[Lace Watkins]

Monthly Financial Engagement to Date: $5883

Monthly Goal: $12000

 

This is the umpteenth time I have attempted to draft the April Mid Month Ask. 

 

It’s always a hard thing to write, and there is always a reason I feel less than comfortable; pick your reasons in any given month or period– this time it’s Holly and the continuing fallout, and now, this week, having to confront the optics of a funding appeal during a fraught time in our collective psyches: a truncated accountability in the Chavuin case, and, even and including the same day the verdict was rendered, another killing of a Black person, and then another, and yet another just today. 

 

All of this indeed has a chilling effect; an inhibiting effect that freezes my fingers. 

 

The work is needed, directly because of the very events that make it so hard to reference for an Ask. So I hesitate; write and discard drafts, and wring my hands; never more so than this week. 

 

But this happened. An org where I am (more recently) an intermittent lurker, for reasons you will see, delivered what I feel is a direct shot across the bow to people who educate white people, either formally, like here in this space, or informally, where untold Black and brown people give their time, as well as their intellectual and academic capital, to the service of education in service to their people, but which is also (and ultimately) for the enrichment, and the aggrandizement, of white people. (Update: I was removed and blocked.)

 

Some overarching thoughts of my own. 

 

Black and brown people should absolutely be paid for their services. We pay contributors here, and that should be true everywhere, even and *especially* when Black and brown people invest of themselves in groups and Pages. That labor is no less legitimate than if one owns or has power/influence in any given space. 

 

This should be a given. I think of the last five years when significant amounts of white and white presenting/white adjacent people became interested (but not invested; I use that word with intent) and the immense amount of free labor that has been consumed, with arguably little change in behavior, and certainly no change in the economic dynamic between cohorts. 

 

The absolute imperfect systems that have become more or less accepted practice is in response to that. 

 

People giving untold hours to problematic people in groups, websites, and Pages, educating not just the individual themselves, but also to the hordes of folk listening in from the cheep seats, sometimes drop their paypal or their venmo. I think it is absolutely a legitimate practice; they need to be seen and acknowledged, and within this imperfect system this is one imperfect way to do so. 

 

And within formal spaces, there absolutely should be no demonization or hierarchy between those who do not ask for financial engagement against those who do. It is the rare person who can devote significant amounts of time and intellect pro bono. 

 

But even beyond that, there is the overarching principle that racism and white supremacy are absolutely  economic constructs; a system, both individual and systemic, meant to aggrandize one cohort at the expense of another. 

 

And this is seen, in sharp relief, in racial justice spaces. That it is speaks to the insidiousness and the pervasiveness of white supremacy itself, even when it is at least on the surface fighting the very thing it is upholding. 

 

This Ask speaks to that, speaks to the fact that white people–and BIPOC who enable them– absolutely drive the racial justice space. And makes for a dynamic that I have to slog through like so much molasses every time I do the Ask. 

 

Hear this plainly: it is deeply incongruous to ‘celebrate’ and ‘affirm’ and ‘amplify’ Black and Brown voices, be it in video, or in print, or online without fair compensation. 

 

Our focus on money here is *not* only for the benefit of Lace on Race, although we absolutely do believe that this free-ish space should be supported and that our Western Star should be honored. 

 

It is also for  others in the racial justice sector as a whole. People who financially engage here are far more likely to engage in other spaces. We conceived of and administer the Community Partner Fund because we believe that other groups and individuals should be seen and tangibly honored. We created the Lace on Race Mental and Emotional Health Fund for respect and respite for the Black women on whose backs the racial justice movement has rested.

We make sure that Black and brown contributors don’t have to drop their paypal links when they grace us with their knowledge and expertise *because we pay them promptly and fairly out of firstfruits*. 

 

All of this is done in service to North Star ethos and values. 

 

We have, already, out of Firstfruits, disbursed to two amazing orgs; one an API group in San Diego, and the other to a woman, who works with and serves Black children and adults on the autism spectrum. As always, we fund our community partners without thought of if we make our budget. Firstfruits are firstfruits. On this, we will never waver. 

 

This month, we also financially engaged with a former community member who was also, until February, on our leadership team. She is enduring hardship, and while she broke communion and abiding with us, still our praxis and our commitment to her stays extant. This has already been funded. I am sure there will be queries, and I am here for them. 

 

Know this though: that unilateralism holds. Firmly. There was no question amongst myself, my staff, and my leadership team, that we would respond with our normal and customary Hesed. It is who we are. Hesed is never voided. 

 

So this: the Mid-April Ask. Currently, we are at a bit less than half of our monthly goal; even as we have fulfilled our commitments to our Community Partners and to our former Community Member, with whom we still walk; albeit at a distance. But walk we will. 

 

Sustainers, and sustainers in training, if you have not yet fulfilled your internal commitment, we ask that you do so. Those in the Bistro as well. For those of you  who financially engage a la carte, this is also your opportunity. 

 

And a word to those new people who have graced us this month: the Guidelines give our position on financial engagement, our commitment to a free-ish space, and our affirmation that financial engagement, here and in other online and offline spaces, is a non-negotiable part of your overall racial justice praxis, as you opt in to this space. 

 

Thank you for allowing us to give you all our very best. 

 

In Hesed, 

 

Your Lace

 

paypal.me/laceonrace

 

Discussion

[Emily Holzknecht]

I have sent in my monthly financial engagement as well as some extra. Reading the ask this month I am thinking about how the North Star is lessening and mitigating harm endured by Black and brown people perpetuated by white people like me and by white supremacy. It is not only lessening and mitigating harm perpetuated by me, but that could be part of it. If I pay Lace for the service she has provided to me and call it done and fair, then perhaps I am not causing harm, but I am also not lessening and mitigating harm. I remember a post at Lace on Race after white people nationwide raised a ton of money for white terrorist Kyle Rittenhouse and the question was, what are we going to do to lessen and mitigate the harm white people caused by raising that money for him? We didn’t donate to him, but that doesn’t mean we just ignore the harm that was caused by other white people and wash our hands of it. I and others walking here know that there are thousands of probably mostly white lurkers exploiting Lace’s labor here at Lace on Race. Our responsibility is not simply to pay Lace for her service to ourselves and wash our hands of all the white people who are causing harm by not paying Lace. Our responsibility, our commitment to the North Star is lessening and mitigating harm. We can write posts and comments to try to get lurkers to start paying too and that could lessen harm, but that cannot mitigate the harm already caused by the lurkers. I can mitigate harm by financially contributing extra to make up for the payment withheld by others.

[Deleted User]

“…racism and white supremacy are absolutely economic constructs; a system, both individual and systemic, meant to aggrandize one cohort at the expense of another.” This is as clear as daylight. Very well stated here. I have engaged twice since the beginning of April. I will see what more I can send and get it over to LoR right away.

[Kelsi Watters]

The first guideline at Lace on Race is: We are not an entertainment space. Yet, so many white people in this space remain, as Lace on Race says, “interested but not invested”. There are people in our crowd of 10,000 who lurk, consume, exploit the labor of a Black woman and occasionally show up at the take-out window. Following a Black woman and consuming without commit;out engagement (including financial engagement) is more harmful than not following at all. Because, all the time in this space, Lace has the weight of the Lurkers resting on her shoulders. Several thousand lurkers! Despite the Letter to Lurkers, the videos and posts that address the lurkers, many of those who are lurking in this space do not hear and listen or engage. I wonder if that ever becomes infuriating. At the same time as you have the weight of the lurkers and those who treat this as an entertainment space, you also have to deal with the trepidation, anxiety, and physical and emotional labor of writing the Ask at least twice or three times a month, knowing you will lose followers each time and wondering where to draw the line – between totally honest, vulnerable, and calling a thing a thing, yet having to write it in such a way as to not lose a significant amount of followers and financial engagement.

[Kelsi Watters]

Lace, I thought I heard some frustration in this Ask, and some exhaustion. I wonder how much time it takes you to write these Asks. I wonder if, as sometimes I did in graduate school, you sometimes sit over your computer with a stiff, hunched back, finishing your umpteenth draft, your belly growling with hunger and your eyes drooping before you finally say “Welp, it is going to be what it’s going to be” and hit post. Not to mention the emotional labor. Maybe shedding some tears, or getting frustrated, or having to wonder why this damn Ask takes hours and days and countless attempts. I bet I’m barely even hitting the surface. I cannot speak to all that you feel and it is not my place to.

But, you deserve rest. I imagine you walking that line of needing to be your true, authentic self, challenge us to do better, and honor the Northstar, but knowing you will lose followers and even financial engagement. I a%k trying to use my fictive imagination though I may be off. I deeply value this community. I have grown to love you, Lace, and others I have gotten to know here. I will continue to stand with you and with this community – challenging myself to do better, to stand stronger, to engage more deeply, to be a healer and a listener and do my part to sustain the Orange Tree.

[Jen Scaggs]

Heading over to engage now…

Black and brown people absolutely deserve to be paid for their labor and the education they provide. Even knowing this, I sometimes have an instinctive clench over money. Today I registered for a conference on equity in my profession, and as I read the email announcement, I found myself hoping that the conference would be free (it is being put on by a group that frequently offers free conferences with sponsors). I quickly caught myself and was happy to pay full price upon registration because I want to pay the speakers for their expertise.

[Emily Holzknecht]

You’ve got me thinking about how if something like that is “free”, it is still coming at a cost. Who is footing the bill? Is it the speakers themselves? How can I find ways to pay for a conference even if it is “free”?

[Julia Tayler]

I have engaged. It is disturbing to see how short we are this month. It stinks that you have to write these reminders every month. The community partners are always groups doing great work that we would have never heard about. I’m going to take another look at my budget. Interested but not invested. Powerful and true. We need to get in the game 100 percent. Black and brown people definitely deserved to be compensated for their time, effort and expertise.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I need to continue to intently examine those words, “interested but not invested,” and where they apply to me. What a beautiful example of hesed and grace, Lace on Race continuing to give despite being at a distance with a previous walker. I have a lot to learn from that example.

I can’t remember specifically how it came up, but I had a conversation with our kiddo today about supporting racial justice spaces. He wanted to know who I financially engaged with, how much, and why. Questions we should all be asking each other, I’ve realized, and am thinking what that needs to look like for me. In addition to my own financial engagement I need to be a part of normalizing talking about it, so it’s not a cross that Lace and other Black and brown people have to bear. I like to think of the next generation just automatically doing and giving what it took me a lot to ‘wrap around’ to doing.

Lace is spot-on when she says that people who engage financially here are far more likely to financially engage in other spaces. That is precisely my story. I feel immensely grateful to Lace and this space for kickstarting that for me. It shouldn’t have taken that. I have (clean) shame about not doing that sooner.

[Christina Sonas]

It’s an interesting distinction, but I do not engage elsewhere as I engage here. I contribute as much as I can financially, and I follow on FB so I can see what’s going on, if another kind of support is needed from me. But my time isn’t going elsewhere. I don’t know where that falls on the transactional / relational gradient.

[Deleted User]

<div>For me financial engagement has been part of my life since a long time but I clench when it comes to own my engagement. I think nobody other than me knows which causes I support financially. For me it’s a fine line between “engaging” and “showing off” therefore I don’t tend to speak about it. Reading this discussion I think I should probably speak more about why I (don’t) support some organisations or individuals. I’ll have to think more about the transactional vs. relational.</div>

[Rebecca McClinton]

I can’t remember the exact post, only the framework around the conversation, but I remember a conversation we had here a while ago about not being wary of publicly showing financial engagement because of the example it sets for others. It was a whole new way of thinking about it for me, and I’ve had to ask myself when I’m not public about it, if why I’m not is because I’m not contributing as much as I should be. Spins it in a different direction.

[Clare Steward]

Engaged and will continue to do so. The time and intellectual and emotional labor it takes to educate us in service to the North Star of lessening and mitigating harm endured by Black and Brown people as perpetuated by white people and white supremacy is LABOR and requires payment. The weight carried and the trauma and pain inflicted while you walk with us as Black and Brown people continue to die does not go unseen.

[Robin Van Haste]

I’ve financially engaged a second time. I was also struck by the phrase “interested but not invested”. As I think about local organizations doing racial justice work in my own city, I need to remember that just signing up for emails is not engagement, and it certainly is not helping.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Robin, I appreciate you making this overt. I have been thinking about how many newsletters/emails have signed up for but I don’t financially support. I am very clear on financially engaging in this community, but you are reminding me to be integrity completely. To follow the North Star in all my engagements to mitigate the harm I do to brown and black people. I do harm by being on a ‘list’ and not engaging. Time to be work on that piece of my integrity.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Being part of an nonprofit organization myself, I can say that even just signing up for emails comes at a cost to the organization. There are people who put in labor to oversee the systems that organize all those email addresses and while some of those systems are free initially, the cost of email marketing software increases as the number of people subscribed increases. Signing up to get emails feels like doing something positive for an organization, but it should come with financial engagement at the very least so that the organization is not bearing the cost of that email subscription that makes us feel like good white people even though we rarely read what they send to us.

[Robin Van Haste]

I didn’t know that! That is good to keep in mind.

[Kelsi Watters]

I also was not aware that sgning up for emails and kewslrs comes at a cost – i never thought of that either. This puts things into perspective because it’s another exaple of how we set out with good intentions but our impact ends up being burdensome or harmful to the people for whom we are trying to do good.

[Shara Cody]

Financial engagement is a must for lessening harm to BIPOC and it’s something anyone, lurker or intermittent engager, can do to take action now. I’ve financially engaged for April and will continue to do without being asked. Paying Lace for her work and leadership is an absolute must and I appreciate the opportunity that LoR provides to engage other community partners and the emotional well being fund.

[Author]

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