All white people are privileged in society. This includes white people who experience other oppressions from their fellow white people. This is because, all white privilege comes from the historical, present and future oppression of Black people.
Personal reparations can be performed alongside the fight for state and other large scale reparations eg country to country and from educational institutions and other institutions that were created from colonial money.
Personal reparations is redistributing wealth by white people (and privileged non-Black people of colour). What we mean by wealth is not defined by earning over a certain amount of money or hitting a limit, it is on all money, even when you have a little. White privilege affords you an easier life and more financial security than Black people and understanding why this is and your duty and responsibility to perform personal reparations as part of your anti-racist and anti-oppressive journey.
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Donate to Black people. This is the message. This is what I'm saying today. Donate to Black people without expectations, without getting some, some cookie, some praise, without having to post it on your social medias, without having to go out and do a little photo op like you do with the homeless people in town that you give a fiver or two on a night out. Okay? I'm talking about donating, talking about reparations, talking about redistribution of wealth. Because the financial security that you have, the assets that you have have directly come from the enslavement, the labor, the oppression, the pain, the struggle, the death, the murder of Black people. And it's your responsibility to do something about this society. It's not enough to just go out and march. It's not enough to just think about it, share a couple of posts on Instagram, maybe follow a new Black person because you want to have the image, but you're not actually challenging your privilege at this point. You're not actually thinking about the ways in which life, society, is set up for you to gain. So what can you do about it? I know that you've probably all donated to the Minnesota Fund. I know that you've probably, I don't know, donated to a local food bank, something like that. And that's great. It really is. But that's just the start. With spaces like UK Mutual Aid, which is a network run for and by marginalized people in the UK, especially Black people in the UK. You can go into there, you can donate your money. Although we don't like to call it donating, it's redistribution of wealth. This is something that every white person and every nonBlack person of colour as well should be doing. There are people in need, people who don't have access to funds, people who have no recourse to public funds. As I've mentioned in my post maybe two posts ago called access. People need you to do what is right. Dismantling white supremacy is right. And it's not always fun, it's not always easy, it's not always riot. But what it is, is looking at what you have, thinking about what you have more than other people, how you have managed to get more than other people and passing it along, sharing it out, giving it back to people who need it. So what I'm trying to say today is that personal reparations are important. We're still fighting the fight for state reparations worldwide. Looking at America, looking at the UK, looking at Europe, still fighting the fight for state reparations .But personal reparations are important, too. So think about the income that you have. And don't just think about it in a way like I can spare 20 quid and I'll still be comfortable. I'm not talking about comfortable. It's a privilege to be comfortable. Not everyone has that. A lot of people, a lot of people have to struggle every month just to survive. Every day, every week. And they don't get the privilege of being comfortable. Dismantling white supremacy is not meant to be comfortable, dismantling white supremacy is meant to hurt. It's meant to harm you. It's meant to challenge you in ways that you do not think that you should be challenged. And having rent money, having food money, having fun money, that's a privilege. So don't just donate what you think. You can go further, make sure that what you're doing is redistributing the wealth so that everyone can survive. We don't need additional money. We just need to survive. One thing that I will say is that this right here, this is not one of the fun Instagram pieces. This is not one of those ones that you're going to want to put on your story and that. But you should, because UK Mutual Aid has been running since December 2018. We've built a community. We've built a family. But we need support. We need white people. We need heterosexual people. We need cisgender people. We need people with the financial privilege to come in and support those in need. We need people to be able to share. We need people to understand that we need to decolonize mutual aid. We need to take back reparations as a personal struggle as well as a state struggle. And we need to act. So do it now. All right, so we can write it. That's okay with white activists. That's approved. Yeah, because capitalism is wrong. We know that. So why aren't you challenging your financial security, where your inheritance comes from, where your money from work comes from, where your family money comes from, how your homes were bought, the money that was used for that? Yeah, because we know that capitalism exists on the exploitation of Black people. We know that it was built from slavery, from the enslavement of Black people. We know that. So why is it so hard to have a little look at the reason why you have financial security and then maybe do something about it? Because it's not fun. Because as much as we want to challenge capitalism, we're still quite content with making sure that we're comfortable, too, aren't we? Like, capitalism is all bad when it's the big companies, but not when it's not when it's your money. Now, we need to do something a little better. We need to do reparations white people. We need to do reparations nonwhite people of color with financial security. We need to make sure that we're dismantling the entirety of white supremacy right now. Not just the fun bits, not just the bits that you don't feel complicit in because you are complicit. All white people are complicit in white supremacy. And if you don't want to have a look at yourself to understand and learn and educate yourself on your own racism and your own financial privilege, white privilege, cisgender privilege, straight privilege, all of those things, the things that are difficult to think about because it's easy to go out and have a protest. It's easy to go out and challenge somebody else or tag somebody in an Instagram post like you're not doing enough. Well, none of you are doing enough. Actually, this is not meant to be easy, people, it really is not. And if we're serious if you are serious antiracist allies you will put your money where your mouth is. Okay? So go put your money where your mouth is. I'll stop now. I'll let you have a think about it. I'll let you be angry at me for awhile and then realize that actually I'm right. We have to dismantle the entirety of white supremacy. We have to do the hard stuff. We have to understand that if you want to claim that you're an antiracist ally but you have to listen to Black people and you have to listen to Black leadership, you have to understand that this is not about coddling your feelings or your privilege anymore. This is going to get hard and it hasn't has to and you have to accept that. So put your money where your mouth is. I'm out.
access and inaccess
Access is not the same for everyone. Race affects every part of life and interactions due to violent white supremacy, institutional, societal and historic racism and capitalism.
Looking down the ladder of privilege to PoC, Black men and marginalised genders (MaGes as coined by Crystal Michelle Cravens) and asylum seekers, refugees and migrants access to even basic respect let alone support and necessities is even more difficult. I’m going to talk about Black people as a whole, but sexism, misogynoir, transphobia, homo/lesbo/bi/queer-phobia is rampant too and people with multiple marginalisations will systematically be treated worse.
Have you heard the one about when a Black person walks into the job centre? No? Well they are less likely to be given benefits and more likely to be sanctioned. Oh and also more likely to be hit with classism, sexism and stereotypes too, to be seen as lazy, a ‘benefit scrounger’, uneducated or a single parent, an addict or financially irresponsible no matter what their circumstances or needs are. Bias and racism by people hiring on job applications or picking people to give grants and funding to is shown through accepting the ‘white sounding’ names and overlooking people with ‘ethnic sounding’ names. Jobs give a better attitude, better hours, better shifts and better paid and ‘career’ roles to white people first.
White saviour charities, Christian charities, state funded charities etc tokenise and abuse vulnerable Black people whilst mostly offering very little real support and we all to often hear stories of trafficking, sexual abuse, and charities working with cops and immigration and sectioning people. It’s common for them to also turn away people who don’t have papers or citizenship (people with no recourse to public funds). They will be quick to take photos to show forced diversity on their social medias but the reality is harsh and hateful. Access to help without abuse is a human right that Black people are excluded from.
What happens when Black people ask for support online? They get supported! Wait, lemme rephrase that, what happens when Black people ask for support from non-Black people online? Silence.
Despite the fact that reparations should be a part of all non-Black people’s everyday lives, we see consistently and without fail that white people only like to support other white people. The exceptions to this are when white people can lord their money over others by forcing marginalised people to perform in begging, trauma porn and gratefulness to ‘earn’ the privilege of being given a couple of quid by the oh so charitable white people.
This is gross. And if you think that you don’t do it, you most probably still do. Think back to the last fundraisers you donated to.
Did you do it to feel better about yourself?
Did you donate to any reparations or financial support requests that didn’t have to do a reliving of trauma for you to choose to donate?
Or did you only donate to the ones that made you feel like a saviour or sad and white guilty?
Do you ever just perform reparations without the demand for trauma transaction?
Do you ever just send money because reparations are essential?
Take some time to really consider this.
What have you done to use your access privilege for the benefit of marginalised people recently?
Have you offered to be a representative in benefits or work disputes?
Have you offered to take people to doctors appointments and take notes?
Have you thought about how you can use your platforms to amplify marginalised voices and support requests?
Are you talking to fellow white people about the white fetish for seeing Black people’s pain and trauma?
Are you challenging performative charity and calling for reparations and mutual aid instead?
Are you challenging your own and your coworkers, friends and boss’s racism and biases?
Are you hiring Black people?
Do you call out charities that are working in problematic and racist ways?
Are you listening to and believing Black people when they talk about their experience and struggles with access?
Are you a member of UK Mutual Aid and other Black-run groups?
