In a release on Wednesday, Tony Xu, CEO and co-founder of DoorDash, announced that the food delivery service will be using their platform to highlight and support Black-owned businesses and Black entrepreneurs on both DoorDash and Caviar.
The food courier company has also made a sizeable donation of $1 million, with $500,000 going to Black Lives Matter and the other $500,000 to create a fund directed by the Black@DoorDash Employee Resource Group (ERG) towards state and local organizations.
"As the leader of a company whose mission is to empower local economies, I believe that DoorDash also has a responsibility to take action toward creating what we want to see realized in the communities around us," says Xu. "Silence and inaction equal consent, so we commit to speaking up and taking action to fight injustice, inequality and discrimination".
In partnership with the Black@DoorDash ERG, Xu also announced that the company has devised an action plan which includes reform within the company policies and structure to provide more job opportunities for Black people and other POC, address social issues facing Black Dashers including safety and access, deconstruct systemic racism, bias and discrimination within the company, on the platform and in the community.
Most notably, the company will be introducing a Dashers of Colour Council that will work closely with experts and the community to identify ways to combat implicit and explicit racial discrimination and advance justice and inclusion on all fronts of the company.
In order to create change, we must break down the structures and policies that uphold systemic racism and inequality. It is our civil responsibility to bear the burden of oppression our Black communities have faced for centuries. We must listen and learn from the lived experiences of the marginalized and use our voices, our platforms and our privilege, to uplift and amplify the voices of Black people who have been silenced throughout history. We must be leaders and trail blazers within our own communities by doing the work and paving the way to a better tomorrow for future generations to come.
