“And yet I was debt free by June 5, 2015 and in 2015 my taxable income, it was like $23,000, ya know, not very much money. So you could easily point to my story and say, ‘Well, she did it. She bootstrapped.’ Ya know, now I have a business; I make middle class income. I control my time and I can easily be seen as a success story. But the flip side of that is well, I’m white-passing, I’m able-bodied, I speak unaccented English. When people look at me, they trust me so it was easier for me to get a job. I was healthy enough that I could work five different part time jobs seven days a week, I didn’t have a child I needed to care for. I was able to take these risks and do this sort of scrappy (laughter) debt pay off journey because of the layers of privilege. So I like to say, ‘I call bullshit on my own bootstrap narrative.’”
Read More“How can you really practice feminism if the people at the top are not diverse. Is this? Let’s look at where the money is going and if it’s not going back into the pockets of women, and people of color, and non-binary people, and people all over the world. Is this really, truly diverse? And I would argue that it’s not. We’re just keeping the flow of money going in the same direction it’s always gone in. Ya know? It’s just another brand of white supremacy and patriarchy to see that the people who hold the power are profiting off of these concepts that we’re all, ya know, really trying to sort of insert into our lives in more equitable ways. Basically I see a lot of brands that are using the phrase, but not walking the walk at all and I think we should be more aware of that as consumers.”
Read More“So I feel, and I’ve been doing a lot of research as far as reaching out to my black friends and family and finding out. do they have a bad taste because it’s direct sales, or is it Sseko or is it the mission? What exactly is preventing them from wanting to join or be a part or be a customer of Sseko?” {Carisa Montgomery}
“Yeah Carisa when you were just talking about the solution of the problem being inviting more people to our community and being more inclusive, I’m thinking about two of the aspects of Sseko which are one of my favorite parts of being a Sseko Fellow which are our Design and our Impact Councils. So on the Design Council we get to offer our suggestions for future catalogs. A lot of the things we are making now are a direct byproduct of the suggestions that are being made in that space. And we also have an Impact and Connection Council where we talk about the best way to foster connection between the women who are involved in Sseko here in the United States and our women in East Africa.” {Taylor Trenchard}
Read More“Well I think that fashion is a way that people express themselves. So I think that when there’s this divide between not being able to find clothing you identify with, you start feeling discluded (not included), and like, not part of a society or group.”
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