At many large corporations, Juneteenth was finally recognized as a holiday. For Koshie Mills, this does not go far enough. For real change to take place, she believes that we need to invest in healing conversations to create a foundation for true progress.
Nike, Lyft, Mastercard, and Spotify are among many top companies that have made Juneteenth a paid holiday for their employees. This larger step comes after individuals and brands expressed solidarity by posting a black square on Instagram on #BlackoutTuesday on June 2nd. These are welcome initiatives, but Koshie Mills wants to say to the companies, “put up or shut up.”
Koshie Mills is the Ghanaian Ambassador for TV, Film, Arts and Culture, a Hollywood power-broker, the Founder of The Diaspora Dialogues, and the mother of three successful actors. Mills says, “If companies want to invest in what’s going on right now with Black Lives Matter, I really truly believe that they need to look at the root cause of the issue. If you say you’re about my life mattering, you also need to invest in real spaces that matter for us to get whole again. You must invest in spaces, like The Diaspora Dialogues, that are created to unpack all the atrocities and wounds that have been instilled upon us.”
In the United States, the system does not treat everyone with equity. “It is beyond just police brutality. It’s housing. It’s access to healthcare as we’ve seen in COVID-19 affecting African-Americans at a greater rate,” said Mills. Floyd’s death was the catalyst that pushed the system out of inertia, not just in the U. S., but around the world. There have been marches from Paris to Accra to Auckland. “We have over 200 million bodies that are ready to challenge the system now. These are people that I dreamed about. I visualized in my spirit, my heart, and my soul. I knew that if we can mobilize these people, we can come to a better place as Africans outside of the continent working together with those inside the continent,” said Mills. The legacies of slavery and colonialism have created a diaspora of nearly 200M people of African heritage living around the world, primarily in the Americas. These two legacies also can make it difficult for Africans living in Africa to work hand-in-hand with the Diaspora to create positive, systemic change.
