We’re marketers and copywriters. We’re always supposed to know what to say, what to write and how to deliver a message, but recently, we find ourselves coming up short. We haven’t posted on social media this week, not because we don’t support Black Lives Matter, but because it felt like social media bandwagoning. It felt like a move to check the proverbial box and award ourselves a warm, fuzzy participation ribbon.

We are a group of predominantly white women, complete with our very own Karen and in more than 10 years of business, we can’t think of one discussion we’ve had about race. While we’ve employed Black designers and interns over the years, our team is hardly the rainbow of colors it should be.

Since founding R&R in 2008, our lexicon has revolved around how we practice what we preach, how we don’t rest on our laurels and how it’s important to be, create and do awesome. Unfortunately, in regard to race relations, we’ve not been awesome.

We know that this isn’t the first time America has had a conversation about racism, but this is the first time we’re having it at R&R. So please bear with us as we work through our own internal conversations.

Over the next few months we’ll be developing long-term, sustainable ways that we as a team can do better as a family, as an agency and as a member of the greater community when it comes to systematic racism and the support of equity and visibility of all people.