The Beginning

Our Story

As trans-racial adoptees raised by white parents and the only employees of color at our agency (at the time), co-founders Lydia Gordon and Dylan Demanski quickly bonded over our shared experiences.

When COVID-19 hit NYC, we retreated from the office and into our homes. Feeling isolated, anxious, and stir-crazy, a new weekly tradition emerged for us—appropriately named Wine Down Wednesdays (WDW). What began simply as an opportunity for us to (virtually) hang out, destress, and down a glass of wine (or three), quickly grew into heavier discussions that ranged from politics, race, the economy, and social justice. We quickly realized how validating and therapeutic these conversations were for us, especially as coworkers. We had inadvertently carved out a space for ourselves where whiteness wasn’t at the center of the conversation and where we could speak freely without holding anything back out of fear of being misunderstood.

We wondered how we could bring others into the fold. It was from these conversations the early ideas for The Kickback emerged.