Lace on Race

November Big Ask (what imma gonna call it)

In the last October Ask (I invite you to follow this link if you have not yet read it) we talked about the need for independent and fearless alternative commentary. That still stands.

We also talked about the risk we are taking in migrating to this exciting and terrifying website, where we have the potential to influence and reach ever more people, on a platform that is truly our home, rather than Facebook, where we have been little more than squatters for almost two years.

We talked about what our base needs are. I used to jokingly say that your support of this space keeps me from wearing a hat and manning the fry station, but I am moving away from that whimsical (and for me, deprecating) imagery. This space is needed, I need to be able to do it well and reliably, and we need to come to a place where that is not a monthly nail biter. I need to conserve my energies for writing, and for engagement on the posts, and for making this website ever better.

I used to jokingly say that your support of this space keeps me from wearing a hat and manning the fry station, but I am moving away from that whimsical (and for me, deprecating) imagery.

I also need to be able to truly hand over this task, and to trust that the workaday Weekly Asks will be heard and engaged with. The fact that I have done the Asks in the last month or two speaks to the fact that our commitment to brevity and lack of pathos was somewhat of a failed experiment. We sort of need to change that up.

I now find myself working on two tracks, both of which I have shared with you.

One, we need to come to a place of real sustainability. In the October Ask, linked above, we talked about a basic number that insures that. It’s a number we have never made, and as a result, I myself have subsidized this space. It is, for what we are doing, a painfully small number. $2000 a month, which gives you me, and allows us to build a small reserve. There are two other budgets which I will share with you now, and break down more specifically for Sustainers: a 3-4k budget that allows us to pay for contributors and materials, and which will allow me to take (unpaid) time off to work on, among other things, more fully populating the website (it takes more time than you think), and creating materials for outside work, being able to say yes to outside work that incurs a net cost (which it will for the grassroots orgs and individuals that want and need us and our method), and to work towards talking about formal non profit status. The dream budget, ,5k plus, is, again small for what we want to do. But it would allow LoR it’s own shared workplace with other social activists, along with conference space. We are getting too big for my kitchen table. Also it would allow me to eventually take a sabbatical of sorts so we can work on curriculum and book{s) that would in turn also support LoR.

But the basic budget is the goal for now. I need to be confident in that by the two year mark, which is January 2020. What we want to do here will take concerted effort and time on my part, which I am more than willing to provide-in fact it is my deep pleasure to do so. If this is not something the community wants, so be it. If it is to be so, then yay! If not, I will accept that. But there is no way I can even think about doing this full time job, my other full time job, and consider taking on significant freelance or outside work to keep these doors open. Again, something I have said before. The dynamic we have had cannot continue. I will give you my best without fanfare, and with no more pathos.

You all need to walk with me to do that. Or not. You need to respond when my admin staff gives you straightforward asks, or (as was the case with some of you this month-and thank you) contribute to the health and viability in advance of any given ask.

I am aware of the fact that, for now, most of you need an appeal from me, and you will get it in the Big Monthly Ask. I encourage and, yes, expect you to engage and respond. For the rest of the month, the low key weekly ask, where Sustainers are reminded, and others are encouraged to engage in this part of their praxis will be short and sweet, and hopefully, heard.

Because this coming year, if there is to be a coming year, will be a doozy. We are moving into Election Season, and while Lace on Race cannot endorse, we can and will talk about our values and how they fit when we confront the ballot box in Lace on the Race. We are going to do more in Relational Ethics, the usual stuff we have been doing, but deep dives–and I dearly hope your being faithful in this way will give me the emotional bandwith and the time to do justice. We are going to open tabs for Lace on Faith, and provide musical food for the journey with playlists curated by the staff and others. We are also going to be going forward with mentorships and groups. I love our community. I want it ever deeper, and ever more cohesive and cleaving.

I love you, but I hate this part of my job. I am hoping that you all will make it a bit easier, and that what you see both on the Facebook Page and on the website will compel you to walk with me in ways that are as reliable as I have been and am going to be with all of you.

This part of praxis is crucial. We need each of you. Regardless of color; regardless of tenure; regardless of time commenting. One of the distinctives of Lace on Race, is that everyone is important. And everyone is crucial. And everyone has a hand in creating and supporting this thing we have co created together.

So then. This two month experiment-within-the-larger-experiment that is Lace on Race commences. I am greedy. I want another two years; I want another two decades with you all. Help me make it happen for and with you.

Let’s keep walking. Support Lace on Race.

Lace Watkins

8 responses to “November Big Ask (what imma gonna call it)”

  1. Lace Watkins Avatar
    Lace Watkins

    Catherine, I’m breaking this out. I’ll keep you anonymous, but you, both in your content and your vibe are lessons worth learning. Thanks.

  2. Lace Watkins Avatar
    Lace Watkins

    Hey Catherine.

    Kinda what I thought. Yet another drive by.

    To the community: some wonder why I engage with comments like this, especially now when we have the option of not approving individual posts.

    I think it’s important to see though.

    Also this, some of the most dedicated and faithful and reliable people in this community started out as its harshest critics. We are asking a lot of people, even as they just go through the posts and comments over the last two years.

    There will be activation, pushback, and all the rest. Sometimes they stay where they are, but for me the beauty is when they course correct, however slowly and haltingly.

    If you are here, even to deride, I hope some of what we do and who we are rubs off. I hope our model of kind candor and relentless reliability is something that can be internalized. And if it doesn’t I hope our community can use this to cleave to each other as we continue to walk.

    It’s good that this is the first thing I saw this morning, after yesterday.

    I may break this out into another post, but I think it’s a good example for now.

    At my place of worship we have a wonderful outreach we call Welcome Saturday, where we welcome people who are houseless and or have food insecurity inside for a meal, clean clothes, even a shower.

    But those things I outlined are the least of what we do.

    The work is in the relational. They don’t just eat while we watch and make sure they only take one apple.

    Dear lord, no.

    We sit with them, we eat with them, we hear their stories, month after month after month. We make so much bacon that we are known as the Bacon Church in the community of La Mesa and Lemon Grove where we are located. We ask about if they got their disability, and we find a coat that fits. We make sure they leave with sandwiches. and we don’t count how many bags of chips. No. The work is not in the kitchen; or just in the kitchen. The work is not just in the clothes. The work is not just in the shower, sometimes the only one they have all month. The work is in remembering they like flip flops, so I go to the place where i can get a crapton of them so no one does without. The work is in Costco, where they get the same razors I bought for my husband, and the good apples, and hygiene items that smell good and feel good and give dignity not charity. It means finding a brush in my truck for the lady who doesn’t have one, and making up makeup bundles as well as soap bundles because everyone deserves to feel pretty and like they belong in the community.

    Last month we had Welcome Saturday Sunday, where a few of the residents shared their stories.

    I’ll tell you now: they weren’t stories of hitting the lottery and moving to Malibu. They weren’t stories of six figure jobs found, or any other type of grandiose outcome.

    They were stories of finding a place that was safe, after months and months of looking. They were stories of becoming stable so a woman could keep her grandkids with her while her mom was incarcerated. They were quiet stories of a job that allowed a woman to finally and totally leave a situation that was toxic.

    We did none of that. And if you came to Welcome Saturday (please do!) all you’d see would be a bunch of people sitting down eating bread and biscuits and drinking coffee. All you would see would be quiet conversations. Nothing big.

    But everything. But everything.

    Here is where the people we have loved for years and who love us back come to commune together. Even those who now have stable housing come back to the House of Bacon. It is here that Michael learned to carry on a real conversation, he talks, then i talk, then he talks, and then he stops talking when i give him a wink, and he lets me talk again. It’s this small skill building that will help him outside.

    It’s where love is modeled for mothers who were never loved themselves. They learn new ways of relating to their children.

    It’s where people learn to ask about others, learn to clear the table so others can sit down.

    It’s nothing. but everything.

    Profligate love.

    And when they refuse a shower, because it’s noisy, and they just weren’t ready to get clean yet, so, like yesterday, they come back. And meetings are held with ‘Katie’ on the couch, where we talk about tangible love, while one of us sits with Katie, and then when she is ready, only when she is ready, we take new clothes and a toiletry kit and clean towels and go up with her and sit outside where you can smell clean steam, and she comes out, not quite as dirty but not quite clean, and we entice her with more coffee and she goes back, and really gets her face and her toes, and her eyes are no longer at half mast, and she wants to stay on campus, the safest place she has known for years.

    Maybe you’re not ready for the shower yet, Katherine. But here, we like a good rinse. And we like holding towels for each other. And we treasure giving our best so we can give our best some more.

    Sit on the couch, Katie. We will bring you coffee and that coffee cake i still don’t know what was in it, but it was *so good*. That coffee cake Jennifer, or was it Susan made in her kitchen and brought to share.

    Because that’s how we do. We share so we could give. Those good razors, and apples, and good toiletries? It’s what we give to affirm humanity; for all of us.

    Sit. have another cup. Let us love you.

  3. Lace Watkins Avatar
    Lace Watkins

    Hello, Catherine.

    Haven’t seen your name before. Welcome.

    The funding we need pays for exactly what I told you. Right now, the bulk goes to me, as founder, writer, speaker and leader on this site. Currently, I actually subsidize the space, in terms of time expended. The basic level, if reached, pays for part of that. A laborer is worthy of their hire, so they say. As to the larger amounts, again, what I said. We would like to pay contributors and also compensate our admin team, something we do not currently do. As well, I work full time. Being able to take unpaid time off to service this site/Page, and, by extension, serve you would hopefully mean we can do even more as a community. The 5k, which works out to 60k a year, is still a small but doable amount. As I said, we are long been too big for my kitchen table. My dream is to have a co working space with other social entrepreneurs/activists, be able to be generous with other people’s initiatives and ideas, and eventually, transition to doing this full time. Being 56 and working 80 to 100 hours a week is no joke.

    I think that answers you adequately.

    If you have been here any length of time, you would now that the work is not only, or even mainly, on what is presented to you.

    Like my correspondence to you here, the work is in the comments. The work is in the relational.

    I am going to take you at face value, Catherine–it’s why I approved your post. I hope you are indeed a good actor. I am willing to engage with you, not just for you, but for the cheep seats, who read but don’t yet comment.

    Let’s take your comments singly.

    The funds for which we are asking are exactly what I said in earlier posts. At the basic level, most of it goes to me, as founder and chief admin, who writes both here and other places, who engages, and who presents aggregated content for comment and engagement. That’s more than HuffPo does, frankly.

    But we do more. Creating community ain’t nothing. The same people who comment are those you see; you don’t see pm’s and you don’t see the work we do in other places on or offline.

    As to On Being–ya we use it, for what you call ‘alternative purposes’ as well as for the content itself. I feel it’s important for us to see what is considered one of the best interviewers out there make unforced errors, and also to see the guests’ accommodation of that.

    Kind of like here, Catherine.

    A couple of queries for you, person who I generously assume is a good actor of noble intention:

    What would a ‘legitimate’ social justice look like for you? Or is the idea of any sort of social justice work via internal process beyond the pale (pun intended) for you?

    For now, I will leave with this. This site is a free-ish space. Be here; don’t be here. Contribute to the health of this community; don’t. You have more agency than you know. Or, more accurately, more positive agency than you are willing to expend here.

    I hope that changes. Again, welcome.

    Keep walking, Catherine. Here or elsewhere.

  4. Catherine N Avatar
    Catherine N

    May I ask what exactly you are expecting to receive $2-$5k per month for? Your so called ‘materials’ are all available FOC on the On Being website, without their content and message being twisted to suit some alternative purpose. If anyone finds these of use surely their dollars would be better invested directly with On Being than here.

    None of the content articles on this site, have been commented on by more than 4-5 people and the same few names crop up on every one. All the commentators agree or claim to agree with every word written, surely genuine racial justice/awareness work should be targeting those who don’t agree, changing minds, hearts and behaviours?

    Personally, I think you are trying to persuade your tiny handful of supporters to fund your hobby. Safe to say I see nothing here worth paying for.

  5. Deb Chymiak Isanhart Avatar
    Deb Chymiak Isanhart

    I mean November payment. I pay at the beginning of the month and apparently, I am not ready for it to be November.

  6. Deb Chymiak Isanhart Avatar
    Deb Chymiak Isanhart

    I am so excited to be among the Sustainers of this community. I have made my October payment and look forward to continued learning and growth as we walk together.

  7. Vickie Avatar
    Vickie

    In and contributed! The vision you have laid out is inspiring.

  8. Dee Nelson Avatar
    Dee Nelson

    I’m in, and have contributed. I’m also excited to see how the website space will evolve. I am trying to get off Facebook because of their disregard for truth, which is hard because I manage pages for political action groups. It’s a dilemma.

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