I Figured Out How To Fix Poverty!
Money. It's Money.
I is tired.
Between the nightmare storage trip, the months long peepers saga and chronic daily financial stress that takes no days off, my Black ass is exhausted.
After surgery, with two fresh eyes (mama, I can seeeeee!) I noticed a leak in my apartment that I hadn’t seen before because, lol, I couldn’t see it.
Today I learned that: I need a new pipe installed, they have to rip up the wood floor from water damage and the bathroom ceiling needs to be knocked out and replaced.
You know what? I don’t even care at this point. What I’ma do? I just have to accept that there will be strangers up in my home for who knows how long and my nervous system will be dysregulated.
But that’s not why I’m here.
Let’s talk about poverty! (It still sucks.)
Every time I see studies about how giving poor people money actually improves the quality of their life, I want to throw spoons because, why is this a serious question?!
That research money could be better spent by giving it to….never mind. They don’t care. Those types of folks live by the rEsEArCh.
If you’ll notice, it’s never a group of Black women doing these studies because, wait for it…we already know this.
Poor people with real life experience clearly telling you what they need? Nah, screw that. Instead, let’s assemble a team of underpaid (but it’s fine because their parents are rich) graduate students so that we can answer a question that doesn’t need to be answered!
Kindly shut the fuck up.
People need money. THAT’S IT.
Ok fine, that’s not completely it.
We need:
Systemic change at a foundational level
A redistribution of wealth
REPARATIONS
Community leaders with lived experience to create new structures
A willingness, as a collective, to do life different in order to create an equitable society.
Until then, PEOPLE NEED MONEY.
It’s me. I’m people.
And I don’t mean mutual aid. Please don’t misunderstand, uutual aid has saved my life several times over. What I mean is that mutual aid isn’t the primary way we need to distribute the money.
Mutual Aid is inconsistent, based on emotion and often only provides a temporary life boat of support.
We need a fund - ONE main fund.
And yes, I understand that there are many sections of our society that need support right now thanks to trash ass capitalism, transphobia, homophobia, and general patriarchal bullshit.
However, I want this particular fund to be for Black Women.
You heal Black women and you’ll heal the world.
The Vision: The Reparative, Rest and Relocation Fund for Black Women.
My intention is that the fund would be the blueprint for similar funds which could then be distributed to any oppressed and targeted group who needs it.
Folks with financial privilege would contribute on a *continual* basis to the fund. A team of board members, with lived experience, financial expertise and basic human empathy, would distribute the funds generously and with ease.
No trauma story needed
No excessive forms to fill out
No extended waiting list
And I’m not talking about $500 or $1000.
I want women to receive significant check amounts that will help them change their lives at a foundational level and actually free themselves from their perpetual Cycle of Suck.
To be clear, $1000 would help me out for real, at the moment. However, when it comes to helping me create a stable financial future? That’s the equivelant of putting a band-aid on a flesh wound.
We need deep care.
We need resources.
And we need it, until we don’t
There is no time limit on healing generations of financial violence and oppression.
There are no quick fixes here, babes.
Do I have the details worked out? Nope.
Are there issues with this idea? Absolutely, yes.
However, when it comes to creating new models of how we can build an equitable society for everyone, you can criticize or you can create.
As for me, I prefer to create.
All this shit is made up. We can make it up better.
I hear you on that! I wish Angel Investors existed for investing in the Angels of the world. I'm a business owner and still don't have financial security yet despite years of hard-work and grind. Most business advice given by somebody who doesn't look like me is full of crock and doesn't work, hence, I always having to think outside the box (which is also exhausting!).
It should also be criminal for our education-for-profit system to convince 17 - 25 year olds to take out thousands of dollars in loans to pay for an education and tell them it's necessary to better themselves and obtain careers. Yet upon graduation (if you're able to make it that far), you're expected to start repaying those loans after six months, regardless of if you can find a job by then yet alone a job that pays a proper living wage. (P.S. The IDR repayment plans are b.s. too, but I'll save that tirade for another day.)
Furthermore, student loan borrowers, especially Black & melanated folks, often cannot get access to more money for starting a business or buying a house due to the student loan debt and debt-to-income ratio. Business grants are tough to win and they only award funding to less than 3% BIPOC. It's crazy how even if you have a good business plan and good credit many folks still can't get funding to grow a profitable business to support and take care of themselves. It's just a vicious systemic cycle by design that hits many people hard, but especially Black + Indigenous or those who don't fit in mainstream boxes. We definitely need revised cooperative-based economic models that value people over fake currency. Where do I sign up to burn this current mutha down? LOL!
I support this idea even if it's not perfect. A fund like this can make waves and bring about (I would hope) systemic change. Someone you might want to talk to about starting such a fund would be Chamieka House-Osuya of The Snack Sack. She started her mutual aid group for Black and brown folx, particularly women and children. https://www.thesnacksack.org/
"All this shit is made up. We can make it up better." AMEN. I love the idea of creating instead of (only) criticizing. We need both!