there's enough birthday cake for everybody
Today is 01.10.2020. It is my 29th birthday. May God be praised and Her People be raised.
First off, a major “thank you” to all who have wished me a happy birthday. 29 feels full. It feels good. It feels magic. It is the last year of my twenties. I feel like I am standing on the edge of something unknown, propped up by things I’m still discovering.
Birthdays make you reflect on your life. They make you reflect on the last year of your life. They make you wonder what the next year should be. And tonight, as I was told by one of my best friends, the moon is gon’ do Her thing and show OUT. So Imma talk to the Good Sis. Moon and see what she’s tryna reveal #OnTonight.
This year was not easy. I spent the better part of the year living off (meager) savings and doing contract work. I left a full time gig (with benefits!) with no known prospects. And of all that I have lost materially and otherwise, I would do it again. It was time.
Writing. Babysitting. Teaching. Consulting. Doing voice recordings of meditations and affirmations because I got tired of people telling me that “my voice is so soothing” and not knowing what to do with that.
It has been tough. But I’ve been able to pay my rent and a reasonable rotation of my bills (everyone ain’t gon’ get it every month 🤷🏽♀️). And I’m still stunned that I have the same degree of anxiety about money now as I did when I had a full time job. There will always be women in rubber flirting with me, and there will always be money problems. (A joke for the Rent-heads).
Yes, I am surrounded by people. I have family and friends and even strangers who would never let me go to bed hungry. I’ve been treated to dinner and groceries and nail salon appointments. I have reasonable insurance, which helped me this summer when I came down with a mysterious bout of hives and inflammation. I have been able to see parts of the country I would not have otherwise because my work makes me travel. My travel is almost always covered. I’ve been to parts of North Carolina and Tennessee, Chicago, Arizona, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Massachusetts, Connecticut…. Without paying for it.
And yet.
I don’t think this means I am favored or covered or blessed.
I don’t think that’s my takeaway. It would be a waste of God’s message to believe that I got any of these things because “I deserve them.” If that were the case, everyone would have their needs met. Because everyone deserves their needs met. And everyone has different needs. And while it is true that I have worked hard and spent time studying and preparing, it also true that I should still be able to eat/rest/play if I didn’t. Or couldn’t. One of the worst parts about the normalization of capitalist logic is that we really believe that only people who are able to work hard should reproduce (alert alert eugenics). We really believe that “welfare queens” are somehow draining the national budget. There’s something else that eats up more of our national budget, and let me tell you, it’s not people spending their food stamps on shrimp and steak.
It’s funny though.
Because not every person who is in need is met with dignity or care. Not everyone’s fundraising campaigns get shared with generous commentary. As a disclaimer, I absolutely do believe there are scammers and irresponsible people in our community. I will not name names, but there is a very prominent one who continues to be given space and awards, even though he has never followed through one one project. Ever. All while keeping access to financial information and email addresses. Hmm.
Perhaps the scripture was wrong. Some people knock, and the door is slammed in their face. People knock, and ask, and seek every day. But not everybody finds the thing they’ve been seeking, and not everybody gets the thing they asked for. Some people do get stones when they ask for bread. I don’t have to list the news stories of people across the globe who are exploited by lovers, workplaces, faith based communities, governments and anyone else. You know for yourself that not everyone gets the thing they actually need.
And even worse, you know that some people will withhold something (like advice or care or support) because they didn’t get it themselves. They will intentionally haze another generation because this is what makes them feel big and powerful.
Whack.
There are enough homes for people in New York City to have a place to sleep at night. Have you ever noticed that the luxury high-rises on your block (I know where mine are) have been up for years without any occupants? The buildings just sit there without anyone living in them. The problem is not availability of the resources. We have abundance. The problem is in the systemic mis-regulation of these resources. Hoarding. Greed. Manipulation. Theft.
Black Women who use GoFundMe (or any other crowdfunding software) are scrutinized more than anyone else. And we’re expected to provide a list of references, write grant proposals, and tell the story of Adam and Eve over and over again in order to get $60.
Bullshit.
Consider this a notice. That we see whose pockets are policed and whose aren’t.
Meanwhile, Amazon paid no federal taxes last year. I’m slowly losing my mind over the idea of submitting all my statements and hoping I didn’t forget anything for tax season.
Mayor Pete’s campaign hosted wine cave fundraisers. And the world spins regularly because people will undergo all kinds of logical gymnastics to suggest that’s normal or allowable. But if somebody’s Black mama hosted an elaborate prom send-off for their baby, Instagram and Facebook would engage all kinds of hypotheticals and question her ethics, thinking, parenting, financial awareness…
Do you see where I’m going?
Basically, it’s trash that the only people who get to spend money without feeling the pressure to give a public accounting are… the people who already have more money than God herself could spend. And perhaps that’s the logic, huh? We will always say, “well, they can spend it because they have it.” Until someone decides to splurge on Beyonce tickets (which, lol, have never cost me more than $100 for great seats), then it’s “how you gonna get rich if you always spend your money? Rich people don’t spend their money.”
But they do, though.
It’s dizzying logic. At some point, we have to hop off the carousel and pay attention to the horses we’re riding and the hills we want to die on.
The point is this-- There is enough in this world for all of us to have what we need. But we will need a radical dissolving of power. People will have to give up power. They will have to say no to taking up space on well-paying panels where every contributor looks like a clone of the next. Family plantations will have to be given up for a more noble purpose. People with access and power and resources will have to give things up.
It has been almost three years since Jay-Z told me that two billionaires is better than one and I’m still tryna figure out when I get a little taste of that myself.
Until I die, it will be my quest to find a way to build things that we share. And I know I am not alone. The fact that we’re all recycling the same $20 in each other’s PayPal to pay a part of the phone bill… Help us, Holy Ghost.
I have finally been able to articulate that the gifts I’ve been given do not make me feel guilty. They give perspective. I know that generosity and love and care and a sponsored manicure and a paid phone bill makes a difference because I’ve seen how it works in my life. I am thankful for the What- Is in my life. I am also desperately praying for and working towards a world where this is not an aberration.
It has been difficult, but not impossible. On days I feel the weight of all the responsibilities and bills and stressors multiplying and dancing and reproducing on my shoulders, I remember the days when I had 4 cents in my checking account (that was last Thursday). And I remember how the random sweet potato pie blessing of a Saint in church made things livable for just a moment. Or how a random $20 gift from a peer helped me pay for a MetroCard. I’m immensely grateful for generosity, and also… this should be the base level of what everyone encounters. No one human being is more worthy of surviving this hellish Earth than the next.
This is hard thing to believe. Because every time someone I love passes on, I cry and I curse and I ask God why She couldn’t have visited someone else on my “I Wouldn’t Mind If You Were Gone” list. God is still working on me.
There is enough in this world for us to have what we need. There are too many people and institutions hoarding wealth and endowments for some “magical day” when there will be an emergency. The emergency is now. People are sitting in Rikers for no other reason than they couldn’t pay to get out. There are people fleeing their homelands because the climate has proven dangerous. Benefits are being cut, the rent is too damn high and there is trouble all over this world.
And until everyone has a home, healthy fresh and delicious food they can eat in the dignity of their own space, loving rings of friends around them... we will take care of us.
I do believe that part of that project is reparations (a thing I will write about in detail here another day). If reparations means anything, it must be extended to those in our families who have been most disenfranchised by the logic of the Slave Trade. That means it must be extended to Black trans folk, Black queer folk, dark skinned folk, Black folks with disabilities, Black folks who haven’t been to anyone’s school and everybody Black else. We do not lose anything when all of us thrive. We do not lose anything when the most targeted among us are safe.
In fact, that is when we win. That is the formula for winning-- when the most targeted among us are safe.
If I have learned anything from stewarding my own little pot for community needs, it is that $25 in my PayPal will never be reparations. Because certain people will always get more than others. And that remakes and reaffirms the logic that has us disadvantaged in the first place. We often give to the people who prove that they deserve it. This is the absolute opposite of what Callie House tried to teach us. (Please read Mary Frances Berry’s biography of her, you will lose it, Sis. House was an icon).
I would ordinarily invite you to drop a coin in my cashApp or PayPal. And I suppose I won’t deny it because, after all, it is my birthday. And there will always be a bill to pay.
But you know what would really bring me joy?
The next time you feel tempted to judge the person asking for change in the subway station, or a college student asking for book money when she just went to Miami, or a single mom asking for a little grace with the rent, maybe practice generosity. Generosity doesn’t mean you always give. We don’t always have it to give. It means you honor that the person asking you is a human, and you’re generous in spirit. You can always say “I’m sorry that I can’t help,” or “I don’t have it, but I hope you get what you need.” But you don’t have to belittle people. And you don’t have to teach any lessons. The lesson will reveal itself.
Here’s my favorite verse (with some edits) from “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” a hymn that will five-ever make me cry.
Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
"Great is Thy faithfulness!" "Great is Thy faithfulness!"
Morning by morning new mercies [we] see;
All [we] have needed Thy hand hath provided—
"Great is Thy faithfulness, " Lord, unto [us]!