In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, he challenges Americans to grapple with basic questions about our national character. So, where do we go from here?

It’s been a week of outrage, grief and confusion. And yet, in moments like this, I carry the same relentless optimism of my immigrant parents and generations before me. As we feel this pain, I believe this is also the beginning of a social and economic transformation. And as a passionate brand strategist, I believe brands can be powerful vehicles of change – they hold the stories and values that can shape society and shift culture toward progress.

For years, working with brands on purpose-led communications, there have been many issues that are raised consistently: climate change, economic empowerment, gender equality and even mental health. Then there’s the issue that’s uncomfortable and almost always avoided: racism.

That is, until this week when the world watched George Floyd’s murder on video, catalyzing a racial justice movement, and for many, an awakening to the reality of race in America.

While brands like Ben & Jerry’s have a long history of supporting Black Lives Matter and continue to lead the way, many household names are just joining the cause. Brands like Sony, Coca-Cola, Apple, Lululemon or Chick-fil-A are pledging their support, signaling that as a culture, we might finally be at a tipping point. Difficult conversations about race are now expected to take place in our living rooms and our boardrooms. And when the country lacks real leadership in its highest office, this week demonstrates that people are looking to brands to model the behavior that governments and institutions are failing to provide.

Not long after the wave of brand responses came the parodies, poking at the empty gestures and the shallow bravery of ‘standing against injustice’ in words but not deeds. This inherent skepticism points us to an important truth: this work cannot end with a superficial campaign or social media post that risks causing more harm to Black communities and deepening the loss of faith and trust that people have with brands.

“History is calling the future from the streets of protest. What choice will we make? What world will we create? What will we be? There are only two choices: racist or anti-racist.” – Ibram X. Kendi

How might brands approach the work of anti-racism?

First, it’s worth starting at the beginning. Race is a social construct created by slave traders in 1444 to rationalize the buying and selling of Black bodies for profit. The same Black bodies that built the America we know today. White supremacy is baked into the very foundation of capitalism, our economy, and our way of life. And unravelling these systems will take long-term, messy work.

My experience working in microfinance in South Africa – a country with its own history of brutality and beauty, trauma and triumphs, truth and reconciliation – taught me the principles of restorative justice. In these principles are lessons for how brands might work through this moment:

1. Reckoning – What if we hold a mirror to ourselves and recognize where, and how, our own work, brands and businesses have perpetuated structural racism?

“We need to reckon with our history of racial injustice. I think everything we are seeing is a symptom of a larger disease.” – Bryan Stevenson

In order to heal, we must first acknowledge the harm. Examining company history, and more importantly the legacy of that history, is a critical first step to meaningful reconciliation. That legacy often becomes most visible when we examine the makeup of the leadership team.

“The best place to start is to find what are the active campaigns against you? Who are the activist organizations making demands? Resolve those actions.” – Rashad Robinson

Even with supposed positive progress on social and environmental goals, every company is complicit in systems of oppression. Creating spaces for unheard voices and bridging new partnerships that will hold brands accountable is an essential way forward. For AirBnB, the realization of racial discrimination on their platform sparked a company-wide reflection on implicit bias. Partnering with outside experts, AirBnB went through a three-year review coming out with detailed changes they made to their own policies and platform culminating in a new vision for their work, new non-discrimination rules on their platform and a new brand purpose to guide their future. This work is urgent, but if rushed, risks a misstep or perceived opportunism from consumers.

2. Reparations – What if we seek to right the wrongs of structural racism by investing in Black communities and people?

“Something more than moral pressure calls America to reparations. We cannot escape our history. All of our solutions to the great problems of health care, education, housing, and economic inequality are troubled by what must go unspoken.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates

The original purpose of reparations was to give former slaves the means to be self-sustaining. Instead, white-led violence and Jim Crow policies decimated communities and did the opposite. After a deep reckoning, what would it look like for brands to repair the inequities that got us here?

It could be a financial company providing Black families with new paths to home-ownership as reparations for generations of red-lining; a technology company providing education funds and student-loan debt repayment as reparations for declining investments in education; a beauty company investing in emerging Black-owned beauty brands as reparations for a lack of access to venture funding; an apparel company promoting Black designers and board members as reparations for decades of profiting off of their culture and people. These commitments go beyond a CSR platform and represent a fundamental shift in business priorities – disrupting internal systems to heal past wounds and eliminate future harm.

3. Rebirth – What if we build a new economic system that places value on all human life?

“This old system does not value our humanity. But a new system is being born. This new system serves a 21st century model of leadership whose purpose is to create value for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. And this new system will help us live into our full potential as human beings.” – Jay Coen Gilbert

Brands have the power to change the rules and restructure systems towards equity and mutual respect. The B-Corp movement is one of many models that proves we can build entities that are not just socially responsible, but socially accountable.

In practice, the path to reconciliation is an ongoing process that may never be finished. But in a moment of unprecedented, compounding crises, we have a choice. We can lean on the same systems and institutions that got us here. Or we can bring relentless optimism to imagine beyond the limits of today and birth a new future.

So, where do we go from here?

Amanda Yogendran is a strategy director at BBMG, facilitator at Barnard College in Design Thinking and filmmaker

Photo by Clay Banks