ComeUnity Reparations Versus Donations - Radical Redistribution is Self-Determination- the Myth of Charity and Giving Un-Packed
Stealing Land Class people /wealth-hoarders of all colors and cultures, with real love in their collective hearts will often stand up,sign up, kick down, donate, loan, gift or grant money , resources, time and things to poor people - sometimes large amounts, sometimes meager, - but the sad reality is often times these same folks will lose interest, get tired, bored, annoyed, “burn-out” from our struggles, or find something else more sexy/exciting/cool to do in a society that teaches us that everything should be exciting, sexy , fun or otherwise “let it go,” when us poor, broken, houseless, disabled people become to much of a “burden” boring too much work, messy, difficult, annoying or not exciting those same people quietly disappear, fade away, “move on” or no longer easily “save-able” or as we call it at POOR Magazine “drop us on our baby head (said in jest but not completely)
Sadly, us folks caught in these struggles cant take a break, leave or drop our messy lives, homelessness, trauma, jobs, demands, children, etc.
It’s why one of the many reasons my mama wrote her Mama Dee’s Manifesto on Race, Class privilege (Poverty Scholarship Poor People-Led Theory, Art , Words and Tears) -where she clearly explains that as wealth-hoarders and all folks who come to POOR Magazine to “help the poor people” from worlds of privilege and graduates from academic institutions where they teach about us without us, that here at POOR we will ask them from the beginning to do the work that many not be that exciting, the admin work that us poor peoples don’t have time to do or skills or money to pay for, calling them out on what I call their organizational privilege which is a longer concept broken down at PeopleSkool- This is Mama Dee’s medicine, no matter how hard is to swallow, it is also why we don’t Fuk with what I call affectionately call “philanthro-pimping” or charity or donations or any of these settler colonial words rooted in the fake-ass belief that all us poor people need are some “nice” rich people to save us.
The roots of philanthro-pimping- which I have written about extensively in the Poverty Scholarship book - and taught on this podcast series is a settler colonial, wealth-hoarder, land - hoarder lie. The first philanthropists were benevelont slave owners, stealing land class people who “treated their slaves well” similarly the first endowments were to “study” eugenics to get rationalize killing indigenous, disabled, and poor people.
So contrary to all those charity model lies, we root all support distributed to us and the over 830 fellow houseless and very low-income housed peoples we radically share with, break bread with and support in the streets every week, in a concept I call Radical Redistribution, ComeUnity Reparations and UnSelling Mama Earth. Another powerFULL example of this kind of redistribution is the Shuumi Land Tax a model of reparations created by 1st Nations Ohlone /Lisjan land liberators from Sogorea Te Land Trust.
ComeUnity Reparations and Indigenous Land Taxes are not Charity or donations, grants, loans, favors, or nice rich people acts, these are revolutionary acts of dismantling and un-learning wealth-hoarding, land -stealing krapitalism. Krapitalism as I call it that teaches people to hoard, store, pinch and steal more than they or their families ever need to live on, survive or be safe, It has wealth-hoarders loaded up with a lot of lies about how much they know about money and giving just because they were born into this money or have family with money. As opposed to poor peoples who have had to figure out how to feed and house entire families on next to nothing. It has people with pieces of paper from institutions thinking they know more about poverty, disability, land, struggle, colonization and incarceration because they “studied” it for 2-8 years rather than people who have lived their whole lives in poverty, struggling with ableism, classism, incarceration, colonial terror and beyond.
After this powerFULL unlearning, decolonizing and teaching that us poor people do with rich folks in PeopleSKool, the conscious wealth-hoarders become revolutionary reparators on their own accord. Dismantling, not telling, us poor people what to do ( more on this in part 2 of this podcast)
And ComeUnity Reparations enables us poor people to do for self- we have created the Bank of ComeUnity Reparations which immediately redistributes cash and resources to whoever needs it from mamas who need hoopoes fixed to people who need motels rented so they can get a roof over their head immediately, to move in fees to more - without ridiculous applications or budgets or proof. As well we have created the Love-Work Team that provides fellow poor people with cleaning, moving and other immediately needed support. These are poverty scholarship informed projects that immediately solve problems that we in struggle folks have ALL the time.
The Charity industrial complex is rooted in that same colonial arrogance of the lie of Discovery and Manifest Destiny and all the other ways wealth-hoarders and land stealers are informed with their own lies about their brilliance when indigenous and poor peoples from all across Mama Earth have been sharing, caring, redistributing and not buying and evicting for centuries.
A great example of this colonial arrogance is the way that so many corpRapeShuns and individuals “give-away” crap. From Computers, to old clothes to dirty, torn blankets and more, like they were doing us poor people a favor. In a recent sleeping bag and tent drive by POOR Magazine, even though we specifically said, ONLY good condition or new tents, sleeping bags, socks, gloves and warm hats- I got so many “bags of someones trash” old clothes that weren’t even warm, dirty towels, shoes with holes in them. It was so disrespectful, which then of course we had to spend money to get rid of. Another time a giant multi-billion dollar tech firm had this skola go pick up a “computer donation” which I happily did thinking yay, this will help us create our computer land for houseless youth and adults. I got there only to find broken, 5 year old hard-drives that were basically unusable. This happens in everything from food to supplies. Free is, as an elder once told me, worth what you paid for it..” Donations to houseless people who are often equated with trash in rich peoples minds- often-times just that, trash.
The Bank of ComeUnity Reparations efforts by POOR Magazine, and Radical redistribution or Mutual aid by Sogorea Te Land Trust, Self-Help Hunger Program, Oakland Brown Berets, Homies Empowerment, Community Ready Corp and others are actively supporting hundreds of families a week with diapers, food, medicine, groceries, produce. This is self-determination and interdependence led by poor, Black,Brown, Indigenous and Houseless people. Not Charity.