I’m setting feminism back to the 1950s.

At least, that’s what I gathered from a recent suggestion that people who criticize prominent figures are only seeking attention because they have nothing going on for themselves. My name weren’t mentioned and at least 14 others have been talking praising or declining to do so. Sometimes a shoe does not have to be personally delivered for you to recognize the size.

The quip of course, popped up in the midst if many of us discussing Gloria Steinem’s death and appeared while some of us were declining to participate in her canonization. My refusal to perform grief was interpreted not as a political position, but as a marketing strategy.

Apparently, I have built decades of organizing, writing, fundraising, teaching, and institution-building so I would one day be ready to chase clout from the death of a 92 year-old white feminist.

I am not happy that Gloria Steinem is gone. I’m just not personally saddened by her death. Those are not the same position.

Death ends a person’s life. It does not settle the meaning of that life, erase its contradictions, or obligate everyone affected by the politics surrounding it to produce grief on demand.

Are we discussing what happens when white institutional power appoints one woman to represent a movement, funds and circulates that representation, and then treats objections from less powerful women as an attack on feminism itself or are we talking about checkbooks and the ability to get my second divorce when I’m ready… or both. Also, why are y’all telling me that G.S. had no knowledge of what kind of establishment the CIA was, when Dr. Joy A. James was threatened to not mention G.S. and her involvement as a CIA operative, otherwise Angela Davis would not work with her.

Of course I want attention paid to what I am saying. Don’t you? I write publicly. This attention y’all speak of is how public writing reaches… the public.

The question is not whether I want people to pay attention. The question is whether the claims withstand scrutiny once they do.

In 2018, I was asked to give papers at a Northeastern University Boston symposium held by both the Northeastern Global Research Institute and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Department entitled, “Feminist Resilience: Structures & Strategies for Troubled Times.” The panel in which I sat was entitled “Imagining (Real) Feminist Resilience”. I turned and pointed to this photo which was on the screen behind me, as the litmus test to why ‘intersectional feminism’ isn’t just a hot topic, but a term white feminists thoroughly enjoy overstating and hardly ever utilize quite well, as I believe they don’t fully understand it.

I asked three questions:

1) Raise your hand if you’ve seen this photo before?

2) Raise your hand if you know who the white woman is?

They all raised their hands to the first and second questions. Question number two was even met with scoffs and laughter. The entirety of the attendees of this symposium could identify the white woman as Gloria Steinem, but coincidentally, only the director of the WGSS program raised her hand and could answer question #3 when I asked who could identify the Black woman in the picture.

Dorothy Pitman-Hughes, on her own, is a powerhouse author and activist, co-founding what is now the NYC Administration for Children’s Services. However, what many people, white feminists to be particularly accurate, do not know is that Pitman-Hughes co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance AND Ms. Magazine right alongside Gloria Steinem. It is a serious suppression of intersectionality that Gloria Steinem has been revered as the “Mother of Feminism.” In fact, The Griot just reported that they can count on one hand, how many times since the ‘50’s, the face of feminism helped Black women. 😭

To me, this reels of empirical tropes of patriarchal and puritanical white motherhood as the Madonna against Black women such as Kimberle Crenshaw, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Maya Angelou, Anna Julia Cooper, Angela Davis, and Maria Stewart.

Did you know that the Women’s Media Center has a “Lost Women of History Series’’ that cites “Maria Stewart as the first recorded American born woman to give a public speech in the United States in 1832.” The problem is that the word “lost” within the title of the series is a polite misnomer for the word “discarded.”

In my opinion, this is where Black Feminist Standpoint theory begins and empiricism should be strangled.

The same racism that served to exclude Black women from the feminist and abolitionist narrative in 1832 is the same racism that 194 years later in 2026, allows white feminists to evade accountability for not including Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Trans, Queer, Muslim and Disabled lives in their introduction of 2017’s The Women’s March.

The aforementioned women’s intersections were not lost at some playground; they were discarded by white women who dream of their own personal liberation from the oppression of white men but continuously fail to admit that discarding the most marginalized; those with multiple intersections, will only serve to empower white women and no one else.

“It’s very hard for me to say that ‘Good evening, sisters and friends’ as Gloria usually says, because usually I can’t.

In most of the audiences that we speak to, I don’t see very many friends or sisters, because white women have not yet learned or come to the conclusion to change for themselves how much they have been part of my oppression, as a black woman, and only until that is changed can we have sisterhood.” — Dorothy Pitman-Hughes, 1972

I am not setting feminism back to the 1950s. I’m asking why a movement that says it’s committed to women’s voices, still responds to an inconvenient woman by calling her bitter, irrelevant, and desperate for attention.

That part sounds remarkably vintage.

TL: DR — It’s OK if you want to idolize her. And it’s OK if I don’t. So what are we talking about next? Let’s wrap this up please and thank you.

Donations & reparations to the author welcome, but only if you got it like that.

Direct Quotes

Barbara Smith

In a 2003 interview with Loretta J. Ross, Barbara Smith once said about her sister Beverly: “She actually worked at Ms. magazine, not in an editorial position but, you know, in one of those positions they have for women of color when they want to look like, you know — don’t get me started.”

from bell hooks, ain’t I a woman? 1981

“When Michele Wallace’s book Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman appeared, it was heralded as the definitive feminist book on black women. Gloria Steinem is quoted on the cover as saying:

“What Sexual Politics was to the seventies, Michele Wallace’s book could be to the eighties. She crosses the sex-race barrier to make every reader understand the political and intimate truths of growing up black and female in America.”

Such a quote seems ironic in light of the fact that Wallace could not even discuss the social status of black women without first engaging in a lengthy diatribe about black men and white women. Curiously enough Wallace labels herself a feminist, even though she says very little about the impact of sexist discrimination and sexist oppression on the lives of black women nor does she discuss the relevance of feminism to black women. While the book is an interesting, provocative account of Wallace’s personal life that includes a very sharp and witty analysis of the patriarchal impulses of black male activists, it is neigher an important feminist work nor an important work about black women. It is important as a black woman’s story. All too often in our society, it is assumed that one can know all there is to know about black people by merely hearing the life story and opinions of one black person.

Steinem makes such a narrowminded, and racist, assumption when she suggests that Wallace’s book has a similar scope as Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics. Millett’s book is a theoretical, anayltical examination of sexual politics in America that encompasses a discussion of the nature of sex role patterns, a discussion of their historical background, and a discussion of the pervasiveness of patriarchal values in literature. More than five hundred pages in length, it is not autobiographical and is in many ways extremely pedantic.

One can only assume that Steinem believes that the American public can be informed about the sexual politics of black people by merely reading a discussion of the 60s black movement, a cursory examination of the role of black women during slavery, and Michele Wallace’s life. While I do not wish to denigrate the value of Wallace’s work, I believe that it should be placed in a proper context. Usually, a book that is labeled feminist focuses primarily on some aspect of the “woman question.” Readers of Black Macho and the Myth of the Super-woman were primarily interested in the author’s comments about black male sexuality which comprised the main body of her book.

Her short critique of the black female slave experience and their characteristic passive acceptance of sexism was largely ignored.”

Elaine Brown (2018, El Salto Diario interview, translated from Spanish)

“The feminist movement in the United States is dominated by white bourgeois ideals… when they talk about breaking the glass ceiling, what they really mean is they want to participate in the corporate world and have equality to oppress equally, among others, other women… You won’t find practically any Black or Latina women in this movement. In practice, it’s a movement of white women, and that’s how it’s been in the first wave, the second, and the third.”

On #MeToo and race: “the life of white women is much more important than that of Black women.”

Steinem, on her Black speaking partners (2026, via Rebecca Traister piece)

“Black women were the first feminists I met. I learned feminism from Black women. All my lecture partners were Black women. They were so far ahead of us. There’s certainly racism, God knows, in the women’s movement.”

“Black women were the first feminists I met,” Steinem said. “I learned feminism from Black women. All my lecture partners were Black women. They were so far ahead of us. There’s certainly racism, God knows, in the women’s movement. But in my actual personal experience it was the women of the National Welfare Rights Organization, it was Flo Kennedy, it was Dorothy Hughes, all these women from whom I learned.” — Gloria Steinem

https://www.thecut.com/article/gloria-steinem-obituary-feminism-abortion-womens-rights.html?utm_source=nymag_app_article_share

Dorothy Pitman Hughes

U.S. Naval Academy speech, May 4, 1972: “It’s very hard for me to say that ‘Good evening, sisters and friends’ as Gloria usually says, because usually I can’t. In most of the audiences that we speak to, I don’t see very many friends or sisters, because white women have not yet learned or come to the conclusion to change for themselves how much they have been part of my oppression, as a black woman, and only until that is changed can we have sisterhood.”

Dr. Joy A. James

“The threat to airbrush from “Unfinished Liberation” knowledge of the CIA’s impressive reach into Black radical politics was rudely rebuffed (but later accepted for The Angela Y. Davis Reader when I agreed to delete any reference to Gloria Steinem’s work with the CIA as she was raising funds for CritResist). The all Black CPUSA club Davis joined, Che-Lumumba Club, was named after Che Guevara and Patrice Lumumba — revolutionary leaders assassinated with the assistance of the CIA. When FedEx delivered the legal cease-and-desist papers, I delivered and explained them to the vice provost’s office exiting as white male administrators received them with laughter.”

https://transformharm.org/ab_resource/airbrushing-revolution-for-the-sake-of-abolition/

Margaret Sloan-Hunter (1974, The Lesbian Tide interview)

“I think it’s the responsibility of those white women who are sensitive to talk to their own sisters, instead of trying to talk to us saying, ‘Look here, we are responsible.’ There are a lot of white women who have come into the women’s movement and brought their racism with them because they hadn’t been into the Civil Rights Movement… it is ridiculous to expect this group of women’s movement people to have this sensitivity and consciousness about the Black female experience… when they did not have the same history.”

“Who we don’t get support from are all the white-owned foundations. That’s really where we feel hostility — organizations run by white men. We haven’t been welcomed by them.”

“I don’t think NBFO’s responsibility is to educate white women — I think what we’d like to do is educate Black women… I don’t think though that any group should have a responsibility of organizing other people.”

On Black feminism as identity (relayed by Steinem, secondhand): “I’m not black Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a woman Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”

Ellen Willis

Resignation letter from Ms.: “No attempt has ever been made to recruit and hire experienced feminist writers, theorists, organizers… Ms.’s politics [include] a mushy, sentimental idea of sisterhood designed to obscure political conflicts between women.” — Ellen Willis after resigning from Ms Magazine in 1975

Patricia Mainardi

On Ms. editing softening her language: “It’s sneaky editing, downgrading women’s contribution to art.”

Vivian Gornick

“Gloria was uptown; we were downtown. She hung out with Establishment figures; we had only ourselves.”

Kathie Sarachild (Redstockings)

On Ms.: “Basically, it’s a change yourself line, the women’s magazine line… But the tricky thing about Ms. is that they pretend to be different.”

The 1959 CIA Pamphlet — A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States

On voter registration: “While the figures are impressive, it must at the same time be realized that in many areas of the South there exists a profound apathy among Negroes toward this paramount responsibility of good citizenship.” (p. 22)

On discrimination’s “self-perpetuating” nature: “Rejection of such groups by those who enjoy greater rights and privileges is usually capricious and illogical at the outset. But it is also self-perpetuating, in that the rejected group, through continued deprivation, is hardened in the very shortcomings, whether real or imaginary, that are given as the reasons for discrimination in the first place.” (p. 2)

Closing framing: “beyond the noisy clamor of those who would obstruct justice and fair play, no alert observer can be unaware of the concerted effort to rule out segregation from every aspect of American life”; “given equal opportunity, the Negro need seldom yield the palm to his white counterpart.”

“She (Steinem) worked full-time as director of the Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival, later renamed the Independent Research Service (IRS), a CIA conduit that flooded the festivals with anti-communist and pro-US propaganda.

“At the Helsinki festival, which drew 18,000 people from 137 countries, the IRS produced a daily newspaper published in three languages, coedited by Steinem and Clay Felker.

One of the 1959 publications with her name on it, A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States, claimed that the problem of racial discrimination had essentially been solved in the United States and that leftover problems were due to black people’s psychology.

Low voter registration was because “in many areas of the South there exists a profound apathy among Negroes to the this paramount responsibility of good citizenship.”

The CIA’s goal had been to make the festivals so fraught — by encouraging violent clashes — that the countries sponsoring them would cancel them. As it turned out, the following two were canceled because the planned hosts, Algeria in 1965 and then Ghana in 1966, experienced coups. In Ghana, the CIA was involved, according to agency officer John Stockwell.

In the 1967 interviews, Steinem said the CIA funding was no problem. “Far from being shocked by this involvement I was happy to find some liberals in government in those days who were far-sighted and cared enough to get Americans of all political views to the festival,” she told The New York Times. She also said she was not asked to report on people she met there.

Since Steinem wasn’t well-known at the time, it was eight years later that the New York — based feminist group Redstockings discovered the connection, after Steinem had rocketed to the front of the movement.”

Gloria Steinem Was the Godmother of Neoliberal Feminism - The Wire

Steinem, on the CIA (1967)

“Far from being shocked by this involvement I was happy to find some liberals in government in those days who were far-sighted and cared enough to get Americans of all political views to the festival.” (to the New York Times)

“In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable.”

Michele Wallace

1975 letter to Steinem: Ms. needed to be “interested in altering your racist image among black feminists,” warning “The Women’s Movement is being transformed into a cultural dictatorship by racism.”

“Her (Michele Wallace) commitment to Black women’s art and literature is clear in her correspondence with Gloria Steinem and others at Ms. on behalf of WSABAL.

In a letter to Steinem of May 27, 1975, Wallace offers data demonstrating that “the magazine has generally not covered black women or employed black women writers to any extent that might be considered adequate or even acceptable.” She notes that Margo Jefferson and Alice Walker are responsible for the “one article on a black woman singer” and “one on a black woman dancer,” respectively, and goes on to point out that the few articles in Ms. about Black women perpetuated stereotypes in articles by “white feminists dwelling on our poverty and deprivation.”

The relative absence of Black women from the pages of Ms. amounted to a “racist policy” that Wallace urged Steinem to rectify, in part, with “a series of feature articles on black women artists.” Although The Sisterhood focused their efforts mostly on Black periodicals such as Essence and Black World, Wallace was arguing for exactly the increased, varied, and Black-authored representation of Black women in magazines that The Sisterhood would also soon advocate.

Wallace’s proposal for a Ms. series on Black women visual artists is similar to Vèvè Clark’s proposal on behalf of The Sisterhood for Ebony to “establish a monthly, bi-monthly or weekly feature on the poetry of one black woman.”

How Michele Wallace Sought Black Women's Liberation Through Art

Alice Walker

To Steinem, on rare covers featuring women of color: “But a people of color cover once or twice a year is not enough. In real life, people of color occur with much more frequency. I do not feel welcome in the world you are projecting.”

Alice Walker’s Resignation Letter from Ms. Magazine, 1986

“I am writing to let you know of the swift alienation from the magazine my daughter and I feel each time it arrives with its determinedly (and to us grim) white cover … It was nice to be a Ms. cover myself once. But a people of color cover once or twice a year is not enough. In real life, people of color occur with much more frequency. I do not feel welcome in the world you are projecting.”

Toni Morrison (1971, NYT)

“What do black women feel about Women’s Lib? Distrust. It is white, therefore suspect… too many movements and organizations have made deliberate overtures to enroll blacks and have ended up by rolling them.”

The following was written by Toni Morrison in 1971 in the New York Times, but also quotes a conversation between Nikki Giovanni and Ida Lewis, the former editor‐in‐chief of Essence Magazine.

“WHAT do black women feel about Women’s Lib? Distrust. It is white, therefore suspect. In spite of the fact that liberating movements in the black world have been catalysts for white feminism, too many movements and organizations have made deliberate overtures to enroll blacks and have ended up by rolling them. They don’t want to be used again to help somebody gain power — a power that is carefully kept out of their hands. They look at white women and see them as the enemy — for they know that racism is not confined to white men, and that there are more white women than men in this country, and that 53 per cent of the population sustained an eloquent silence during times of greatest stress.

When she was interviewed by Nikki Giovanni last May in Essence magazine, Ida Lewis, the former editor‐in‐chief of Essence, was asked why black women were not more involved in Women’s Lib, and she replied: “The Women’s Liberation Movement is basically a family quarrel between white women and white men. And on general principles, it’s not good to get involved in family disputes. Outsiders always get shafted when the dust settles. On the other hand, I must support some of the goals [equal pay, child‐care centers, etc.]…. But if we speak of liberation movement, as a black woman I view my role from a black perspective — the role of black women is to continue the struggle in concert with black men for the liberation and self‐determination of blacks. White power was not created to protect and preserve us as women. Nor can we view ourselves as simply American women. We are black women, and as such we must deal effectively in the black community.”

To which Miss Giovanni sighed: “Well, I’m glad you didn’t come out of that Women’s Lib or black‐man bag as if they were the alternatives….”

Miss Lewis: “Suppose the Lib movement succeeds. It will follow, since white power is the order of the day, that white women will be the first hired, which will still leave black men and women outside….”

It is an interesting exchange, Miss Lewis expressing suspicion and identifying closely with black men, Miss Giovanni suggesting that the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

BUT there is not only the question of color, there is the question of the color of experience. Black women are not convinced that Women’s Lib serves their best interest or that it can cope with the uniqueness of their experience, which is itself an alienating factor.

The early image of Women’s Lib was of an elitist organization made up of upper‐middle‐class women with the concerns of that class (the percentage of women in professional fields, etc.) and not paying much attention to the problems of most black women, which are not in getting into the labor force but in being upgraded in it, not in getting into medical school but in getting adult education, not in how to exercise freedom from the “head of the house” but in how to be head of the house.”

https://archive.is/nj6yP

“Five Times Gloria Steinem Helped Black Women”

“In 2017, she (Gloria Steinem) told theGrio how she learned feminism from Black women.

“People talk to me about white feminism, and I say, ‘Are you kidding me?’ If it’s white, it can’t be feminism. I mean, hello? It either includes all women or it’s not feminism,” she said.

She added, “There is just no such thing as defeating sexism without also being anti-racist, and no such thing as defeating racism without also being a feminist.”

Notes and Sources

CIA Connection

1. Snopes fact-check on Steinem/CIA, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gloria-steinem-cia-connection/

2. USC Center on Public Diplomacy, “The Feminist Was a Spy” (2016), https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/feminist-was-spy

3. Keeping Tabs, “Gloria Steinem Was a CIA Collaborator…”, https://keepingtabsonline.com/p/gloria-steinem-was-a-cia-collaborator

4. Redstockings, “Redstockings On Gloria Steinem And The CIA”, https://archive.org/details/redstockings-on-gloria-steinem-and-the-cia_202404

5. United Panther Party, https://unitedpantherparty.substack.com/p/gloria-steinem-the-cia-white-feminism

6. Berkeley Pacifica Radio Archive, Kathie Sarachild on Steinem/CIA, https://avplayer.lib.berkeley.edu/Pacifica/b23305526

7. A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States (1959 pamphlet, full scan), https://archive.org/details/a-review-of-negro-segregation-in-the-united-states

8. Full text of “A Review Of Negro Segregation In The United States” https://archive.org/stream/a-review-of-negro-segregation-in-the-united-states/A%20Review%20of%20Negro%20Segregation%20in%20the%20United%20States_djvu.txt

Transphobia

9. TransGriot (Monica Roberts), “Gloria Steinem-Transphobe” (2012), https://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/09/gloria-steinem-transphobe.html

10. TransGriot (Monica Roberts), “Gloria Steinem-Trans Ally?” (2013), https://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/10/gloria-steinem-trans-ally.html

11. Transgender Map, Steinem overview, https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/topics/media/gloria-steinem/

12. GLAAD statement on Steinem’s life/legacy, https://glaad.org/releases/glaad-statement-on-the-life-and-legacy-of-gloria-steinem/

Racism / White Feminism Critiques

13. 19th News, “Women of color say Gloria Steinem leaves a legacy…”, https://19thnews.org/2026/09/gloria-steinem-black-women-intersectional-feminism/

14. Lithub, “How Michele Wallace Sought Black Women’s Liberation Through Art”, https://lithub.com/how-michele-wallace-sought-black-womens-liberation-through-art/

15. Blackfeminisms.com, “No, Gloria Steinem Did Not Create Black Feminism”, https://blackfeminisms.com/steinem-wallace/

16. TheGrio, “Five times Gloria Steinem stood with Black women”, https://thegrio.com/2026/09/03/five-times-gloria-steinem-stood-with-black-women/

17. Ms. Magazine, 2021 profile of Dorothy Pitman Hughes (Laura Lovett interview), https://msmagazine.com/2021/09/09/dorothy-pitman-hughes-feminist-gloria-steinem-who-founded-ms-magazine/

Elaine Brown

18. El Salto Diario interview (2018), https://www.elsaltodiario.com/feminismos/elaine-brown-el-movimiento-feminista-de-los-estados-unidos-esta-dominado-por-ideales-burgueses-blancos

19. Freedom Socialist Party, “Invisible Women: Sexism in the Black Panther Party”, https://socialism.com/fs-article/voices-of-color-invisible-women-sexism-in-the-black-panther-party/

Dorothy Pitman Hughes — Primary Speech

20. University of Maryland Recovering Democracy Archives, speaker page, https://recoveringdemocracyarchives.umd.edu/speaker/pitman-hughes/

21. Naval Academy speech page, https://recoveringdemocracyarchives.umd.edu/rda-unit/speech-to-naval-academy/

Margaret Sloan-Hunter

22. Veteran Feminists of America, Pioneer Histories Project profile, https://veteranfeministsofamerica.org/vfa-pioneer-histories-project-margaret-sloan-hunter/

23. The Lesbian Tide, July 1974, “Double Trouble for Black Women: An Interview with Margaret Sloan”, https://veteranfeministsofamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/M-Sloan-lesbian-tide-7407.compressed.pdf

24. SFGate, “Margaret Sloan-Hunter — united black, feminist struggles” (obituary), https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Margaret-Sloan-Hunter-united-black-feminist-2687932.php

25. Pacifica Radio Archives, “Sexism and racism” (Steinem/Sloan, 1973 recording), https://pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/bc2781/

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy

26. Sherie M. Randolph, Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical (Google Books), https://books.google.com/books/about/Florynce_Flo_Kennedy.html?id=olq0CAAAQBAJ

27. TIME, “The History Behind the Supporting Women in ‘The Glorias’”, https://time.com/5894877/glorias-movie-activists/

28. Solidarity, “The Lasting Legacy of Florynce Kennedy, Black Feminist Fighter”, https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/3272.html

Neoliberal Feminism Critique

29. The Wire (India), reprint of Jenny Brown/Jacobin, “Gloria Steinem Was the Godmother of Neoliberal Feminism”, https://m.thewire.in/article/women/gloria-steinem-was-the-godmother-of-neoliberal-feminism

30. Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/2026/09/steinem-feminism-ms-cia-socialism

Sophia Smith Collection (Smith College Archives)

31. Gloria Steinem papers, finding aid, https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/1006

32. Dorothy Pitman Hughes papers, finding aid, https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/1202

33. Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, finding aid, https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/657

34. Voices of Feminism, Narrators list, https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/research-collections/resources-lists/oral-histories/voices-of-feminism/narrators

35. Barbara Smith oral history transcript (110 pp., interviewed by Loretta Ross, 2003), https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Smith.pdf

Three days ago, I wrote a Facebook post highlighting a pro tip regarding allyship — specifically around the way that white women, most men, and sometimes even other Black women show up for us.

Pro-Tip surrounding exceptional allyship:

If I come to you with gossip about someone I used to think highly of, because I know you don’t like them; keep me at bay instead of being relieved that someone else finally “sees” your frustration. Let me explain why:

I will use the information I have about your opp to build a fake rapport with you, and even have you believing that I’m actually in your corner because you have the better analysis/platform/presentation/aesthetic — albeit I’m only providing conditional support — you won’t be able to tell boo, because you’re too busy saving the world or whatever it is you think you do.

I need as much dirt on Black women that I can get, so I can later explain why I don’t financially, physically or mentally support them.

Pop Quiz: Who am I? Another Black woman, a white woman or a man? There are no wrong answers.

It may have landed funnily with some folks, so I apologize my hypothetical pop quiz — I’m trying to talk at people less.

If you have the time in the next couple of days, I would love to hear y’all’s thoughts on the matter. Many comments sent out to me, but the one that I was pleasantly surprised to read was from Masada who shared the following:

Black women have no allies because our existence is fundamentally inconvenient to the systems and individuals who claim to support us.

Allyship, when extended to us, is often conditional, performative, and ultimately self-serving. We are expected to be the backbone of every movement, the foot soldiers for every cause, and the emotional mules for every injustice — — yet, when we need reciprocity, protection, or even basic human regard, we are met with silence, abandonment, or outright hostility.

White feminism has historically sidelined black women demanding our labor but refusing to center our specific struggles. From the suffrage movement, which excluded black women while benefiting from our activism, to modern mainstream feminism, which prioritizes issues that largely benefit white, middle class women.

Black women are only valued when we serve the agenda — not when we demand justice for ourselves.

While we are expected to be the nurturers, the defenders, and the ever loyal supporters of black men and black institutions, we rarely receive the same unwavering protection in return.

Misogynoir is alive and well, and too often, our pain is dismissed, our concerns belittled, and our agency undermined by the very people who expect our unconditional support.

The progressive movement uses us — we mobilize for civil rights, carry the Democratic Party on our backs, and stand at the forefront of LGBTQ rights, climate justice, and other countless progressive causes.

But when it comes time for these movements to center to our needs — whether is protecting black maternal health, addressing inequities, stopping the criminalization of black girls — suddenly the solidarity evaporates.

White liberals want gratitude and not accountability. Many of our so-called allies, especially white liberals, want to be celebrated for doing the bare minimum.

They post Black Lives Matter hashtags, buy books on anti-racism, pat themselves on the back for recognizing our oppression, but the moment we demand more — structural changes, reparations, true power sharing they recoil. We’re supposed to be grateful for their crumbs of recognition rather than insist on true equity.

Black women exist at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression. We are too black for mainstream feminism, too woman for racial justice movements, too radical for liberal white allies, and too outspoken in conservative respectability politics.

We are expected to shrink ourselves, to make our demands palatable, to always be the “strong black woman” even as the archetype erases our suffering and dehumanizes us.

The reality is we are in the storm alone because no one benefits from our true liberation but us.

Read that again — no one benefits from our true liberation but us.

If Black women were truly free — if we had economic power, political influence, and social autonomy the entire system would shift in ways that make many of our so-called allys uncomfortable.

They don’t want us to burn the table down; they just want us to be happy sitting quietly at the kiddie table.

We don’t have allies. We never had them & we never will.

- Masada Sarid Ari

Masada Sarid Ari is a Black, Jewish, Queer, Neurodivergent, Criminal Defense death penalty attorney who loves ALL things horological.

Combating the New Housing Apartheid: Lessons from the Great Rent Strike War of 1932

Good morning! And Happy Black History Month everyone!

Remember the Alabama Riverboat Brawl back in August? This post has nothing to do with that, I just wanted to bring it up because that’s the type of energy I’m planning to be on all month.

But I do have an interesting bit of history I wanted to share with y’all if that’s OK.

It’s about a riot that took place 92 years ago, where hundreds of tenants facing eviction violently beat the crap out of the law enforcement officers trying to evict them.

I know what you’re thinking, “DiDi this can’t be true. This sounds like fanfiction you use to pleasure yourself.” And while that last part is true, so is the riot I’m going to tell you about — on this, the second day of Black History Month.

Here we go…

It all started in the Bronx, my home away from home, back in February of 1932.

Rent prices in NYC were higher than ever following the First World War, because all building materials were directed towards the war effort.

That caused housing construction to stop in the US for many consecutive years, which prompted a housing shortage.

We’re living through a similar decrease in housing construction today stemming from COVID, as well as an artificial shortage of properties available to rent or buy thanks to greedy landlords and real estate developers.

Fewer houses means higher rents, as demand outpaces supply.

Anyway, a new social movement quickly popped up as renters started organizing and withholding rent, as well as resisting evictions.

New York City had some of the highest rents, and therefore some of the most intense direct actions to combat eviction. What began in the Bronx quickly spread to Brooklyn and beyond.

During these protests, tenants violently fought police officers, leading to hundreds of arrests. But the mass arrests only ensured tenants couldn’t pay, so the rent strike continued.

The strikes spread across the country in a wave, and eventually led to decreases in rent and eviction rates.

Additionally, the rent strikes of the early 1930’s led to the passage of the Housing Act of 1937, which established public housing in the United States.

That’s right, the projects — which currently house over 2 million low income families — were started because of community organizing, refusal to pay landlords, and beating up cops.

But there are still millions more families who can’t afford rent.

In fact, according to one recent Harvard University housing study, more than 12 million renters are severely cost burdened, meaning they spend MORE THAN HALF their income on housing.

And evictions are rapidly rising as pandemic protections have expired and a record-high number of income-eligible renters can’t access rental assistance.

So why am I telling you this, on the second day of Black History Month (or “Groundhogs Day,” as it’s known to bigots)?

I’m telling you this to remind you that not all lessons from history center around non-violence and voting. And maybe, if physical resistance got the job done in the past, it’s an option worth considering today.

But in lieu of that, I’m also here to make one last push for those most impacted by this Capitalism-induced ‘Landlord Crisis’ — Black women and children.

In the past eight weeks we’ve raised over $50,000 for struggling Black families! That alone has been amazing, and in many cases, life saving.

But this Black History Month we’re going to close the remaining gap and reach our goal of $100,000. We’re more than halfway there!

The current housing crisis is unsustainable. Homelessness is on the rise, and even small cities are seeing tent cities pop up while apartment buildings and houses remain vacant.

This week, we pay homage to Black activists like Melvin “Mel” King, organizers with Mass Welfare Rights Union, Greater Boston Coalition of the Homeless, Community Assembly for a United South End (CAUSE) and a majority of Black and Brown residents alike who occupied a government redevelopment construction site in 1968 that would prioritize profits over people in Boston. We stand in unwavering solidarity against this housing apartheid, whether it’s in Boston or the Bronx, due to Capitalism and greed.

Like so many of our predecessors, it’s on us as a collective to find ways to keep people housed — or as Mel King said, to have “a place for the people,” so that we can better fight back the oppressive systems that seek to exploit us and drain us of all our resources.

Happy Black History & Futures Month y’all.

Tax deductible donations are welcome but only if you can cover your own rent like that.

https://givebutter.com/RentForMoms

No such luck.

Yesterday I became a “mother of two” after welcoming my beautiful son, Cairo, into this world.

I was so nervous about giving birth to a second child especially after losing my baby last year — twice the responsibility, twice the fear, twice the reruns of Bluey and Gracie’s Corner. But all of that apprehension has suddenly been replaced with relief. My rainbow baby doesn’t mean that my loss was a storm; the birth of my son is a sign of good things to come 🌈 💰

It’s kind of like having two jobs, because now I’ve got a spare 😂

Now if one of my children grows up to be a supervillain (*cough* Egypt *cough*) I’ll have another kid to use as a reference.

I have a control group in case I mess one of them up. They can both talk about me in therapy about how I favored their sibling more.

I’ve also doubled my odds for somebody taking care of me in my old age. This is amazing. (It’s just jokes for those of you who feel like this is messed up thinking 🤦🏽‍♀️)

I pinky promise I won’t be one of those moms who do weird things like romanticize their relationship with their sons because they don’t know any better, or one that expects my daughter to be my assistant as I raise my son, but it’s nice knowing that they will grow up looking out for each other.

It’s nice knowing that when I’m gone there are two people to argue over who will get my ashes. It’s nice to be wanted. 🥹

My son is incredible for many reasons. He’s already a communist, because he just expects me to feed him out of the goodness of my heart. He was just born knowing that food should be free.

I asked him if he condemned Hamas, and he was silent. He’s a born revolutionary! #FreePalestine

I plan to read him the Autobiography of Assata Shakur, just to sharpen up his politics a little.

He’s also very portable and loud, and I’m already used to carrying a bullhorn around so this is right up my ally.

Obviously the drugs they have me on are working fine, but I just wanted to let y’all know that I’m safe, my family is safe, and I have been fruitful and multiplied.

I am filled with a joy that I’ve only known once before. And I’m humbled at the thought that I deserve to be this happy.

I’d like to thank our care team Shia and Andrea — as well as many of my doula siblings for always coming to the rescue about my questions.

If you’d like to contribute to Egypt’s attention fund, please send $20 at the links below.

✅ Venmo.com/DiDi-Delgado

✅ Cash.me/$Driventosucceed247

✅ PayPal.me/TheDiDiDelgado

✅ Patreon.com/TheDiDiDelgado

✅ mealtrain.com/6rk8mk

For 220 years, every presidential election in the United States came down to two old white men.

Then, miraculously, we had three back-to-back elections where one of those white men was swapped out for an alternate — first Barack, then Hillary.

Obama won twice and went on to deport and bomb as many brown people as he could before abandoning his base.

Hillary lost.

And the rest is repulsive orange history.

After 2016, America fell off the diversity wagon and returned to the familiarity of deciding which geriatric white supremacist man-child would best serve the interests of the few, at the expense of the many.

But the presidential elections between 2008 and 2016 did have one unintended side effect: They allowed voters to realize supporting old white men isn’t our only option. They broke the spell of electoral mediocrity and nepotism that has been ingrained in us since the Birth of this Nation.

And many voters made the decision that, from this point forward, we are done voting for old white men.

I came to the personal decision that for every presidential election from here on out I’ll be voting for a Black person killed by the State. Specifically, the individual whose death causes me the most turmoil and pain in a given election year.

I’m sad to say, for 2020, that person is Breonna Taylor. I’m absolutely politicizing Breonna’s murder, because Breonna’s murder was political.

So here’s why she’s getting my vote for President of the United States:

1) Most of Our Presidential Votes Don’t Count, Especially if You’re Black

If you’re like me and live in one of the 44 states that don’t have a legitimate say in determining the president thanks to the electoral college, you’ll realize that most of our votes are essentially “protest votes” anyway.

As with most presidential elections, the 2020 election will be decided by six swing states. Outcomes from the remaining states are all but predetermined.

You can vote for president all you want, but in the vast majority of states your vote simply doesn’t carry weight. And if you’re Black, your vote literally counts less than white votes.

I’m not going to argue about it. Those are the facts. So if my vote doesn’t count, why wouldn’t I use it to highlight victims of state violence?

Maybe if enough candidates lose by the margin of people voting for Black lives lost to systemic violence they’ll finally do something about it.

And even if I did happen to live in a swing state, that only gives my protest vote even more power. Maybe if enough candidates lose by the margin of people voting for Black lives lost to systemic violence they’ll finally do something about it, and I don’t mean by requesting that police shoot me in the leg.

Contrary to popular belief, old white men don’t need to hold political office to influence change in this country. When they start wielding their power and privilege to dismantle oppressive systems, then we can talk about how I cast my vote.

Until then, I can do bad all by myself.

2) Dead or Alive, Breonna Taylor is a Better Candidate

There’s no doubt in my mind that Breonna Taylor would be a better president than either of the candidates running this year.

Breonna Taylor never committed tax fraud. Breonna Taylor never incarcerated people for minor crimes. Breonna Taylor never voted for endless war. Breonna Taylor never RAPED anyone, and wasn’t repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct and impropriety.

I know it’s taboo to vote for someone simply because they’re far and away the best candidate, but even the ghost of Breonna Taylor would do a better job governing than any candidate on the ballot — and that includes third party candidates who do NOTHING all year to build community power but then show up begging for 5% support to gain access to public funds.

I guess they didn’t think we noticed.

3) I’m Not the Only Person Voting for Breonna Taylor

I’m in a group chat with like 20 Black women organizers and we’re all voting for Breonna Taylor. So are half the people on the #DoneForDiDi reparations team. So is my editor. So is my therapist.

So there’s that.

4) Victory is Guaranteed

If organizing has taught me one thing, it’s that we have to define victory on our own terms. Winning an election is not a victory to me. Especially when our elections don’t even follow basic rules, such as, “The person with the most votes wins.”

So if the Founding Failures got to frame victory however they saw fit, why can’t we?

Victory for me is justice for Breonna Taylor and all marginalized people suffering under Capitalism — especially Black non-men and children. That’s it. Anything short of that is death, literally.

I refuse to pretend anything about this election is normal.

Voting for Breonna Taylor keeps Black women at the forefront of this conversation, and makes my priorities as a citizen and voter clear to those in power. Isn’t that the point of voting? To get our concerns uplifted and REPRESENTED by the politicians who claim to represent us.

And if I can do that while figuratively “Saying Her Name” on the most controversial and coveted document I’ll be submitting for the next four years, it’s a win/win.

Voting for Breonna Taylor isn’t a gimmick or another attempt at Breonna’s “memeification,” as discussed by Feminista Jones. It’s an act of political resistance meant to make society uncomfortable while applying pressure to those who view my willingness to vote as the height of civic engagement.

There’s no rule that says I have to vote for a politician simply because they need my vote. There’s no rule that says I have to vote for a “lesser” white supremacist to prove my loyalty to oppressed people. I can vote for whoever I want, or not vote at all, and the burden of gaining my vote is on those who wish to win elections.

Period.

5) There Are No More Rules

This year’s election is somehow more ridiculous than previous years. There’s a global pandemic. Nearly half the country is unemployed. 40 Million Americans are facing eviction. And our choices for president are between a Nazi rapist and a slightly more subtle Nazi rapist.

I refuse to pretend anything about this election is normal. I refuse to believe that standing in a line full of COVID carriers in early-November is the best way to protect vulnerable people. This election has proven that the entire system is a farce, at best; or a strategic attempt to keep Americans from burning everything down, at worst.

Because there’s never been a clearer time in contemporary American history where an election shouldn’t be happening, yet here we are. There’s a non-stop choir of voices demanding that we participate, as if that’s not completely dangerous given the circumstances, and even illogical given the overwhelming evidence that voting simply doesn’t help people who look like me.

If you want me to go along with this nonsense, I’m voting for someone I actually value. I’m voting for someone who I see myself in. I’m voting for someone who represents my struggle and my desire for radical and transformative change. I’m voting for someone who mattered, and who continues to matter.

I’m voting for Breonna Taylor.

– @TheDiDiDelgado

Donations & reparations welcome to the author, but only if you got it like that.

07.28.20 | Mid-Summer Issue

Hello:

This is DiDi Delgado — poet, educator, author, mother and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Cambridge. I want to thank you if you have previously signed up for a class, made a donation to one of my initiatives, checked the box for my newsletter or if you’ve signed up for the mailing list.

I have been published and cited in USA Today, the Huffington Post, The Boston Globe, Democracy Now!, The Root, Propublica, The Observer, NBC News OutFront, Shelterforce Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Slate Magazine, Mother Jones and Vanity Fair.

For more information about me, please check out these links:

‪Website is www.TheDiDiDelgado.com

Artist page is www.facebook.com/TheDiDiDelgado‬

‪Twitter is @TheDiDiDelgado‬

Instagram is @TheDiDiDelgado

‪Patreon is www.Patreon.com/TheDiDiDelgado‬

When the Flint Water Crisis, Standing Rock, the flooding of Baton Rouge, and countless other disasters happened in 2017, getting most people to agree that Black Lives Matter was an uphill climb. An alarm was sounded, alerting the world to the growing mistreatment of Black people in the United States of America, which was not for the faint of heart; it is not lost on me this all occurred at the height of organizational grunt work of engaging in rapid response, and what many of you are NOW calling ‘mutual aid .’

The phrase Black Lives Matter most recently resurfaced with the state sanctioned deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. ( Now, three long years later, only 63% of Americans finally believe that Black Lives Matter ). We still have a long way to go.

I see folks in 2020, because of both a global pandemic and uprising, looking to grasp a better understanding of equity and justice. The best experts on the subject are not those who study us in theory, but those of us with life experience as a praxis.

Today, I am asking you to share these opportunities to “plug-in” with your network.

Training & Technology For Front-line Activists

One of the unaddressed needs now is how to engage while on the front lines with both the newly politicized and the re-energized community. In this current climate, we need TnT: Training & Technology.

Capital District Intersectional Feminist Group and Capital District SURJ are collaborating with training specialists from Blackout Collective, The Ruckus Society, National Lawyers Guild, Organizing Black, Black Movement Law Project, and Mass Bail Fund to bring technology upgrades, political education, and safety via the following virtual offerings:

Organizing 101 | Know Your Rights | Cop Watch | NVDA | Security| |Train the Trainer|

We are providing training and technology upgrades for 75–100 people. We are asking for community support to curate a collective container of knowledge so that we can begin mobilizing our communities in ways that keep the momentum going while shifting the responsibility to provide continuous education away from those on the front lines.

Donate here: bit.ly/DirectActionNow

Dismantling Racism and All the Other Isms

Join us for an interactive class and discussion forum on dismantling oppression in the new era of resistance. Nandi K, a southern born, queer, non-binary Artist, Activist, and podcast host of “Black Friends Dinner” with a passion for Black liberation, soul music, and fried chicken. will be my special guest facilitator.

Every Monday in August, my colleague Nandi K. and I will be leading a five week interactive class and discussion forum on dismantling oppression in the new era of resistance.

Date/Time: Every Monday in August from 6:30 P.M. to 8:30 PM EST

RSVP for all 5 Monday sessions for $100. A portion of the proceeds will be going to the residents of YWCA of Cambridge, MA.

Grab your ticket here: https://dismantlingracismaugust.eventbrite.com

Discussion topics will include:

•Practicing Anti-Racism

•Tangible Allyship

•Examining Misogynoir

•Black Queer Antagonism

•Agitation and Division

•Dismantling systems of oppression

If you are experiencing financial hardship, please e-mail didi@thedididelgado.com for accessibility options.

Details and course outline to come.

RSVP to the FB Event

Grab Your Ticket on Eventbrite

The Full Set is just a glimpse into the candid conversations that Black people have at the barbershop or beauty salon in the US. I am a Black Queer Femme and personally I have had many of my most important conversations whilst getting my full set of nails done. I bring that warmth, vulnerability, boldness and curiosity into my discussions with different guests each week. Guests are generally my peers or people whose work I follow via social media. Like a conversation between good friends or frenemies, there’s no spin and no restrictions, just plenty of camaraderie.

My work is trauma-guided and -informed, as I myself am processing and repairing my own personal trauma and the traumas I may have caused others along the way. The Full Set began as a healing and self-care journey for me (the host) during the beginning stages of the COVID-19 quarantine, in the absence of my nail technician. I wanted to hear about how everyone else was doing. From the conversations with the guests, me and my audience gained a new and deeper understanding about the tenets of healing.

When Black folks get involved in organizing and activism, it’s usually not with a Black queer feminist lens. My identity and work are woven into the show’s DNA. As a poet, activist, educator and organizer I’ve seen how stories like mine are often excluded from the mainstream through respectability politics. While being on the front lines blazing pathways, creating channels, and fostering connections in support of the most marginalized, I’ve realized that I’m good at capturing an audience and holding their attention.

Through The Full Set I’ve made the most of this in order to amplify the work of others like me.

The Full Set is now streaming on Apple, Spotify, Youtube and all streaming platforms!

See our Mid-Summer List on FB.

🗣️ It’s that time again! Welcome to the Heat Wave Edition of reparations for #DoneForDiDi !! 🌡️♨️ ☀️

The following Black women and marginalized genders are in need of support — donations, reparations, cash, bank, Sonic rings, Mario coins etc. So we’re going to help them. As always this ask is directed at white folks and men, not Black non-men who already do a majority of the heavy lifting for our community.

🔹 Pick TWO of the individuals below.

🔹 Donate $10 to $20 to their personal links.

🔹 Write “Done” in the comments when you’re done, along with the name(s) of the individuals you were able to help.

🔹 Share this post, then go stick your head in the freezer cuz it’s HOT af. That’s it.

Lets go! 👇🏾

KIT

Kit is a non-binary trans person who needs to relocate to the Boston area after facing discrimination from their landlord, who forced them to move midst the pandemic. The #DoneForDiDi Admin team was able to raise some funds, but lets get her some cushion. PayPal: https://bit.ly/letshousekit

QUE

Full disclosure, Que is a man (nobody’s perfect) but also an advocate for Black women and non-men. Que has been doing freelance work to survive during the pandemic, but due to his treatments he’s running out of opportunities for employment. You can contribute $15 to his survival here: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8riGTtAQCR

JINA

Jina is a Black woman and artist who recently lost her job. She wasn’t terminated due to COVID-19, but because her employers found out she was attempting to organize and unioninze her co-workers. You can send $10-$20 via:

http://paypalme.com/Jinaedwards

MONE’T

Mone’t is Black woman, artist, activist and Founder of Sacramento BlackArtsMatter. Her organizations specializes in turning trauma into healing by providing platform & space for Black Artists. You can support this important initiative here:

https://paypal.me/blackartsmatter

BRITTANY

Brittany is a Blaqueer Non — Binary Artist, creating stories showcasing black spaces in fantasy, horror, sci-fi, slice of life. COVID-19 wasn’t the storyline they were expecting. They are in need of financial assistance after enduring an unexpected financial hardship. Please send $10 here:

https://www.paypal.me/BrittanyCJohnson

NIKKI

Nikki is a Black, femme, pan identified artist with 10+ years experience in photography and editing. Nikki is also diabetic with no health insurance. Please send $10 here:

https://www.paypal.me/JDRousePhotography

COYA

Coya is a Two-Spirit, Black/Indigenous femme who is a single mother and community organizer in Portland. She is in need of money to be able cover rent, groceries, and school supplies for her and her 3 kids as well helping raise money for two other Black/Indigenous single mothers she is in contact with. https://www.paypal.me/aztecblues

– @TheDiDiDelgado

Donations & reparations welcome to the author, but only if you got it like that.

This week, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association (BPPA) sent a letter to the Boston Teachers Union (BTU), admonishing them for their participation in the highly anticipated “Black Lives Matter at School Week.” The letter claims that Black Lives Matter “inaccurately demonizes” police departments across the country, who kill roughly 1,000 Americans each year. The letter also states that the BLM movement has “made policing more dangerous than ever before,” despite police officer deaths being at near-record lows. Finally, the BPPA took issue with the BTU’s admirable goal of funding more school counselors to help vulnerable students and youth in crisis.

Read the BPPA Letter Below:

As a long time resident of Roxbury and as a Black woman, I want the food service workers who feed Boston cops to know this letter is blatantly spitting in the ingredients of racial justice and the broader fight for Civil Rights. The BPPA is spewing and regurgitating dangerous rhetoric that will potentially contaminate the futures of Black youth in Boston. They’ve metaphorically taken a message of hope and equality, and dropped it on the floor and dragged it across the tiles with their filthy shoes. Then the BPPA repackaged their gross messaging as something savory and served it to us with a smile. So here’s some food for thought: If Boston police are drooling and sneezing all over our rights — hacking right in them when nobody’s looking — we have an obligation to give them their just desserts. And I know I can count on the food service workers of Boston to do just that.

Sincerely,

DiDi Delgado, The DiDi Delgado Experience, LLC.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve watched several radical concepts creep into the American mainstream:

✓ Socialism. ✓ Communism. ✓ Intersectional Feminism. ✓ Eating ass.

All of these concepts are still heavily debated, but they’re no longer the cultural taboos they once were.

“Communist,” for example, was an insult when I was growing up. “We’re taught at such an early age to be against the communists,” wrote Assata Shakur, “yet most of us don’t have the faintest idea what communism is.”

Fast forward to 2019, and “communist” is like the 4th most interesting word on my Tinder bio, right behind “demisexual” and “valar morghulis.”

Like Communism, other once-radical concepts have grown increasingly popular among the American Left, which has continued to slowly radicalize thanks to late-stage capitalism and the birth of Trumpism. Because of this, progressive political candidates can no longer easily dismiss radical themes without facing potential backlash from the Far Left. And the most recent radical theme to take center stage, is reparations — compensation to Black descendants of slaves for American slavery.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton said reparations were impractical, because “the nation is so many generations removed from that era.” Clinton didn’t seem concerned that the estimated 7 to 15 TRILLION(!) dollars still owed to African Americans will continue to be felt for generations to come. And white Americans weren’t too concerned, either.

But today, Presidential hopefuls like Bernie Sanders are getting ripped apart for failing to publicly support reparations, while their competition are capitalizing by doing the opposite. It’s all for show, of course, but the conversation is at least back on the table.

And while politicians use reparations as a political football, Black organizers have been experimenting with ways to reclaim wealth and resources from white society, and redistribute them where they belong.

These experiments have had varying degrees of success, but one recurring theme is that broke white people often think they’re exempt from paying their share. That assumption is indisputably wrong, since ALL white folks still benefit from slavery to this day—even when they’re in denial of those benefits.

I won’t get into explaining white privilege to broke white people, because that’s already been done. But I will lay out some ways broke white people can contribute to Black liberation by paying reparations despite their cash flow. So without further ado, here are 10 ways to pay reparations if you’re a broke ass white person:

1) GIMME DA LOOT

Yeah, I know I just said this was for broke ass white people, but if selling weed taught me anything, it’s that Black and white people have different definitions of being broke. Poor white people still have more money than poor Black people, if for no other reason because some members of poor white families are still doing alright.

I guarantee if you stop a homeless white guy on the street he’ll tell you about a rich relative he no longer fucks with. That matters. Your proximity to wealth matters.

And although Black people are disproportionately likely to live in poverty, white people still have the sheer numbers. There are about 200 Million white people living in the United States. If each of them gave me one penny, I’d literally be a multi-millionaire. In fact, let’s make this happen.

2) DONATE TIME & LABOR

• You got any Black friends with kids? Maybe offer them free childcare on the weekends. Set up a playdate with your pasty little ones. Just make sure you don’t serve our kids any raw, unseasoned meats, because that’s a deal breaker.
• You do graphic design? Help your local Black-led racial justice org make flyers and logos. Have access to a printer? Print stuff for us to help cut-down outreach costs. Bonus points for stealing resources from your job.
• Got a washing machine? Offer to let Black folks do laundry at your place.
• Driving lessons.
• Swimming lessons.
• Resumé writing.
• RIDES TO THE GROCERY STORE. I’m about to start a ride-share called Wyft™ just so I can go bulk shopping and save some damn money.

Get your white asses out there and start offering your time and services, because time is money and white folks have more than we do. Get creative.

3) MAKE US BENEFICIARIES

I know a white lady who made a Black child a partial-beneficiary of her pension and estate upon her death. Contact HR at your job and ask for the form to add a beneficiary. If you have a life insurance policy or a living will, allocate some of the payout to a Black mom. This is an easy way to pay reparations, even after you’ve dropped dead and gone to the white afterlife.

4) BUDGET REPARATIONS

According to an independent guess, the average white family spends $27 a month on mayonnaise. Maybe you could contribute more to direct giving if you counted it as an expense on your monthly budget. You can even add Black folks to existing monthly services, like phone plans and TV subscriptions. I haven’t missed an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale yet, because some random clear woman gave me her Hulu password. Be the change!

5) USE YOUR WHITE COUPONS

You’ve heard of the Black Tax? Well white people have White Coupons. Don’t deny it. We know it’s true. There are discounts all white people seem to get on everything from car rentals, to hotel bookings, to flyer miles, to Cracker Barrel meals and more. Did you know white people don’t pay shipping? Amazon just knows who’s white and waves the fee.

White people also get discounts all the time by demanding to speak to the manager. That doesn’t work for us. Managers don’t care about the demands of Black folks. When witnessing our interactions with sales associates, inject your privilege to improve our odds.

There are all sorts of deals white people can pass on to Black people. And that includes your uncle who’s a mechanic and fixes your Prius for $10. We could use that hook-up, too.

6) FIX OUR CREDIT

You can add an additional authorized user to your credit card, to help them establish credit. I didn’t know that until I was 30, because nobody in my family had credit cards thanks to the racial wealth gap. White babies are born with a savings account. Not so much for Black kids. So to make up for the head start, how about using your privilege to boost our FICO score? You can also co-sign cars and apartments that Black folks wouldn’t otherwise have access too. It’s a risk, sure, but Black communities take risks every day that most white people can’t imagine. #SorryNotSorry

7) UTILIZE BLACK BUSINESSES & SERVICES

Supporting Black businesses is one way to put money in Black hands. Tip Black servers like their life depends on it, because it does. Frequent Black restaurants without gentrifying them, by ordering take-out. If you need landscaping services, go out of your way to book a Black landscaper. Before making ANY major purchase, ask yourself if there’s a Black person who can benefit from the sale. And pay at a premium.

8) GIVE US YOUR OLD SHIT

Instead of trading in your used vehicle, give it away to a low-income Black family. I guarantee it’s worth more to us than your dealer will give you for it. From phones to furniture, there’s always something of value white folks are trying to get rid of. An entire industry of dumpster diving has been created from white waste. Cut out the middle man and give us your shit directly. Post it for free on Facebook and Craigslist. Don’t take it to Goodwill or any of those places that exploit the poor for profit.

9) ADD US TO YOUR VENDOR ACCOUNT(S)

Do you have any idea how much Post-It Notes cost? Me neither. That’s because I write everything on napkins since I don’t have access to a vendor account. A vendor account is how businesses and non-profits pay for everything from cases of paper to office furniture. White institutions often have these accounts active for their most-used vendors. Giving Black entities access to a portion of your supply budget can help Black-led initiatives prosper.

10) CRIME!

Here is the most important rule of wealth redistribution: The wealth you redistribute doesn’t have to be yours, it just has to come from the ruling class. So if you don’t have any supplies, resources, or cash to contribute, get out there and take it!

Use your white privilege to walk around Walmart in a trench coat, undetected. Maybe snag some supplies from your place of employment and share as needed. If you happen to “find” a pile of money laying around, pay it f̶o̶r̶w̶a̶r̶d̶ backward to someone in need. The sky’s the limit as long as you don’t get caught. And if you do get caught, just remember your arrest will help even out racial disparities in incarceration. Win/win!

If you’re privileged and want to start paying reparations directly to Black women and other marginalized genders, please join the Done For DiDi White Labor Collective.

Donations & reparations also welcome to the author, but only if you got it like that.

-DiDi

Note: This post was inspired by the article, Explaining White Privilege To A Broke White Person, by Gina Crosley-Corcoran.

If you haven’t seen the latest collaboration between generic white guy “rapper,” Lil’ Dicky, and misogynoirist extraordinaire, Chris Brown, allow me to save you five and a half minutes of your life.

The breakdown:

1. Chris Brown is still alive, and making music.
2. Boring intro where Lil’ Dicky says he’s tired of being pigeonholed as a shitty white rapper, even though he is one.
3. Chris Brown says he’s stressed out for “always being scrutinized” for being an abusive asshole.
4. Stereotypical mystical Asian elder has Chris Brown and Lil’ Dicky switch bodies.
5. Lil’ Dicky wakes up in Chris Brown’s body, which is literally Blackface.
6. Seriously, you should Google “digital Blackface” and familiarize yourself with the new methods white people have developed for turning our identity into a costume.
7. The only two Black women in the video are Chris Brown’s daughter and a random model— both used as props.
8. Within the first 10 lines of the song, Lil Dicky— in his coon-skin suit— wonders if he can “really say the N-Word,” and proceeds to say it a dozen times in a row.
9. Repeat: white “rapper” Lil’ Dicky says nigger 12 times on a record in 2018, and some of y’all laugh because he used a Black body to do it.
10. Dicky then celebrates the fact that he’s “light skinned Black,” because apparently its cool for white people to make jokes about colorism now. This is their lane, as long as Chris Brown co-signs it.
11. Chris Brown then wakes up as Lil’ Dicky and says it’s “great” that nobody’s judging him for his “controversial past”—which, again, includes beating Black women—so he can finally “relax.”
12. Lil Dicky makes 3 or 4 fetishizing references to Black penis. I honestly lost count.
13. Ed Sheeran cameo. He’s currently being sued for stealing music from Black women.
14. DJ Khaled cameo. He’s a non-Black ‘artist’ profiting exclusively from Black music while rarely, if ever, paying homage to Black artists.
15. Kendall “Pepsi-will-end-racism” Jenner cameo, to really drive home the point that Lil’ Dicky thinks anti-Blackness is a fucking joke for him to capitalize on.

What did I miss?

This concept isn’t even original, and has been better done by at least a half dozen BLACK emcees. In fact, why is anybody listening to white rappers? Especially when it comes to songs about race? Go listen to Sammus instead.

If you think "Freaky Friday” is OK because “iT’s jUsT jOkEz LoLz!” kindly delete yourself from my existence.

Donations & reparations to the author welcome, but only if you got it like that.