, but Russia and the U.S. met their goals by December, 2001. Three other former republics of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, have eliminated these weapons from their territory altogether.
Comprehensive info from the Federation of American Scientists:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july31

Trump Order Kills Annual Arizona LGBTQ Film Festival

Trump Order Kills Annual Arizona LGBTQ Film Festival

Again the attempt to kill diversity and the LGBTQ+ representation.  This may seem small potatoes but again this is about erasing the LGBTQ+ community.  Hugs

July 24, 2025

Just in via press release:

We are writing with profound regret to inform you that the 17th annual Desperado LGBTQ+ Film Festival has been canceled. This decision comes in direct response to recent presidential executive orders impacting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts at public institutions, including our community college district.

As a publicly funded institution, we must comply with these orders. Failure to do so would jeopardize the district’s federal funding, including student financial aid and grants that support over 300 positions across our campuses. The loss of such funding would create a ripple effect, significantly affecting students, faculty, staff, the community, and the educational services we provide.

Thank you to our audience that has made Desperado possible for the past sixteen years. You have helped us provide a platform for underrepresented voices and celebrate the richness of the LGBTQ+ community through the power of film. We are deeply grateful.

While we are heartbroken to pause this year’s event, we hope this is not a farewell but a momentary pause. We look forward to the possibility of resuming the festival when conditions allow.

Read the full press release. The festival is hosted by a student organization at Phoenix’s Paradise Valley Community College, which receives federal funds.

A look at what LGBTQ bills Ohio lawmakers have introduced so far

As I keep saying this is a small very loud mostly religious driven minority using ever tool and lie they can to change perception of the LGBTQ+ to erase them from society to create the cis straight society they want to force on everyone.  We must counter them by being as loud and forceful to not only refute their lies but also promote the joy of living freely as an inclusive society.  Hugs

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/07/24/a-look-at-what-lgbtq-bills-ohio-lawmakers-have-introduced-so-far/

By:  – July 24, 2025 4:50 am

 Close-Up of rainbow flag with crowd In background during LGBT Pride Parade. Getty Images.

Ohio lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced several LGBTQ-related bills so far this General Assembly.

Republicans have put forth a drag ban bill, a piece of legislation that would make it harder for a student to use a different name or pronoun at school, and a bill requiring transgender political candidates to list their deadname, among others. 

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have introduced the Ohio Fairness Act and a bill that would ban conversion therapy.

Lawmakers passed several anti-LGBTQ bills that became law during the last General Assembly — including prohibiting gender affirming care to transgender youth, blocking trans athletes from playing on teams that align with their identity, a transgender school bathroom ban, and requiring educators to out a students’ sexuality to their parents.

An Ohio court partially overturned a ban on gender-affirming care for LGBTQ youth earlier this year, meaning doctors can still prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Anti-LGBTQ bills

Ohio House Bill 249 would ban drag performers from performing anywhere that is not a designated adult entertainment facility. State Reps. Angie King, R-Celina, and Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Twp., introduced the bill, which has had sponsor testimony.  

This is a re-introduction of a bill from the previous General Assembly that did not make it out of committee and faced much opposition.

Ohio House Bill 190 would require parental permission for schools to use different pronouns or different names for students that don’t match up with the biological sex or birth name. 

Williams and state Rep. Johnathan Newman, R-Troy, introduced the bill, which has had sponsor testimony.

Ohio House Bill 172  would ban children 14 and older from receiving mental health services without parental consent. Newman also introduced this bill, which has had sponsor testimony. 

Ohio House Bill 196 would require political candidates to list their former names on candidacy petitions. This, however, would not apply to names that have been changed due to marriage. King and state Reps Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria, introduced the bill, which has had sponsor testimony. 

Three transgender candidates filed to run for state office in Ohio last year, but encountered challenges over the names they put on their paperwork. 

The ACLU is tracking nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills nationwide.

Ohio House Bill 262 would designate the weeks from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day as Natural Family Month. Williams and state Rep. Beth Lear, R-Galena, introduced the bill, which has had sponsor and opponent testimony. 

Pro-LGBTQ bills

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, has introduced a few bills that support LGBTQ people. Antonio is the only openly gay lawmaker in the Ohio General Assembly. 

Ohio Senate Bill 70, also known as the Ohio Fairness Act, would expand anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity. House Bill 136 is a companion bill. 

Antonio has introduced the Ohio Fairness Act in every General Assembly since she was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2011 and this is the first time since 2018 the bill has no Republican support.

Ohio Senate Bill 71 would ban any licensed health professionals from doing conversion therapy when providing mental health treatment to minors. Antonio and state Sen. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, introduced the bill. House Bill 300 is a companion bill. 

Ohio Senate Bill 211 would designate the first full week of June as “Love Makes a Family Week.” Antonio introduced this bill as well. 

None of these bills have had any hearings so far this General Assembly. Ohio lawmakers are on summer break and will come back to the Statehouse this fall. 

Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky.

Democrats’ ‘Impotent’ Response to Trump’s Deportation Campaign

Mehdi moderates a panel with YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen, LA city council member Nithya Raman, and podcaster Van Lathan, LIVE in Los Angeles!

Mehdi and Zeteo concluded our one-year anniversary tour last week, with a final stop in the city that has made headlines in recent days and weeks, after the Trump administration deployed the National Guard against protesters.

Yes, Los Angeles. Political commentator and YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen: “If it was happening in another country… We would not hesitate for a single second to call it autocracy, authoritarianism, or a dictatorship”

In this special live recording, Mehdi sits down with Cohen, as well as LA City Council member Nithya Raman and “Higher Learning” co-host Van Lathan for a conversation on President Donald Trump’s targeting of LA protesters and immigrants, Democrats’ response, and the media’s handling of Trump 2.0.

LA Councilmember Nithya Raman: “There is an incredible amount of fear right now,” Raman tells Mehdi. “They’re [ICE] showing up at workplaces. They’re showing on street corners. They’re showing up taking street vendors who are selling outside of a Home Depot…

They showed up outside of an elder care facility in Santa Monica and took workers from there. I mean these are kidnappings.” Mehdi asks Lathan, who frequently appears on CNN, about whether he believes the media is meeting the moment right now when it comes to covering Trump’s second term.

Van Lathan: “The legacy media right now is made to serve a commercial break ‘I’m mad on the left,’ ‘I’m on the right,’ ‘I am the host, you two stop fighting! We’ll be right back,’ ‘Proctor & Gamble.’” Did you like this video? It was published on zeteo.com several days ago.

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