Nov 18, 2013

Is Jay-Z wrong for this one?

Jay-Z released a public statement regarding his involvement with Barney's for a collaboration of products releasing this month. If you didn't know, Barney's has been under fire for profiling african american customers and the community has been urging Jay to pull himself out of this collaboration completely. This is what he wrote this past Friday:


In the past several weeks two separate investigations were launched as a result of the wrongful detention of Trayon Christian and Kayla Phillips. My team has been privy to the status of the Barneys third party consultant investigation. In continuing our research, we also contacted the New York State Attorney General’s office for the status of their investigation into both Barneys and Macy’s. Those findings are not yet available.

While I await the findings of the Attorney General’s Office, I have agreed to move forward with the launch of BNY SCC collection under the condition that I have a leadership role and seat on a council specifically convened to deal with the issue of racial profiling. I am in a unique position to use my voice to affect change to this disturbing issue. The easy position would have been to walk away and leave policy making to others hoping that someone addresses the problem. I will not leave the outcome to others. I will take this into my own hands with full power to recommend, review and revise policies and guidelines moving forward. I am choosing to take this head on.

As I previously stated, the collaboration with Barneys has always been about giving and The Shawn Carter Foundation. From this collection, the Foundation will receive not only 25% of sales, it will now receive the additional 75% of Barneys’ sales, totalling 100% of all sales from BNY SCC. Along with 100% of sales from the collaboration, the Foundation will receive an additional 10% of all retail sales from Barneys New York stores nationwide and Barneys.com on November 20th. - Shawn “JAY Z” Carter


I personally think this is a good move that benefits all. There will be more work put into the investigation of these business' and more money going towards helping the youth. Although people would like him to sever any type of connection to a company being charged with racial profiling, the fact of the matter is that this negotiation is giving 110% to the SC Foundation and there will be continued efforts to make sure this type of discrimination is eliminated. What's to get mad at?

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