sting like a bee

When I was young, my father was a huge fan of Muhammad Ali. He would watch his fights as if they were in a student/teacher relationship of epic proportion. As a long haul truck driver, my dad spent most mornings when he was home, glued to the television set memorizing Ali's moves, which then meant that most mornings my dad was home, I was perched on his lap, taking in the greatness of one of the most skilled fighters of all time.

But, as is often my approach to life, landing a punch wasn't holding my attention as much as the man standing in Ali's corner. I've always been enamored with the people cheering on the sidelines. Who they're cheering for... how they decided this person was worth their time, passion, and energy... and then, especially in the case of Drew "Bundini" Brown, how they go about their cheering? 

If you ever watch an Ali fight, Bundini, without swinging his fists, is just as intense as Ali. His yelling and chanting and absolute ferocious advocacy for the man he had aligned himself with... it was a sight to behold. In fact, he was often penalized by refs for being too intense... for yelling too loud, for comments that landed wrong, for not letting up after multiple warnings.

And y'all... here I am... 35+ years later... trying to figure out how to channel the inner Bundini of our small company. As down-sized, immunocompromised, makers of esoteric tools like journals, we're watching the Black, Indigenous and People of Color in our community roil with hurt, demanding relief, and... needing people in their corner. 

So, in the spirit of Bundini, knowing that we're likely to offend, facing the possibility that we might incur consequence from missteps ourselves, we want to say clearly that we are standing in the corner of the marginalized. Attic Journals exists for people to tell their story... all people... all stories.

We have long been fighting for the Latino community... for equity in the work place, for just policies that address humanitarian crises before political posturing, for an education system that insures that multilingual children's challenges aren't labeled behavior problems before they're considered language learning barriers. 

But these past few weeks have helped us understand that we haven't been fighting for the stories of all people and we want to do our part to change that... in our daily lives & by utilizing our product & platform to help. We just added a BLACK LIVES MATTER garland to our site. 100% of the proceeds from that garland will always benefit the advancement of rights & opportunities for People of Color. At this time these funds will be given to The American Civil Liberties Union. 

It is our hope that by supporting an organization that fights for the marginalized, particularly of People of Color, we will widen our advocacy and begin to channelling our inner Bundini.