Our Commitment

At GEM, we believe in a more just future – one where black lives unequivocally matter. As a health food company, we’re acutely aware of the structural racism and discrimination that beget the inequities in our health system. And that’s just one piece of the puzzle. We’re aware that as a company, we have a powerful voice and platform, and have a responsibility to use it.

We commit to creating an anti-racist culture where hate and discrimination have no place.

We commit to changing our behavior and standing up for systemic injustices.

We commit to unlearning and relearning, gathering perspectives and getting informed.

We commit to having hard, uncomfortable conversations and to taking responsibility for privileges.

We commit to understanding structural racism and the history that got us here.

We commit to educating ourselves on elected officials’ policies and voting for leaders that defend our civil liberties.

We commit to supporting black-owned local businesses.

We commit to standing up and saying enough is enough.

In accordance with these steadfast commitments, we believe changes need to happen both on an individual and company level. Today, we are proud that every full time employee at GEM has personally donated to an organization of their choice as just one way to take action, and our company has matched each and every one of those personal donations. We further our efforts by gathering a list of resources below where we can continue to educate ourselves, engage, and take action.

We’d love to use this space and our GEM Women group for members of our community to have a voice. Please comment below if you have other resources that you’d like to share with everyone. We have work to do and we are listening.

In solidarity,

Team GEM

Get Informed

• Examining the Impact of Structural Racism on Food Security
• How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change
• Ted Talk on fighting racism and improving policing
• Food Equity: How Structural Racism Reduces Sustainability in the Food System
• Baratunde's World-Saving Bookshop
• How to Be Anti-Racist by Ibran X. Kendi
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• White Fragility, Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Engage & Take Action

• Local Black owned food businesses in LA
• ACLU Nationwide
• NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• Color of Change
• Black Futures Lab
• Center for Policing Equity
• Movement for Black Lives

Organizations We've Donated To

• NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• Black Visions Collective
• ACLU
• Campaign Zero
• The Loveland Foundation
• Lawyers For Children
• Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law
• BEAM

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash