Website Design for Priestess Harriet Tubman Wright

Conscious business and spiritual marketing are all the buzz these days, especially among women entrepreneurs, and that’s a good thing. Previously nobody cared a hoot about anything in business but the bottom line and brainwashing people to buy stuff.

Now there is a growing sense that business should be more human, that we should be doing good works through our businesses and our marketing. And I really honor that.

So here’s the rub, and I hope I am not the only white girl noticing this: the conscious business movement lacks diversity.

Without naming names, I just want to say there have been several spiritual business and marketing type events in the past year with multiple experts in tow who are almost exclusively white.

Abolitionist Sojourner Truth

Could it be that these women who have spent years doing their inner work, culling out negativity and denial, facing their demons, and owning their stuff, don’t notice that they’re only promoting and listening to Caucasians? Do they believe that white women have the corner on Wisdom?

Considering that all the significant progressive movements in the US during the past 200 years have been started by Black people, and that everything cool and original in white culture originally had a Black, Brown, Yellow or Red face, it’s hard to believe that us progressives could be so color-blind.

I have been secretly growing more and more despondent at this, not knowing what to do about it. Personally, there have been years of my life where I found myself in rather segregated situations where hardly a Black or Brown face could be seen in the crowd. Our culture has done a lot to separate us.

But do we really need to carry this segregation into the conscious business movement, my friends?

Now, I have to own up to something here. I was as guilty as the rest of them. A few years ago I started writing a book where I was interviewing all sorts of experts on how to have a “Client Attraction Breakthrough.” To be honest, I had interviewed about 15 people before I noticed all the folks I’d interviewed were white.

“Argh, this is NOT my commitment,” I told myself and my book coach. “I refuse to be another white girl contributing to the white-washing of spiritual business.”

Website Design for Best Selling Author Iyanla Vanzant

Website Design for Best Selling Author Iyanla Vanzant

So what did I do? I created a different Attraction Plan, and things started to change.
The first thing I did was set my intention to attract Black women; powerful, conscious, global transforming Black women. And I was going to notice who showed up, who had already shown up, and start to cultivate a more diverse scene. I thought about who I could interview for my book and the first person who came to mind was 5-time NYT Best-Selling Author Iyanla Vanzant, “The Guru From The Hood.”

The Universe is a powerful thing. I had only called two people with my intention to attract more Black women and specifically Iyanla Vanzant when I got a voicemail from Iyanla herself requesting a website. (No, she didn’t know the 2 people I spoke with, the Universe sent her!) Long story short, creating Iyanla’s site has attracted a flurry of powerful women-of-color to me, and I am elated.

It’s great that I get to help these brilliant women-of-color share their important missions with the world. But this is only a first step.

The next step for me is going to be organizing the most diverse spiritual marketing event or radio show in the history of the Internet. I’m not sure of the form yet, but I want to ask for your help.

If you know of someone of color who has an important message for our movement, who knows some business and marketing strategies that can really help conscious business owners to expand, and who has been overlooked by the popular spiritual business gurus, please post their name and website address in the comment field below. Feel free to submit the names of anyone of any race you feel has an important yet overlooked contribution to make to conscious business.

I will be collecting names as I start to plan this event for the 2013. Join me in bringing some Color Consciousness into the spiritual business movement now by joining the conversation.