Today marked the first day of my two-week summer break. So what did I do?
I fucking terrified myself.
I watched the long-form videos and read the long-form articles and scrolled through the lengthy and well-sourced tweet threads. I read Gorsuch’s bullshit undergraduate-essay of a Supreme Court decision (“Webster’s dictionary defines ‘frozen trucker‘ as…”), which thankfully came out on the only logical side of history in spite of the 11th fucking Circuit’s retreat to a previously invalidated precedent. And I discussed with my wife our various opinions and perspectives on various local and global events.
In short, I tried to catch up.
One of the articles I read today (thanks to a link shared by a white colleague) made the observation “When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs.” Tomorrow, my white wife and her white colleagues will gather for a meeting of their summer book club, the first assignment of which they’ve dedicated to issues of race.
Written by Tre Johnson, the article (which is fantastic) offers a clear critique and alternative:
[W]hen things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read. And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened.
What they do is never enough. This isn’t the time to circle up with other white people and discuss black pain in the abstract; it’s the time to acknowledge and examine the pain they’ve personally caused.
He continues:
The right acknowledgment of black justice, humanity, freedom and happiness won’t be found in your book clubs, protest signs, chalk talks or organizational statements. It will be found in your earnest willingness to dismantle systems that stand in our way — be they at your job, in your social network, your neighborhood associations, your family or your home.
So here I sat, in rural Vermont, a super white village in a super white state in a super white region of a super white-supremacist country, and I was being tasked with dismantling systems that stand in the way of black justice, humanity, freedom, and happiness.
I wracked my brain about what to do.
A white friend of mine recently attempted to be the fastest known woman to complete an unsupported run across Maine’s 100 Mile Wilderness. She asked people to pledge $1 per mile to one of three organizations that “support BIPOC folks in the outdoors and sports [including ultimate frisbee]”. She “hiked/ran/stumbled-through around 57 miles, unsupported, with 10,000 ft. of elevation gain in 25 hours” before a knee/IT band injury forced her from the trail.
That’s something I could do — not run (I can’t do that) — but a pledge drive! I can do a pledge drive.
My friend is a runner. I fancy myself a writer.
Maybe I can get people to pledge money to a worthy, relevant cause by writing something.
First, I needed the cause, a place where 100% of the money would go directly to the front lines of black justice, where and when it is needed the most.
I chose The Bail Project.
The Bail Project works like a Kiva micro-loan, where the money doesn’t come back to you, but “back” to another person in need:
We pay bail for people in need, reuniting families and restoring the presumption of innocence. Because bail is returned at the end of a case, donations to The Bail Project™ National Revolving Bail Fund can be recycled and reused to pay bail two to three times per year, maximizing the impact of every dollar.
The question then became, what to do as a writer to drive pledges?
Well, who better to ask than you? For a donation of $5 to the Bail Project, you get to tell me what to write about. It can be on any topic you choose, but not any thesis; you don’t get to make me write an essay denying the Holocaust, for example, but you can make me write an essay about the topic of Holocaust denial.
I know this isn’t much (as one of my friend’s sarcastically said when I suggested the idea, “The opportunity of a lifetime!”), and I know this plays directly into Tre Johnson’s critique of his white, liberal, educated friends who “read [and] talk about their reading,” but writing is the labor my body does best, and this is the only way I can think of to put its product to use on the front lines.
So please, pledge at least $5 to the front lines, and then get a kick by having me write about whatever you think is fun, important, educational, stupid, arcane, fantastic, deep, idiotic, meaningful, controversial, ridiculous, etc. And remember, part of the fun is not just reading the result — it’s also getting me to spend significant time researching and formulating thoughts on whatever it is you want.
For example, the first person who donated to this campaign asked for “a critical appraisal of the vaporwave genre of music.” The assignment came with a 22-minute YouTube documentary to get me started on my research. For comparison’s sake, I watched a two-hour documentary on Miles Davis last night. And now I have to watch one on “the vaporwave genre.” I am not looking forward to this.
But thankfully I’m free enough to do it. With your donations to the Bail Project, other people can be free as well. So please don’t $5 to the Bail Project and then influence the writing that shows up in this space.
(After making your donation, just leave a comment on this post with your topic idea).
PS: This project that will as long as The Bail Project is needed, so if you’re stumbling on this post through some random Google search three years in the future, and the Bail Project is still running, then yes, you can still make a donation and still force me to write on whatever topic you choose.
