Facebook Publication Date: 3/10/2018 23:03

This, on the day of Black Women has been one big day of cluckery.

Culminating with a white woman, who, after I spent hours on her site dealing with ww behaving badly, acknowledged that she should pay me for consulting, but, in her exact words: ‘ I have exactly $0 to send you but you have my undying gratitude (which I know doesn’t pay the bills!)’

She’s right. It doesn’t. But this is one heck of an object lesson.

To which I replied: ‘ I don’t know what to do with your denying me funds i never asked for, but i guess the gracious thing is to thank you.’

And she, in blithe oblivion, actually answered back.

‘Well one does typically pay for consulting services!! But this is above and beyond that! So thank you.’

Welp.

This goes directly to what I have been saying. Our work is valuable, but white women really think that their flattery should be filling.

Welp again.

It isn’t.
.
Look. I am passionate about doing good work, and not just here. I consider the work I do in other places on and offline to be important extensions of the work that is done in this space.

But almost two months in, I am tired of the message I am receiving.

‘Keep it coming!! Do it for LOVE!’

I really don’t think the, again 95% white people who are following this page know what that does.

Two things are true. I made a unilateral promise to give you my best. I think I have. I also made a promise to continue.

What I hoped for was that this promise would be met with commitment. So far, not so much. We are up to 1600 now, another 200 this week. 75 people have partnered. And I am so thankful.

While I am grateful for that, it does seem that people are resting on my promise. And I cannot make you do anything. In fact, after the first ask in early Feb, I have been inhibited.

I have said I don’t care if I lose you. That’s not strictly true. If I lose you, how can we learn and grow together? But I really need you to stand with me. 1600 people should not be subsidized by 5 percent of you.

There are historical and yes, racialized reasons for this. We will get into them, and I am going to do what I said I would–which is to pair up a person from YouCaring. Because I have been so clenched about asking this community to help with funds, that aspect has been lost–and fully 6 weeks of funding people have been sacrificed to my fear of your pushback.

Look. Numberswise, this has been a raging success. I am glad you are here. I am grateful you give me your eyes and minds.

I’m asking for a latte, not a liver. And to make that very very plain, I am going to find someone on YouCaring who *does* need a liver. Or a kidney, or some other big thing, and we are going to move as a community and help them too.

You are not here to be consumers, but rather to be partners. I am beyond glad to serve you. But I need you, and I need you to visibly and tangibly stand with me.

My final message to the woman on the site was an admonition to never again do that to another woman. I hope she doesh’t. I hope she can see the violence inherent in what she said to me.

It’s been almost two months. I have given you good service, and want, desperately, to continue to do so. So tomorrow, another ask, one I hope you will respond to.

This place is valuable enough for you to visit and engage with. Help me make it solid, stable, and allow me to other places where our message is needed, on and off line. Help me spread our messages at forums, and conferences. Help me write resources that can spread the message still further.

Don’t consume and then giggle with emojis and exclamation points. Do the work with me. And the work deserves a latte.

My accountability advisers want me to use another model. But I so so believe in this one, where large numbers contribute to the community in small amounts. So no one person has outsize influence and everyone has skin in the game. So when I say ‘we’ you know it means you too.

I should thank the woman. She galvanized me to write the letter I have been wanting to write you for weeks. I just didn’t feel I had the right to ask anything of you all. But this is not an ask, it is an opportunity to be a part of something I hope has legs.

Tomorrow a message from Deb, a reprint of the article of why women of color have to work with alternate funding sources, and the YouCaring. I am betting on you all. Bet with me.

With Love,

Your Lace

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