Ending racism in business: 'We've still got work to do'

Jamelia Donaldson, who appears in Spending Black: The Currency of Community?, talks about overcoming racism in the world of business.

Jamelia Donaldson founded her hair care business to allow "black women to shop safely and peacefully when buying hair products," she explains.

"It was to fill a gap in the market.

"We don't want to be followed around in a store while we are shopping for hair products, so we wanted to create that safe space for black women and their hair.

"Because black women deserve it."

Jamelia set up TreasureTress, an online black hair subscription box company, in 2015.

One survey, external from an international beauty company suggests shoppers from minority groups are more likely to shop online than in-store, so they can avoid racial profiling and being falsely accused of shoplifting.

Jamelia features in the new BBC documentary Spending Black: The Currency of Community? exploring the challenges faced by black entrepreneurs in the UK.

The 30-year-old business owner argues that big changes are needed so that enterprises like hers can succeed.

"It is facts," she tells BBC Three. "We are only part of a very long chain and the rest of that chain are not black or black owned and there are a lot of processes and structural changes that need to be made in order for black businesses to be seen.

"Institutional racism is institutional for real. It goes back far and it goes back deep. We've still got a lot of work to do."

For example, a recent survey reported in The Independent suggests less than half of Britain's black business owners, external - 43% - trust banks to support their interests.

Other businesses in the documentary include Seyi, a landscape gardener who started his business in the pandemic and who says his success comes from people making a conscious effort to use black businesses, and the clothing company Elsie and Fred, which is run by three working-class black siblings.

Some business in the UK take part in Black Pound Day, which was founded by musician Swiss, from garage collective So Solid Crew, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests.

The idea is for people to make a deliberate effort to spend money at black-owned businesses, either physically or online, on the first Saturday of every month.

"I wanted to kind of redirect the energy and create something positive out of that frustration," Swiss said. "That's what Black Pound Day is about. I'm not telling anyone to boycott any business or not spend with other businesses. I'm just saying make a concerted effort to seek out your local black business in your area."

■ 'Brands thought black didn't sell'

■ 'Stop using our pain to attract black consumers'

Landscaper Seyi - who lost two jobs in the space of three months at the beginning of the pandemic - took the leap of starting his own business in the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

From then, he went viral and made more than £10,000 in a couple of months. He says 95% of that income came from the black community. In fact, according to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the Black British community has a spending power of £300bn.

Jamelia, who is based in north London, says she and her team had always promoted and prioritised the black community.

"I did have a conversation with my team the day after George Floyd had died and I was like 'Guys, what are we going to do?'

"But they were very vocal in saying, 'We don't need to change anything. We are going to continue to do what we are doing.'

"If anything, it reminded me that we must keep doing what we are doing. As long as we remain authentic and true, then we are serving the purpose of our business."

It's estimated that of the 5.9m businesses in the UK, only 40,000 of them were black owned in 2020 - and that minority and ethnic businesses contribute an estimated £74bn to the UK economy.

Another survey from Business in the Community - a British business community outreach charity - published in 2020 suggested that black people held just 1.5% of the 3.7m leadership positions across the UK's public and private sectors in 2019.

Jamelia says she deliberately puts black female employees in positions of leadership in her company - because her business is trying to reach black women consumers.

"We can't just have anyone doing these roles," she says.

"If we as a brand are going to serve black women, we need to have those key decision makers be black. I don't want to compromise on authenticity."

And Jamelia hopes that initiatives like Black Pound Day will continue.

"We saw a coming together of the black British community to show that we are powerful and building our own tables.

"So, I do think it is important that Black Pound Day happens every month. If it was just one month of the year like Black History Month then we won't have that visibility and they will forget about us.

"We need that consistency because it helps normalise shopping black and [that] there are black business owners and black shoppers."

Spending Black: The Currency of Community? is available on BBC iPlayer.