Money talks and bullshit walks. 

— African American proverb. 

So I’m gonna do more fundraising and direct giving opportunities for Black moms femmes nonmen. White people get your wallets ready! 

Here are some salient reasons by way of explanation on how this WORKS to create radical change in our society. 

1. You read/watch/know the news. You’ve seen and heard the headlines for your whole life. You know Black people need money and things. You get that there's vast systemic oppression and wealth inequality. So the basic idea of how this works is: White people, those with lifelong white privilege, you give us, Black people but especially the most marginalized among us: non cis men and single mothers,  money so that we can get the things we need to improve our lives and the conditions our children grow up in. From food, rent, diapers, transportation, healthcare, including birth, abortion access, reproductive care, and mental healthcare and other essentials to, hopefully as things begin to stabilize for us with more economic power, more and better and more diverse healthcare, for improved self and community care, therapies, counseling, mediation, legal fees, bail bonds, to liberate us from the oppression of the present white supremacist system, to invest top quality childcare and schools, in all levels and all sorts of education, classes, courses, and trainings, all the way to ethical luxuries, travel, launching businesses, building our own organizations, and more. 
2. Reparations. There are so many points one can make about the necessity of reparations! So let’s see here are my top three-ish: 

• Even if none of your ancestors ever owned slaves, if you are white (or have a majority white family) in America you and your family/ancestors still owe reparations to Black families and the entire Black American community. Because slavery was used to build and uphold the foundational platform of our society and this entire country: systemic white supremacy that not only directly benefited your ancestors while directly harming mine, but also continues to benefit you, and thus to —  systemically —  harm me. This happens regardless of your intent, desire, or consent, unfortunately. 

America was born in rape culture. Our ancestors were raped. So now you lack consent about whether your existence perpetuates white settler colonialism and white supremacy; if you are white, it does. No amount of being nice can ever change that. Unless nicely asking Jeff Bezos and the rest of the 0.9% of the human population that owns most of the worlds wealth to redistribute those funds, lands, and resources to create an egalitarian society, based in BIPOC sovereignty, would actually work. But you know what? Go ahead and try that, why not!  Maybe if enough peasants write him… ? Nah. probably, NOT! 

• ONE way people understand reparations is as payment owed by white ancestors toward our Black ancestors for labor that they did. This is not the entire picture or story or debt that reparations must cover however. Payment in exchange for the labor that enslaved people were forced to do for their white colonizers, owners, relatives, rapists, abusers, etc. … Around the clock any and every day of the year when rightfully accounting for emotional labor as well calculating for inflation, interest, and appreciation, of course, as one must, is but ONE element of reparations owed to Black Americans.
• There is also the crucial, fundamental matter of slavery itself: it was not only not paid it was not real employment, for lifetimes and generations this condition of working never ever ended. And by “working” I refer to   the extremely sadistic and brutally inhumane, lifelong conditions of psychological, physical, sexual, and generational harm, abuse, and trauma all of which must be somehow settled as it were and made full amends for… For the healing that we deserve and need to repair our communities and families, to build and grow. That is a fucking lot. it is what it is. What it was… 

We also all lost our fucking homelands. That in and of itself alone is priceless! That damage is irrevocable!!! We can never get that back… You not only kidnapped our ancestors several generations ago but the same masterminds behind that also totally desecrated and carved up our homelands beyond recognition. They set up borders to create wars. Wars that have never ended since. Violations that continue to burn down where our ancestral homes once thrived. 

So all those reasons for Reparations are ONE BIG ASS REASON––The Biggest reason, actually–– right there for Direct Giving!!!

3. Direct Giving makes the Time for Reparations right NOW,  instead of some always promised —  just like colonizer’s Christian Heaven —  time in the mythically not too distant future, way out on the horizon… While we try not to fear that there might not even be a future… due to ecological toxic whiteness, and/or also due to the massively painful genocidal —  that means murderous — tactics that white supremacist based and founded us government and corporate powers that be continue to use against us as I write, right NOW! No more waiting and empty promises. Participate in justice in the present. 

I am far from the first or the best person to say any of this. And I don’t say it just to say it. I need that capital just as much as any poor Black single mother under capitalism… Less, however, than the millions who don’t have access to this laptop I am blessed to own or this free and fast wifi, or the privacy I’m enjoying and relative safely… clean and comfortable because I have running hot water, fed. Millions of other mothers though like me in many ways need the money much more urgently than I do. …

Reparations is NOT about what we choose to do with the money that we are more than owed. That said we have that knowledge of what our ancestors experienced and the code for our healing in our DNA. We know in our hearts what needs to be done to restore our homelands, and our entire planet by extension. But we have to be able to heal to understand and follow that path those directions from within. We simply cannot do that sustainably and effectively under the current and continued through centuries white supremacist hypercapitalist kyriarchal oppression — not without significant and continuous influx of resources, including communities and capital. White people have the control born of economic stability that we need and that rightfully should belong to us as Black people if anyone.

I must add: They, wasicu, white people, also have the land that rightfully should belong to Indigenous turtle islanders. But in truth neither of our communities can survive or thrive as we need to heal under the current system and regime without both. We need to share and cooperate with each other. Which means we must take great pains to get to know to try to understand and above all to respect each other. It can be difficult but it definitely can and must be done. Our ancestors can all help us and are ready to do so once we ask, with that same respect.