Black Campaigner Accuses White Co-Owner of Woke DEI Firm of Racism

Race campaigners who set up a woke DEI organization together after witnessing a racist incident in a Starbucks parted ways after threatening to take legal action against each other.

Michelle Saahene and Melissa DePino watched as police arrested two black businessmen who asked to use the restroom of the coffee store in Philadelphia and filmed the interaction in 2018.

A white barista called the police and the men were led away in handcuffs. The incident sparked a change in Starbucks’ bathroom police and also got the men an undisclosed fee in a settlement.

Both Saahene and DePino set up a DEI venture called Privilege to Progress together after the incident, which earned them hundreds of thousands of dollars in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

At their peak, they were charging $10,000 to speak at an event, and each earned more than $100,000 in 2021 according to the Los Angeles Times.

They set up a website and social media for the campaign, and pitched corporations to pay them to share their stories.

DePino, a marketing professional and liberal mother of two, explained that she wanted to make a difference after ‘seeing racism on display right in front of her eyes’.

Health worker Saahene, who is black, worked with DePino, who was the vice president of the company, and the pair went on Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith.

They also worked together in 2020 with paid engagements at Google, Spectrum, Ikea, Yale, MIT, Tufts and the United Nations.

Both developed a friendship. Saahene house-sat for DePino and even had the code to her marijuana safe, while the pair met each other’s families.

Saahene lived for long stretches in Ghana, which she said made her feel empowered in her black skin, and started to question her role.

She said: ‘I started to realize that I was the draw: my skin, my story. I was growing faster and thinking about this all at a deeper, more complex level.

‘I told her the pain I was feeling about how we were making money off of this. Her responses were cold.’

The pair clashed over Saahene’s discomfort over capitalizing on Floyd’s murder, as well as how they should split the money.

They split the profits equally until Saahene suggested that she deserved a greater share because speaking about racism required more ’emotional labor’ on her part.

She claims DePino disagreed and said that she did more of the background work – so they kept their profits split equally.

DePino said: ‘She was setting boundaries. I respected them. I never told her to do anything more than what she wanted.

‘If she wanted an equity model for pay, I would have been open to discussing that.

‘She was also the president. I was vice president. So she could have instituted one on her own. I didn’t know she felt so wronged.’

Saahene grew closer to African activists and said she felt as though she had suffered ‘microaggressions’ while working with DePino.

She texted her in 2021 to say: ‘I’m exploiting my trauma. … Someone said this to me yesterday, ‘No one asks a sexual assault survivor to retell their story, so why are Black people expected to tell theirs?’

‘You have to do what feels right by you,’ DePino replied. ‘I support you completely.’

Saahene also claims that her partner didn’t listen to her, claiming that she felt uncomfortable after she suggested a visit to a lynching memorial in Alabama.

She said: ‘As if we haven’t had numerous conversations about how traumatizing it is for me to witness violence against Black bodies.’

The activist went on to call DePino ‘manipulative’ and cited ‘the challenges of working with white women in racial justice,’ arguing that ‘Black people shouldn’t always have to be in therapist or coach mode.’

DePino said: ‘I thought our personal relationship was so much deeper… this text sounds like we are strangers.

‘I thought we were working things out. I thought we were best friends. Instead, I learned that we were not friends anymore. … The organization had a mission and she no longer supported it.’

As a result they decided to part ways, but struggled to disentangle their social media, website, bank account and corporate contacts.

DePino told Saahene in March 2022 that she wanted to make the organization ‘independent of the two of them’ as her former partner said she wanted it ‘dissolved’.

Saahene also claims that her partner didn’t listen to her, claiming that she felt uncomfortable after she suggested a visit to a lynching memorial in Alabama
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Saahene also claims that her partner didn’t listen to her, claiming that she felt uncomfortable after she suggested a visit to a lynching memorial in Alabama

In the aftermath of the incident at Starbucks, the company shut down more than 8,000 of its U.S. stores to instruct 175,000 employees how to better recognize unconscious bias
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View gallery
In the aftermath of the incident at Starbucks, the company shut down more than 8,000 of its U.S. stores to instruct 175,000 employees how to better recognize unconscious bias

Saahene did not like that DePino continued to post on their joint Instagram, claiming that she was ‘misleading the public’.

On 22 April last year Saahene posted to social media saying that DePino was ‘not honest’ and had no ‘commitment to ending colonialism’ – before plugging her personal Instagram.

DePinto deleted the posts before emailing Saahene to say: ‘You cannot legally slander me… I will send a cease-and-desist ASAP.’

Both women continued to post and delete content, with their website and social media account wiped permanent from September – with the pair only communicating through lawyers.

Saahene has since moved to Los Angeles to work with black activist, and calls herself a ‘speaker, activist, model, and global inclusion strategist.’

She has spoken at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg about racism, healing and self-care and is organizing a six-day retreat for ‘changemakers’ at a Black-owned luxury hotel in Morocco.

Speaking to the LA Times she said: ‘I spent so much time talking to white people about a white problem: racism.

‘It’s draining. I want to make Black people my audience. I’m over it, I’ve moved on. It’s a new chapter. A new me.’

DePinto was branded a racist by the pair’s former supporters, and faced an onslaught of online abuse – and was called a fake and a manipulator.

She has relaunched her blog, and is working on a book that starts at the moment she witnessed the incident in Starbucks.

Speaking about her relationship with Saahene, she said: ‘I don’t really know where she is or what she’s doing. But I wish her the best.’

In the aftermath of the incident at Starbucks, the company shut down more than 8,000 of its U.S. stores to instruct 175,000 employees how to better recognize unconscious bias.