EXCLUSIVE: Rachael Hawk, in her second year at Facebook, influenced one of the most powerful companies in the world to better support Black people and their businesses
Facebook’s wants you to #BuyBlack on Black Friday. Rachael Hawk is the reason why.
Hawk’s pain birthed an idea that’s helping Black owned-small businesses get through a second pandemic holiday season.
Put it this way, in case you didn’t catch the magic. A Black 28-year-old woman, in her second year working at Facebook, fresh from her hometown of Jacksonville Florida, influenced one of the most powerful companies in the world to better support Black people and their businesses. She did it when being Black in America was especially exhausting, during the summer of 2020.
She was vulnerable in the workplace. Gasp! This is territory Black women have to tiptoe around, or avoid all together, at work because of stereotypes about us. Basically, we are expected to be ironclad. But summer 2020 tried our lives (literally) and women like Hawk had to do something about it — no matter the outcome.
“I think Black people are careful about — really any diverse people — are careful about how vulnerable we are in the workplace,” she explained to theGrio. “Because, I’ll just speak for myself, I was raised to do good work at work and leave my personal life at home. And this is exactly opposite of that.”
“Bringing all the emotions, the sadness, some of the anger, all of that into work. So it was kind of against my own core programming, which I think is shared by a lot of diverse people.”
Hawk was already in position to help her cause at the time. She was a marketing manager on Facebook’s Small Business team and spent her days working on how the company can better support diverse businesses globally. But, she wanted to turn the department’s attention to helping Black-owned businesses in the U.S. specifically.
She had research showing how Black businesses were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and now, a racial reckoning was unfolding. With that in mind, she brought a brainstorming team together to see how the department could better support Black businesses.
She had the attention of the board room already. America was talking about and watching the murder of George Floyd, the death of Breonna Taylor and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Now, she needed buy-in from her colleagues.
“It was scary because I didn’t really want to pitch it,” Hawk tells theGrio. “I thought that it should be the person I was working with. His name is Remi, he’s my friend and he’s on my team. I thought he would be better to do it because he’s more senior than me. He does a great job at this, but he encouraged me to present. Then he helped me prep. So I presented it to our VP and then our VP took it to [Facebook COO] Sheryl Sandberg.”
Hawk says this is what male allyship looks like.
“If you actually want to help support women who are around you, you can literally give up opportunities that you think they would be equally suited for, better suited for, which is certainly a sacrifice,” she adds. “This would have been a great opportunity for him.”
The presentation went well. Multiple departments within Facebook signed up to help, but Hawk had no idea the magnitude the #BuyBlack campaign would have, and she certainly didn’t think it would continue for a second year.
#BuyBlack Friday aired every Friday in November in 2021 and will air its last show on Nov. 26 on the site’s Shop tab. Hosted by New York Times best-selling author, journalist and television host Elaine Welteroth, the experience allows you to celebrate Black culture, get to know the brand’s founders and buy products without leaving the broadcast.
More than 15 million people tuned into the show last holiday season. #BuyBlack Friday will soon be global with programming kicking off in Brazil and Australia this month.
Hawk won’t say it, but I will. If she wouldn’t have responded to her discomfort and pain in a proactive way, Facebook’s #BuyBlack Friday campaign likely wouldn’t exist today. She’s the brainchild.
I also think it’s good for us to see what it really looks like to bring forth a calling on your life. It’s clear she’s part of a larger purpose to uplift marginalized people of color and their businesses. It wasn’t a dream or a side hustle. It was a part of her identity and she had the courage to give a piece of herself to her work. Quite a masterclass in learning how to live out your purpose in your career.
Here are three tips from Hawk on how to bring your idea to life in the workplace:
Get comfortable with leading without authority
“The way this happened was sort of leading people with an idea or a concept of something. The authority doesn’t come from a position. It comes from an idea or a thought. So I would say lean into that, if you can. As a young person, that’s probably the leverage that’ll work most successfully for you.”
2. Have a strong point of view
“I think #BuyBlack is the first of one of these programs, just because myself and my teammate are Black. I think that we have very strong opinions and feelings about the Black community. I think it requires being able to not only have those POVs, but express them clearly and in rooms where people might not be familiar or comfortable with those types of POVs. Settle into just being able to strongly communicate your thoughts, whatever you’re passionate about.”
3. Build relationships
“I think there’s another reason why #BuyBlack spread the way it did around the company: very small relationship building. So that means meetings with people, one-on-one, get to know them and get to know what their goals are. When it’s time for you to enroll them in your program, you can make a shared goal.”
You can learn more about #BuyBlack Friday on their website.
Have you subscribed to the Grio podcasts, ‘Dear Culture’ or Acting Up? Download our newest episodes now!
TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. Download theGrio today!
The post This Black woman at Facebook is why the tech giant is encouraging users to buy Black appeared first on TheGrio.
The public health impact of both COVID-19 and systemic racism continues to wreak havoc in Black communities. Even as circumstances […] The post Buying Black on Black Friday and during the holidays isn’t just good business, it’s a moral imperative appeared first on TheGrio.
We still found some shoppers at Wilson Farm in Lexington, Massachusetts, making last minute runs for turkeys, pies, flowers and anything else needed for their Thanksgiving feasts.
It sure felt like a lynching. There was no noose but those three White men chased Ahmaud Arbery, a jogger […] The post Justice for Arbery: White privilege in Deep South wasn’t enough to save McMichaels and Bryan appeared first on TheGrio.
In March 2014, 8-year-old Relisha Rudd, who had been living with her family at a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C., went missing. The second-grader was last seen alive on the day of her disappearance: Cameras caught her entering a motel room with 51-year-old Kahlil Tatum, a janitor at the shelter who had served long stints in prison. Tatum had been considered a family friend by Rudd's mother, Shamika Young, who called him a "godfather" and had allowed the little girl to spend time with the ol
Several members of the Sikh community whose lives were affected by the FedEx shooting are seeking compensation from the city.
Credit card debt is a lot like body weight: It adds up when you're not paying attention and can be hard to get rid of. Once credit card debt has crept up, your monthly budget may feel too tight to pay more than the monthly minimum payment. There is no industry-wide interest rate or even an agreed-upon way to calculate the minimum payment.
The five states bordering the Pacific Ocean each feature unique characteristics that appeal to the people who settle there. Despite their vast differences, the states have one thing in common. They…
Ahmaud Arbery's mother woke up Thursday with a new, very important blessing on Thanksgiving Day. It is a reminder that while she feels justice was served when the three white men who helped shoot her son were convicted Wednesday for cornering and killing him as he ran through a coastal Georgia neighborhood, she will never be made whole again because her son is gone.
Most of us know someone grieving, and the depths of our grief for them can become the wellsprings of our thanksgiving.
Hannah Brown and Peter Weber reunited after their time on "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," but they didn't have the same spark, Brown says.
The bookseller seemingly takes a stand against “she who shall not be named” and her transphobic comments.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos GettyIn the aftermath of the contested 2020 vote, Trump’s biggest election-fraud cheerleaders—Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, and Michael Flynn—were a tight crew. But the MAGA clique’s now in trouble, as they turn on each other with wild accusations and petty infighting.The drama started after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, when the teen accused Wood of “botching the case or trying not to get him out of jail,” Fever Dreams co-host Will Sommer explains. “And t
The author of "Santa's Husband" tells Yahoo Life that while the conservative's attack isn't surprising, it is helping to ignite a broader conversation.
Fans have countless questions after watching Virgin River season three. What happened to…
Before conservatives weaponized critical race theory, a violent 1974 clash over school books helped Republicans rebrand to appeal to white workers A protest in August 2021 in Frankfort, Kentucky, where demonstrators objected to the teaching of critical race theory. Photograph: Jon Cherry/Getty Images In the past year, opposition to critical race theory has become a conservative rallying cry at school board meetings across the US. And it recently spurred white voter turnout in Virginia’s gubernat
Claims in a book about President Vladimir Putin that billionaire Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea Football Club on the orders of the Kremlin to spread Russian influence in Britain are defamatory, a British judge ruled on Wednesday. In the 2020 book, British journalist Catherine Belton chronicles Putin's rise to power and how many of his associates from the former Soviet spy services rose to positions of wealth and influence after he won the top Kremlin job in 1999. A lawyer for Abramovich had argued in court that passages in the book "Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West", published by HarperCollins, were clearly defamatory.
The man convicted in the 1981 rape of author Alice Sebold, a crime chronicled in Sebold’s 1999 memoir Lucky, was exonerated of the charges Monday in New York State Supreme Court. The conviction of Anthony Broadwater was overturned, with Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick saying, the conviction “should never have happened,” according to a […]
It’s time for Iowans, who have always prized their public schools, to rally behind teachers and school districts.
Emily Ratajkowski, model and New York Times bestselling author, told her followers "shaming" almost stopped her posting photos from the CFDA Awards.
Authors Stephanie Matolyak and Deborah Bailey will be donating proceeds to the Dessin Animal Shelter from the Christmas sales of their book A Farm Animals’ Christmas.

source