Anifa Mouemba, a seasoned black woman entrepreneur and founder of the women's wear brand Hanifa,

announced recently that she would be pausing operations for her company.

This comes after experiencing months of intense backlash and public dragging over a pre-order

sale in November that did not go according to plan.

After months of preparation, the brand experienced a volume of orders that was unprecedented.

This is the kind of exciting moment that most founders have been dreaming of from day one.

Instead of a dream, it became a nightmare.

The result, a large swath of customers were waiting months longer than expected for their

orders to be fulfilled.

While the brand took ownership of the issues and worked around the clock to correct them,

Anifa's name was trending for two months, and not in a good way.

Customers weren't always kind or even handed in their complaints.

In many cases, posts became cruel. Black-owned companies want us to bow down to mediocrity, to smile and accept it, to stay quiet about it.

And I refuse. Every single one of them says they want I refuse every single one of them says they want

success every single one of them says they want to scale every single one of them says they want to

go mainstream but you cannot build an empire on a weak foundation and bad customer service

and expect the world to take you seriously acting like we are doing community service and not investing in a real business that should

deliver real customer service.

But I guess this is what happens when I buy stuff from people like you.

You people only want our money but not our standards.

You people want our support, but not our voice.

Pick one.

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