At Moon Bath we are committed to listening, learning, reflecting, engaging in tough conversations and taking ACTION.

We are taking time to reeducate ourselves, and in doing so, we know it’s important to listen to and elevate voices from the Black community. To take immediate action in response to recent events, we have engaged in protesting, signing petitions, sending emails, making phone calls, and making personal donations to various organizations in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement. 

As a company, we want to do more. We’ve committed to donating 30% of TOTAL sales for the month of June to organizations working to disrupt systemic oppression and institutional racism.

For the first two weeks we donated to Campaign Zero in support of their efforts for police reform and defunding while moving towards abolishment.

For the second half of June, we donated to Black Futures Lab, a Black-female founded organization that seeks to engage advocacy organizations and legislators to advance local, state and federal-level policies that make Black communities stronger.

STAYING ENGAGED

We recognize that this is an evolving movement and we are committed to staying engaged long term. 

As an ongoing effort we are committed to the following actions:

• We will vote with our dollars by investing them in elevating the Black community by partnering with Black artists, photographers, models, writers, producers, creators etc. 

• We will use our platform to amplify Black voices and share resources that support the dismantling of oppression through our social media, website and marketing campaigns.

• We will use the Journal on our website to feature Black bloggers within the wellness community.

• We will feature more Black Moon Mystics and highlight their work in the world.

• We are committed to having tough conversations within our personal and professional white community — including with fellow makers and influencers — and to holding ourselves accountable in our continued reflection and learning.

• We will reassess our existing retail relationships and brand representation and hold them to higher standards of accountability around their ethics standards.

• We are prepared to terminate relationships that do not align with our values, even to the detriment of our business.

RESOURCES

Here are some of the resources with which we are actively engaging:

• Books

  • Me and My White Supremacy by Layla F Saad

  • Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem

  • How to be Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

  • Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

  • The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

• Podcasts

  • 1619 — New York Times

  • Code Switch — NPR

  • Pod Save the People

  • The Breakdown 

• Films / Shows

  • Just Mercy

  • 13th

  • LA 92

  • Dear White People

• Social Media 

  • Rachel Cargle — @rachel.cargle / @thegreatunlearn

  • Shaun King — @shaunking / @grassrootslaw

  • Build Power — @bldpwr

  • Black Futures Lab — @blackfutureslab

  • Campaign Zero — @campaignzero

We highly recommend sourcing these resources in the most supportive and respectful way to the creator and when possible from independent shops.

FEEDBACK

This is an open and fluid dialogue, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions as we grow and evolve. Please feel free to reach out to hello@moonbath.com with thoughts and ideas for how we could be doing better. 

WHY CAMPAIGN ZERO? #8CANTWAIT

June 2020 kicked off a long overdue wake up call for most of the white population here in America. At Moon Bath, we were compelled to educate ourselves on tangible solutions to end police violence and in that quest found Campaign Zero. These guys are DOPE! This website is an incredibly comprehensive outline of the problem, the solution and their specific response to feedback received. The planning team behind CZ is a powerful and dynamic trio deeply entrenched in activism, data science, social justice leadership and education. These babes are SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE and we are honored to be able to support them.

UPDATE: As the movement grows, evolves and becomes clear in its demands, so too must the organizations that support it. Here is a quote from an article recently written by DeRay Mckessen, one of the co-founders of Campaign Zero, read full article here.

“The strategy to protect lives now and move toward abolition is two-fold: reduce the power of the police and shrink the role of law enforcement right now without hesitation. These strategies happen simultaneously — this is both/and not either/or. By reducing the power of the police through use of force, we begin to mitigate the harm that they can inflict in communities today.” — DeRay

Their website is a wealth of knowledge and we highly recommend taking the time to read through all the information they provide. In the meantime, while many of us are feeling hungry for solutions, we wanted to distill the information down into easily digestible nuggets. 

Please note: all of the following content was created by Campaign Zero and is pulled directly from their website — in a few cases, it is summarized in our own words.

THE PROBLEM: Police Violence in America

THE SOLUTION: A comprehensive package of urgent policy solutions - informed by data, research and human rights principles - can change the way police serve our communities.

1. End Policing of Minor "Broken Windows" Offenses & End Profiling and “stop-and-frisk” 

   • Decriminalize and de-prioritize enforcement of minor “Broken Window” offenses that do not threaten public safety and are often used to police black bodies such as loitering, public consumption of alcohol and marijuana, jaywalking etc.

   • End profiling and "Stop-and-Frisk” by establishing enforceable protections against profiling to prevent police from intervening in civilian lives for no reason other than the "suspicion" of their blackness or other aspects of their identity.

2. Community Oversight 

   • Establish an all-civilian oversight structure with discipline power that includes a Police Commission and Civilian Complaints Office.

     1. A few examples of The Police Commission responsibilities include: discipline and dismiss police officers, hold public disciplinary hearings, receive regular training on policing and civil rights, etc.

     2. A few examples of The Civilian Complaints Office responsibilities include: be allowed to interrogate officers less than 48 hours after an incident where deadly force is used, be housed in a separate location from the police department, make disciplinary and policy recommendations to the Police Chief, etc.

3. Limit Use of Force

   • Establish standards and reporting of police use of deadly force. Examples include: 

     • Authorize deadly force only when there is an imminent threat to an officer's life or the life of another person and such force is strictly unavoidable to protect life as required under International Law.

     • Require officers give a verbal warning, when possible, before using deadly force and give people a reasonable amount of time to comply with the warning.

   • Revise and strengthen local police department use of force policies to protect human life and rights. Examples include:

     • restrict officers from using deadly force unless all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted.

     • use a minimum amount of force to apprehend a subject, with specific guidelines for the types of force and tools authorized for a given level of resistance.

     • ban using force on a person for talking back or as punishment for running away.

4. Independent investigations and prosecutions 

   • Lower the standard of proof for Department of Justice civil rights investigations of police officers

   • Use federal funds to encourage independent investigations and prosecutions

   • Establish a permanent Special Prosecutor's Office at the State level for cases of police violence with requirement to have its Chief Prosecutor chosen from a list of candidates offered by community organizations

   • Require independent investigations of all cases where police kill or seriously injure civilians

5. Community Representation — The police should reflect and be responsive to the cultural, racial and gender diversity of the communities they are supposed to serve.

   • Increase the number of police officers who reflect the communities they serve

   • Use community feedback to inform police department policies and practices

6. Body Cams / Film the Police

   • Require the use of body cameras on police officers - in addition to dashboard cameras - and establish policies governing their use. Examples:

     • allow civilians to review footage of themselves or their relatives and request this be released to the public and stored for at least two years

     • require body and dash cam footage to be stored externally and ensure district attorneys and civilian oversight structures have access to the footage

   • The Right to Record Police 

     • Ban police officers from taking cell phones or other recording devices without a person's consent or warrant and give people the right to sue police departments if they take or destroy these devices.

7. Training — Police recruits spend 58 hours learning how to shoot firearms and only 8 hours learning how to de-escalate situations.

   • Invest in Rigorous and Sustained Training. Examples:

     • Implicit bias

     • Crisis intervention, mediation, conflict resolution, and rumor control

     • Appropriate engagement with LGBTQ, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals

   • Intentionally consider 'unconscious' or 'implicit' racial bias — Require current and prospective police officers to undergo mandatory implicit racial bias testing in consideration of the following decisions:

     • law enforcement certification

     • the hiring process

     • performance evaluations

     • decisions about whether an officer should be deployed to communities of color

8. End for Profit Policing

   • End police department quotas for tickets and arrests

   • Limit fines and fees for low-income people

   • Prevent police from taking the money or property of innocent people

   • Require police departments to bear the cost of misconduct

9. Demilitarization

   • End the Federal Government's 1033 Program Providing Military Weaponry to Local Police Departments

   • Establish Local Restrictions to Prevent Police Departments from Purchasing or Using Military Weaponry 

10. Fair Police Contracts — Police unions have used their influence to establish unfair protections for police officers in their contracts with local, state and federal government and in statewide Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights.

    • Remove barriers to effective misconduct investigations and civilian oversight

    • Keep officers' disciplinary history accessible to police departments and the public

    • Ensure financial accountability for officers and police departments that kill or seriously injure civilians

Now that you’ve taken a bit of a deep dive to learn more about what Campaign Zero outlines as a set of policy solutions that have already been shown to effectively reduce police violence in places that have implemented them, we want to share where your donation goes:

• Collection and analysis of data on policing practices across the country

• Research to identify & raise public awareness about effective policy solutions to end police violence

• Technical assistance and capacity building support for local organizers leading police accountability campaigns 

• Development of model legislative language & subsequent advocacy to enact comprehensive solutions to police violence at every level of government

TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW

Enter your city at #8cantwait (a project by Campaign Zero) to see which of the proposed 8 policies your city has enacted to decrease police violence. Then contact your local officials to let them know EIGHT CAN’T WAIT using the contact information provided.

DONATE directly to Campaign Zero

FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JUNE 2020, we are donated 30% of total sales to Campaign Zero. Thank YOU for joining us in the process of listening, learning and acting.