How We Came To Create A "Black Paper"

It was October 2022, just a few months after the launch of Mission Equality, and Lea and I were having one of our many conversations. Lea is a visionary and the magical inspiration behind the company’s biggest ideas. She was sharing her idea for setting out our goals and vision so people could connect with them.

“Sounds like you have the makings of a white paper,” I said.

“Let’s call it a Black Paper,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “Whiteness is everywhere. It’s exhausting.”

That’s how the tagline for our first Black Paper ended up as “why should everything be white”, and pretty much everyone who downloaded it thought it was a good flex.

Lea and I use our skills in harmony - and one of mine is translating her grand vision into writing. So I wrote, and she tweaked, and we discussed, and shared it with the team and then with the world.

Of course, we never stand still at Mission Equality. As it turned out, that first Black Paper was mainly about business and leadership, and we wanted to create one that set out an even bigger vision.

So earlier this year, we started again - this time setting out an alternative to capitalism that would lead to the creation of an equal world. We call it Equalism. Getting there may not be simple or easy but it’s necessary, because what we’re doing now isn’t working for most of us. We’re killing ourselves and our planet while the rich get richer and everyone else suffers from unsustainable systems.

The idea of the Black Paper is not to claim we have all the answers - who could? It’s to ask many of the right questions and get people thinking and talking and, most importantly, acting.

It will take all of us so we invite you to read, comment, question - let’s keep talking so we can create an equal world together.

We’re going to be sharing some of the key ideas from the Black Paper, and inviting discussion, on social media and in this newsletter. We hope you’ll join in, or take the Black Paper to your own circles and start discussions there.

(And if you want to know how we’re getting started, come talk to us about how Mission Equality works as a company and how we’re facilitating a new type of leadership on the path to equality.)

#MissionEquality #MissionEqualityCIC #BlackPaper #Equality

[Image description: White bold text on a black background reading “How Our Black Paper On Equalism Got Its Name (and its tagline)”. The text sits above an image of the table of contents of the Black Paper on Equalism. Below that is the Mission Equality rainbow shield logo and the following URL: missionequality.com/about/black-paper/]