OUR ACTION PLAN

As co-founder of the Black Panther Party Huey Newton said in the pages of PLAYBOY magazine in 1973, “America will not be changed until the world is changed. To say that change will come here just through the ballot box would be a fantasy.” We’re here to do the work. After listening to our Black employees, we devised a deliberate and strategic social-impact plan that focuses on people, policy and culture. Here is our blueprint.

PEOPLE

Playboy Can’t Change Others Without Changing Itself

“You develop courage by doing the small things that take courage. Like not sitting in a room where racial pejoratives are used. Like not sitting in a room where gay people are being bashed. I won’t do it.” —Maya Angelou, 1999

We recognize that marginalized members of our community are the most vulnerable to systemic racism and social injustice. Here is what we are doing to protect, support and amplify our own community.

1. We commit to hiring more people of color. We are committed to having a truly diverse organization, from our leadership to our contributors. For more than 66 years, we have stood for racial equality and civil liberties—we hold ourselves accountable to making sure that this work starts from within.

2. We are undertaking initiatives to create space for reflection, education and conversations that bring advocacy to the forefront. As such, we are committing to education through recurring discussions and internal forums to unpack implicit bias and give space for issues to be raised and voices to be heard.

3. We will host monthly social-impact roundtable meetings to discuss the issues and human rights violations that demand Playboy’s focus. We commit to creating a space where employees feel safe to have open dialogues.

4. To support these monthly meetings, we will create a Slack channel where team members can share resources, articles, initiatives and petitions. We must stay informed and ensure critical conversations stay top-of-mind. The fundamental purpose is to share a consistent stream of data and information that employees feel their peers should be aware of and informed about. It can also be a source that determines the agenda for each monthly meeting.

5. Playboy Legal Support: We commit to donating pro-bono legal hours to nonprofit organizations in need of such support.

6. Playboy Mentorship Program: We also commit to the mentorship of formerly incarcerated individuals and those whose opportunities have been unjustly stifled. This support will take the form of pro-bono hours donated by our Career Development team.

The Playboy Purse Is Open

We are putting our money where our mouth is by relaunching the Playboy Foundation with a $250,000 initial fund to support organizations fighting injustice. The Playboy Foundation is immediately donating $150,000 to organizations committed to Black liberation. After internal discussion and research, we have chosen to center our efforts on aiding smaller grassroots organizations that make a direct impact on the freedom, safety and support of Black lives.

POLICIES

“The Constitution did not seek to transform power itself.… Instead, it ensured that more people had access to the ultimately corrupt forms of power that some had been denied.” —Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, Spring 2020

Playboy understands that change will come not only from the streets but also from the halls of power. We will use our editorial platforms to take a position on policies that are required to dismantle white supremacy and systemic racism. Key issues are summarized below.

1. Criminal Justice: The U.S. criminal justice system is a glaring and undeniable example of structural racism in this country. We must work to end mass incarceration through changes including pre-trial reform, ending mandatory minimum sentencing, and the removing cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.

2. Public Safety: We support allocating a greater percentage of municipal funds toward efforts that have been proven to reduce the need for law enforcement, including more significant investments in education and youth programming, mental health services, community development and safe and affordable housing. We call for the diversification of law enforcement teams and mandatory anti-bias training. Deadly and unnecessary force in policing must end now. We must work to solve our problems at the source rather than treat the symptoms.

3. Voter Suppression: We seek to put an end to voter suppression through increasing access to voter registration, vote by mail and early voting. Efforts to disenfranchise voters disproportionately impact people of color and deprive U.S. citizens of their constitutional right to a voice in our democracy.

4. Reparations: We support the passage of the H.R.40 Bill, also known as the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. Black Americans have been robbed of generations of wealth and opportunity—from slavery to the Black Wall Street massacre of 1921 to today’s career-advancement discrimination and mass incarceration. By not providing reparations for these heinous human rights violations, the United States is perpetuating that original harm.

5. Health Care: Disparities in access to and quality of health care, along with persistent structural racism in the medical field, put Black lives at risk. These inequalities in health care have an even greater impact on Black women, who are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women. We advocate for investing in programs to connect Black communities with quality, accessible health care, and in programs to expand representation and break down bias in the medical profession.

CULTURE

“The important thing is making sure this shit don’t become a trend.… We gotta fix ourselves in the culture.” — Lizzo, Spring 2019

At Playboy, we believe that Black culture is American culture. We will continue to use our channels to amplify diverse voices and social justice leaders and to call out practices that perpetuate white supremacy. Our mission is to change public perception and create a culture where all people feel free and safe to pursue their personal pleasure.

1. Amplification: We will spotlight the diverse voices we work with in a creative, editorial and activist capacity across all our channels, and proactively bring new voices into this community. To support Black Lives Matter today, we launched a dedicated website section, our Black Lives Matter hub, to provide:
   • Regularly updated resources and information to share
   • Profile key leaders in the movement
   • Galleries and features on the work of Black artists, photographers and activists
   • Resurfaced articles from our archives, available to the public for free, highlighting key Black thought leaders and voices we have profiled throughout our 66-year history

2. Internal Culture: We will lead by example. Each member of our executive team has made a personal commitment to donate their time to champion civil rights. We are committed to sourcing suppliers and partnerships with companies that share our values and have significant Black representation on their teams. This includes our auditing and financial partners, our legal resources, our creative agencies and the influencers we work with. And we will be collaborating with a civil rights legal organization to educate our employees on critical legal issues and to lend our support to their efforts.

3. Socially Responsible Investing: This week, we began working with our 401(k) plan provider to secure our team’s access to multiple investment funds that consist solely of companies adhering to ESG (environmental, social and governance) best practices.

CONCLUSION

The Playboy platform reaches millions of people and has been a cultural touchstone for decades. Since our inception, we have been committed to provoking challenging conversations, educating ourselves and our audiences, and shedding light on new perspectives and experiences. It is our responsibility to stand up and speak up where we see injustice, to agitate for change where we can have an impact, and above all else, to seed that change from within. Today, we renew our commitment to using our voice, our brand, and our platform as a vehicle for change in our society. For Black Americans, know that you aren’t alone in this fight. For Non-Black Americans, put your guilt and your privilege to meaningful use. Complacency, and thereby complicity, cannot be an option. Let’s demand and create change together.