BIPOC Stories - LaNisa Williams
Inspired by this cultural moment and the Black Lives Matter movement, I started a series of Instagram posts to share the stories of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour in coffee. You can find this post featuring LaNisa Williams here, and these are LaNisa’s thoughts in full.
“My name is LaNisa Williams, I’m from Los Angeles, Ca. I am currently working in coffee. I own Barista Life La, and I’m currently working at @southlacafe.
I have experienced racial injustice in the coffee industry a few times. I’ve been denied promotions, access to resources, I’ve been talked about left out of things, looked down upon. The barriers that I have encountered trying to get into the coffee industry was that I had a criminal background, I’ve been told that I was denied a transfer because I was black, not seeing a lot of black peoples in the coffee industry made me a little uneasy.
I feel we don’t talk much about race cause we haven’t really had a platform where we can and feel comfortable about it. It get swept under the rug.
For the coffee industry to be anti-racist it first need to accept that there are lot of black peoples or people of color who are killing it in the coffee world and they need some recognition. Being able to talk about injustice during coffee events. Giving People of Color the same opportunity that is given to everyone else. Being open minded, if there is a case of injustice, talk about it and get to the point, there should be consequences for those who are treating all equally.”
