[Catherine Seaver]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/07/08/early-july-ask/

 

Early July Ask

Discussion

[Christin Spoolstra]

In a show I’ve been watching, there was discussion of reparations (pause: engagement in the LoR community is NOT reparations). One character worried that white folks would see reparations as hush money, that once the check cleared, Black people would never be allowed – tolerated – to speak of racism again. Sometimes that power dynamic shows up in our community. People engage financially so they don’t engage relationally. People engage financially so Lace owes them in some way. Those entitlements of power are violent and enforce the economics of racism. I engage in all aspects regularly not because of entitlement or even expectation but because I – and this community – am a garden. I need watering, weeding, fresh soil… Only then can I bloom toward the North Star. I engaged financially on the 1st and am also using the Dimes exercise to be able to offer more at the end of the month.

[Rebecca McClinton]

In reading Catherine’s gardening analogy I was thinking about my own gardening struggles and how they relate to my interactions and financial engagement in this space. I love planting and nurturing little seedlings along, but I struggle when plants are in full bloom with over water, under watering, and even picking the produce off the vines before it goes bad (eeek! Such a waste after all that waiting!). Similarly, I can see where I’m consistent with engaging at the beginning of the month, but not so good at the end of the month looking where, as Christin references above with the dimes exercise, I can give a bit more. Tending my garden and this garden here in this space require the same consistent attentiveness throughout.

[Christina Sonas]

Antiracism is a state of doing. If my antiracism is in my head, in my self-concept, and not also in all of my doings, then I am not antiracist at all. I am in denial.

I have engaged for July. I have overplanted my (literal) garden to deliver into an urban food-denied community. I am thinking of the North Star of antiracism work as I prepare a small business for a big expansion. Doing, doing, doing.

[Jen Scaggs]

I have never been good at gardening, as my attention and enthusiasm fades as the work becomes difficult, and I let the weeds take over. Unfortunately, I’ve let my garden here at LoR grow weedy this last month due to lots of personal stuff and I need to get it back under control! I just engaged financially and now it’s back to work.

[Laura Berwick]

I want to affirm that I’ve engaged financially this month. It’s important to me that this community continue, and it’s my responsibility to be the sustenance that it thrives on.

[Shara Cody]

*cross posted from FB*

Engaging consistently to pull the weeds and tend to the new growth includes financial engagement to get at the root of racism as an economic construct. I have financially engaged for July and hope as a community we will reach July’s goal.

[Julia Tayler]

I have engaged financially and like Christin mentioned I will be looking at my Dimes. I like to garden but on my terms. It can’t be too hot (this year has been a bust) and not too early or too late. I realize that I need to garden and engage consistently and not just when conditions are perfect.

[Rhonda Freeman]

As I read this on the very last day of the month, knowing that I will engage in the morning, I am reminded that the only way that I keep any plant alive is by setting myself reminders to water the plants and how much to water them. So, I set myself reminders to engage financially with LoR and I don’t feel the least bit bad about it. I want to keep this plant alive. Thanks for the analogy Catherine.

[Author]

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