You may already have seen some of thebacklash around companies aligning promotions with Black History Month. UberEats launched the month with a discount offer featuring a stock-image of ablack woman eating chicken, leading to them being labelled 'tone-deaf' on social media and a Pure Gym in Luton posted a new workout “tocelebrate black history month” titled the “12 Years of Slaveworkout. Slavery was hard and so is this”. A Royal Mail initiative has also been questioned for a 'tokenistic' gesture in painting a series of post-boxes black “to mark the success ofblack Britons”.
In response to the backlash, the Pure Gym group immediately issued an apology and removed the rogue post and Uber Eats sought to clarify their initiative, stating the offer supported black-owned restaurants in the UK, but the damage had, perhaps, already been done. Whatever these companies were hoping to achieve, the execution appeared at odds with the spirit of the month.
Perhaps one of the issues lies, not just in the execution of the campaign, but in the perceived token gesture of running them. As Tyrek Morris, co-founder of the All Black Lives UK movement, told The Guardian; there was nothing wrong with the (Royal Mail) post-box campaign on its own terms and called for the stories of more prominent black figures to be taught. But he suggested the firms could use the month to push for more useful change.
There are companies that appear to have a real understanding of how and why it matters so much to work within the philosophy of Black History Month. Black filmmaker Adeyemi Michael is curating a channel for Netflix this month, featuring a collection of films, series and shorts that showcase British black talent and over at Instagram, women including writer Bernadine Evaristo and BBCs Head of Diversity, June Sarpong, are involved in #Sharethemic, taking over the accounts of high-profile white women with a collective reach of over 175m followers.
Finally, there's Sainsbury's Twitter, shutting down the tired question, 'Where is white history day?', and a threated boycott from Billy Piper's ex, with the explicit message 'We proudly represent and serve our diverse society and anyone that doesn't want to shop with an inclusive retailer is welcome to shop elsewhere'.