White Folk Show Up: A Call For Direct Giving & Wealth & Labor Redistribution

Lennox Orion.

I have been engaged in direct giving through mutual aid since before the pandemic. I remember joining my first Facebook group dedicated to mutual aid and finding a space where I could be vulnerable. I could ask for monetary help if I needed it. Could ask for folks to grab medication for me, for them to bring me food, for them to hold me in care when experiencing mental health crises. When the pandemic hit I watched these spaces I have been in and help cultivate explode with request from people who were already struggling under the ever daunting weight of being poor and queer.

For folks in my community who happened to be poor and queer and Black it felt like they were speaking into the wind — need request after need request until we as a community of usually Black and poor and queer folks raised the money ourselves.

In the past few months I began to get involved with rent relief. Each week I felt I was working with the few white accomplices we have in my Boston community to raise funds for another struggling person. We fell into a routine — need request is posted, we make a graphic to share on social media with payment information for the person, we both work tirelessly to share the graphic, we both end up dipping into our own pockets to fill urgent needs, the need is filled for now. And this works — but it is not sustainable. It is the same money passing through the same Venmo and PayPal accounts.