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A Letter From Our Co-Founders: Our Commitment To Change
Dear barre3 Community,
This has been a week of deep introspection, listening, and learning. We see clearly how pervasive racism is in our systems, in our homes, in our workplaces, in wellness, and at barre3.
Our first step is to be honest, transparent, and accountable about how we have participated in systemic racism. It starts with us, the co-founders of barre3. We are both white leaders with privilege, and we are actively learning how our implicit white bias has led to our organization’s makeup being predominantly white. This needs to change.
A mantra you may have heard us say in class is guiding us right now: “Whatever it is you practice, you become.” We recognize that we have practiced white bias, which has led to inequality within our organization. Instead, we will practice challenging our own white bias every day. We will practice confronting the cycle of systemic racism in our own company. We will practice building a community that better reflects racial equality at barre3. A practice is not a performance; it is a lifetime commitment to education, listening, learning from mistakes, being self-aware, and continually taking steps for real change.
Here are the actions we’ve taken over the past week:
- We’ve hosted open conversations with our team about our participation in systemic racism and our commitment to change.
- We’ve increased our investment in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and have identified our top-three candidates for EDI advisors. We will make our final selection by the end of the month.
- We compiled a guide of antiracism resources and distributed it across our corporate and studio teams to begin the ongoing process of educating ourselves as individuals and as a company.
- We donated 100% of proceeds from June 3rd’s sales in the B3 Shop to Black Lives Matter, for a total donation of $14,587.
- On Saturday, June 6th, proceeds from all classes held in our corporate-run studios in Portland and New York were donated to Word is Bond and the NAACP.
- We started a barre3 antiracism book club, where we’ll read and discuss a different book focused on race and racial injustice each month. Our book for June is So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo.
Moving forward, here are the long-term commitments we’re making to create sustainable change from the inside out:
- We are investing in EDI training for system-wide change at barre3.
- We will continue to be honest and transparent about our work in this area.
- We will hold ourselves accountable and not rely on members of the BIPOC community to be responsible for our antiracist education.
We will continue to provide updates and transparency as we learn and grow together. We invite you to bookmark this page and return to it regularly to check in on our progress.
With gratitude and open hearts and minds, thank you for joining us in our practice and our commitment to real change.
Black Lives Matter.
Sadie and Chris Lincoln
Dear barre3 Community,
This has been a week of deep introspection, listening, and learning. We see clearly how pervasive racism is in our systems, in our homes, in our workplaces, in wellness, and at barre3.
Our first step is to be honest, transparent, and accountable about how we have participated in systemic racism. It starts with us, the co-founders of barre3. We are both white leaders with privilege, and we are actively learning how our implicit white bias has led to our organization’s makeup being predominantly white. This needs to change.
A mantra you may have heard us say in class is guiding us right now: “Whatever it is you practice, you become.” We recognize that we have practiced white bias, which has led to inequality within our organization. Instead, we will practice challenging our own white bias every day. We will practice confronting the cycle of systemic racism in our own company. We will practice building a community that better reflects racial equality at barre3. A practice is not a performance; it is a lifetime commitment to education, listening, learning from mistakes, being self-aware, and continually taking steps for real change.
Here are the actions we’ve taken over the past week:
- We’ve hosted open conversations with our team about our participation in systemic racism and our commitment to change.
- We’ve increased our investment in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and have identified our top-three candidates for EDI advisors. We will make our final selection by the end of the month.
- We compiled a guide of antiracism resources and distributed it across our corporate and studio teams to begin the ongoing process of educating ourselves as individuals and as a company.
- We donated 100% of proceeds from June 3rd’s sales in the B3 Shop to Black Lives Matter, for a total donation of $14,587.
- On Saturday, June 6th, proceeds from all classes held in our corporate-run studios in Portland and New York were donated to Word is Bond and the NAACP.
- We started a barre3 antiracism book club, where we’ll read and discuss a different book focused on race and racial injustice each month. Our book for June is So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo.
Moving forward, here are the long-term commitments we’re making to create sustainable change from the inside out:
- We are investing in EDI training for system-wide change at barre3.
- We will continue to be honest and transparent about our work in this area.
- We will hold ourselves accountable and not rely on members of the BIPOC community to be responsible for our antiracist education.
We will continue to provide updates and transparency as we learn and grow together. We invite you to bookmark this page and return to it regularly to check in on our progress.
With gratitude and open hearts and minds, thank you for joining us in our practice and our commitment to real change.
Black Lives Matter.
Sadie and Chris Lincoln
