Ismatu, thank you for your reflections (as always) and pausing with particular attention and appreciation for the section about the Benevolent Divine. I don't usually comment, but I often find myself journaling or talking with my partner about your writings. And I wanted to answer the first question. Something funny about the Benevolent Divine (who I call Allah swt) is that they weave together our world in ways that make more sense the more open we are. And so, as I read some of your writings, they connected beautifully with a Leanne Simpson book (Noopiming) that I was reading and some lectures I was listening to... and suddenly my actions (and thinking and hopes, etc) were changing in accordance with newfound meaning and understanding of this world here and beyond. This weaving together makes me feel that there is no need for a particular thank you/form of appreciation because I will receive that appreciation in greater ways. I am simply doing the right thing--paying you for your work because I have the income to do so. And if I approach that with the intention of growing and changing and learning and connecting, then the appreciation is already there,...it is there in the ways that my giving is given back. Perhaps a much simpler way to say that is: I might not read your writing if I did not have financial investment in it,,,but because I do, I save every email I get and make sure I read it eventually and inevitably am changed in ways that Allah swt has planned through your incredible work and the ways it connects with other scholars' work. And perhaps that is just the meaning of being a public good! For lack of a better phrase, my financial investment is also a commitment to myself to always read your writing and always stew on it and that, itself, is a gift of appreciation. I hope that makes any sense at all! Thank you, again, and I look forward to the ways we will create public good in community as community (and beyond)
this, + what was shared below about not engaging in transactional relationships, is everything I came here to say as a paid subscriber. I don't expect anything more from you. the Benevolent Divine moves through you and I give in response to feeling that movement and what it calls forward in me. i don't feel entitled to nor do I need a "special space" - it feels so enough, more than enough, to get to share this little space with you in whatever way i get to (which given the nature of the internet is thru a screen, so i know it's only a slice).
1. I don't need anything. Thank you for your public service. While I, personally, love books and reading and feel like you say a lot of things I do (in a MUCH softer and kinder way) I believe by investing in you this resource becomes more accessible to more people. A young man told me that he does not like books because they make him think about things he does not want to think about. I shared this with my followers and found out that this was a common sentiment amongst our young black boys. I pray some of those black boys can find your words, your thoughts, your understandings and fight back against the forces that took them away from books and from learning and from understanding.
2. We make every day a revolutionary act of goodness. "Do literally anything, but do something because so far many people have only argued on the internet and not actually made material change in their life." - me.
That is pretty sad if a young person feels this way. I read a piece in Dazed recently, which stated a similar thing. Young straight men read less and mostly nonfiction because they consider novels a waste of their time. Apparently, this is an old capitalist mentality (surprise, surprise) from a Victorian era.
Thank you so much, Ismatu. There’s a lot of social stigma these days for variance in behavior (specifically that of the mentally ill and emotionally vulnerable), and I think that can make the pursuit of art an extremely psychologically taxing effort. So much stimuli and so many faces to interact with! I often don’t feel as though I’m contributing, so thank you for your public service in teaching peace.
1) You are already doing enough. I pay you for your labour because it's the best way for me (a white person with heavy settler roots in a western colonized part of the world) to exchange the value I get from your work in a way that means the most to you and your needs at this time. Focusing on your work and what it means to do your best work (rest!) is how you say thank you.
2) I've been thinking that I should start keeping track of each new 'voluntary subscription' I've started to pay for (things like Signal, Wikipedia and creators such as yourself) . I've started 'funding' the things I use often enough that I would care if it went away or got changed for the worse if they were purchased by some mega-corp or something. I have a complicated relationship with money because it's so symbolic of capitalism but it does seem to be the most rational way for folks to pay people for their labour rather than their overlords. I'd rather live the life of 'a random garden witch that doles out random bits of advice to those deserving of help based on my own chosen (often with great amounts of whimsy) data analysis work' but I'm forced to work for a series of employers who 'conveniently' cannot solve the problems they are tasked with solving. It's exhausting and I applaud you for taking the risk of doing it for yourself.
1. I feel like that was a pretty damn good thank you. I can't speak for anyone else but I feel those who are able to support you do it not to access some privatized content, but because we genuinely believe in you and are excited by what you are creating. I remember one instagram live you hosted not a bit ago where you got a question about the Benevolent Divine in your life, how you maintained a faith practice, and you turned the live off, because some answers are meant to be "private" conversations not in an exclusionary sense, they're just meant for who is in the room. So ig that's how I thought of the paid threadings, as "we are in the room." But if other people can't be (and I think your thoughts should be able to reach as many folks as possible) then idk. Alls to say, I feel like hearing these thoughts, hearing about your journey and mission and ups and downs in the work and how we move together, that's a good thank you.
2. I wish I knew. I work in the non profit sector and hate it for what I have to say no to. Maybe we have to trust the goodness of the Divine that we try to serve.
Also sorry on the subject of appreciation, you have this incredible way of making people feel valued in a space. I think it's your honesty. I feel like I'm being spoken to as a person, which is strangely rare from anyone who creates online. So that's something
Ismatu, I feel appreciated when I can connect with divine writing, so thank you for that opportunity on this occasion and in all the rest of what you've offered so far.
Public good might be intuitively communicated during our work. Considering what’s “good” is a philosophical journey, and that journey can take you places. It’s also, to me personally, a linguistic journey. It’s a complex journey, and I don’t think we should romanticize an urgency in simplifying answers to such important questions in order to solve for them (something I see a lot online, but I know it’s an expression of outrage, too). I think what’s actually romantic is like what you acknowledge about sovereignty generally. There’s a beauty in how you’re describing what that looks like to you, but you can see the sublime in the nature of it. I see that what you give to the public is good--and is ultimately helpful, loving, and healing, and so much more. Coexisting with your work and really trying alongside you has only helped me help you, even at a new $6 subscription level.
I think you already know that you’re someone who needs to speak and write your truth, and you pose great questions (dare I say better than good). I think we know what risks we take in this endeavor of making great things public in contrast to what’s popular, even if it is framed as a singular substack post and the replying comments. Great things need to be done, even if they seem silly or not great at all! I also am a writer and speaker of truth, and sometimes I cannot help it that I should feel ashamed of my words or confused by them. Other times I can help it because I know the work is intellectually exhausting but necessary. I keep threading ;)
Further, as a writer, I should acknowledge that you've influenced me, and therefore my thoughts and my writing. It's also a fair deal that you be paid out of my pocket specifically! I hope to continue engaging with your asks because what you have to offer is priceless, in my opinion. And I thank God or the universe for how it's possible for me to thank you, engage, and co-create so that our passions can flourish in our own ways.
Hey Ismatu, I have been a paid subscriber on here for a year now and I wanted to let you know that there is absolutely nothing more you can do to make me feel more appreciated. A while ago, in an essay that has shifted the way I perceive the world, you said that it is not about what we deserve, but what we owe to one another. I think that sentiment applies here. We do not deserve ur exclusive gratitude just because we slide you a dime once in a while. We owe the people who influece and guide us towards embracing radical change and community love something - and for most of us, one of them happens to be you. Personally, I'm a humble teeny bopper sparing my pocket change for you monthly because I am not yet able to engage in radical community projects as much as I'd like to. I am in the beginning of my journey and so incredibly eager to learn everything you are willing to teach. So no, I do not think that there is anything you can do to make us feel appreciated - I think most of us are just grateful for your thoughts and want to contribute to the substantial change we see you making. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to watch you learn in real time and to contribute to such important and incredible projects such as the Ebola Survivors UBI programm. Thank you for asking, but I think you probably anticipated the responses being similar to the ones I have already read - we are your pupils after all and the lessons don't go unheard. Now as for the second question, I think it completes the first one in a way. Being a public good, as I have learned so far, is contributing your skill, thought and compassionate towards the public at your own pace, with the expectation of the public contributing the same too. Public goods are public goods for a reason - they are not motivated by individual greed or economic growth, they exist to serve everyone with resources provided but everyone. It's difficult to figure out how to fit yourself as an individual into this, so I don't have a concrete answer, but I think just sitting down and thinking about what resources and skills I, as an individual, have and which of them are currently needed for the public is a good first step. Hopefully in the future I will know where to go from there. So once again, thank you for providing us the opportunity to learn with you and for motivating us to think beyond what we can see.
“We do not deserve ur exclusive gratitude just because we slide you a dime once in a while. We owe the people who influece and guide us towards embracing radical change and community love something - and for most of us, one of them happens to be you.”
this needs to be read and re read over and over again
As always thanks for sharing your thoughts with all of us. Since I discovered your account your videos and writing have become a major source of inspiration for my own decolonial and anticapitalist reading and thinking. Your thoughts resonate a lot with me and I am grateful for everything you share. I subscribed after you put up your last text behind a paywall. I always wanted to support you but with everything that was going on in my life Incould only safely commit to that this month. And I am also happy to contribute without any special thanks. I can afford it right now and if that helps keeping your work available for everyone then that's wonderful. I have been grateful for every paying follower who made it possible that you do this and now I am very happy to be one of them. You enrich my life and I am happy to give back what I can.
Of course doing things for money always feels off, especially when you want to do this as community work. I am however very far away from you and wouldn't know how to support you otherwise. If you have any ideas let me know haha. Anyways, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your work!
ismatu! firstly, thank you - and know that we are here because in some weird parasocial way we SEE your “good” and your light, your intelligence, and we enjoy the way you write. i’m subscribed because i want to make it EASIER for you to be in control of your intellectual property and time. the idea of community love and mutual aid are concepts and lifestyles i want to fully embrace, and this is part of it. it doesn't fit in your values or mine to be so constrained by expectations of money. i agree with you in that your content is good available to all.
i've been toying around with how to get out of autopilot in my own life. although i dislike the idea that only those who have funds or are in a separate group will get something exclusive, i see that you want us to not slip by unrecognized. but watch how much we can do! ask us for help if you have the capacity to do so! we want to show up for you because love is what keeps things pushing. tell us about your tea, or somehow include a little sentence or personal context for the essays you write. we want to learn more about the things that keep and collect you, and we are simply learning from you and supporting you in the ways we can. you have so many villages of people who get to witness parts of you and your brain, and if that is not the purest form of being human and being in community, i’m not sure what is.
one last thing - it does feel strange to love your work but not know you, never have interacted with you, but still i learn from you every time i read your work. trying to figure out the balance of what this means for how i support you, how receptive i am/should be to the work, and how these interactions go knowing i’m commenting on a random internet person’s post. but i suppose as long as we remember that you are a person also behind the other side of the screen.
long story short, we’re here for you. when you need to break, that’s okay - we’ll still hold the same space when you come back.
Firstly, as always, I am so appreciative of your reflections and willingness to share your brilliance with the rest of us.
Something that I am learning more about right now is the transactional nature of relationships that has been so ingrained in us by white supremacy. Personally, I support you because I want to, I believe in your mission, I get a great value out of your writings and your thoughts, and I'm seriously in love with your voice, lol. I want to pay you for your labor in sharing yourself with us so you don't have to work for the UN or anywhere you don't want to. I don't want or need anything "exclusive" in return. I just want you to keep being you!
It's funny because I have been grappling with similar issues the last few weeks. I've been inspired by you providing your free mental health services, and I've been trying to figure out a way to incorporate this into my own practice (I'm a currently non-practicing nutritionist. I am teaching in student nutrition clinic at a university). When you said "all cost is a barrier to healing" that hit me like a ton of bricks. So I'd like to start providing a free service, but unsure of where to start.
So, 1. I don't need to feel appreciated in this space. I don't need or want anything in return. I appreciate YOU and that is why I'm a paid subscriber.
and 2. This community is already a public good and we keep it going by continuing to build community, connect with and listen to each other, and care for each other. That's it!
Hello, ismatu 👋🏻 It is always good to hear from you. I came here after reading Harris, Palestine, and the Spectacle of Liberation. In that vein,
1. Write. Continue to write what we need. I do not need exclusivity from you, but the education I've received, the seeds that you have planted, are sprouting. The rabbit holes of information I have stumbled into following your essays have taken me to beautifully painful and painfully beautiful places, and I wouldn't trade a single one of those for any amount of personal gain. When I finally came to a place to be able to become a paid substagander, I was thrilled. I had been learning from your free content for a few months, taking that shit to heart, and wishing desperately to support this endeavor of yours. To help you provide your public service without charging. I was inspired. You were living a life completely different and yet so very similar to mine, at times running parallel. I began asking how I could be the change in my communities. How I could load the preverbial gun. Your free work did that. I flocked to you like so many others, seeking some sort of savior and learned instead that WE must save us. There is no great hero coming to save us. I have seen change in my communities bc you nurtured change in me. If you feel some need to show me gratitude, then continue doing the work, loading the gun, sparking change, writing.
2. I've been pondering this more lately as I've been given the opportunity to soon leave my capitalist work to rest and recover a body I have spent the past too many years abusing to survive the death machine. While there, in the care and stability of my friends, I intend to study and learn about community organizing, about bringing people together to affect material, sustainable change. And I intend to create. I will pour out my heart and soul through art and creativity to load the gun, to inspire my own communities, to make revolution irresistible. As I learn the balance of self care and community care, such that they become cyclical and sustainable, I believe I'll better understand how to be a public good.
As always, you have my love and solidarity,
Mav B.
PS- If you find yourself in Colorado again this month, and have the bandwidth to see strangers, I would like to hug you and exchange our thanks in person. After that, for at least a few months, you can find me resting, gardening, and creating in VA. 🩵
I'd like to be apart of the change I know we can all create. As in, I want to help make the world better and commune with everyone here to make that a reality
need: to be at choice when i give. I have resistance to a subscription model bc it can catch me off guard when i inevitably forget that i signed up for something. an easeful non subscription model - just having your venmo / cashapp link handy with posts - would help me contribute more.
be a public good: quarterly round table? it would be great to get to meet the other folks who are inspired by your thoughts and words in real time and build a sense of community
Ismatu, thank you for being who you are. I've been a paid subscriber for a while, I think I was a yearly payment option that I really appreciated because I had the money then and never know what each month might bring, I say that to say this: I'm not a paid subscriber to gain access to "better" things, I am a paid subscriber because you deserve to survive and thrive while doing the work you do. You are an amazing human, astounding, and also human. You need food and water and shelter and all of that costs money (it shouldn't, but it does). You cannot do the work you do while starving, and it's up to those who can pay to pay with what they can, (be it attention, money, etc) so that those who cannot pay can still have access to education and community.
I'm not here for special treatment, I'm here to learn (and unlearn and reframe and commit) to be a well rounded community member. You offer connection and opportunities that are unmatched. I appreciate you! Thank you for everything you do
Ismatu, thank you for your reflections (as always) and pausing with particular attention and appreciation for the section about the Benevolent Divine. I don't usually comment, but I often find myself journaling or talking with my partner about your writings. And I wanted to answer the first question. Something funny about the Benevolent Divine (who I call Allah swt) is that they weave together our world in ways that make more sense the more open we are. And so, as I read some of your writings, they connected beautifully with a Leanne Simpson book (Noopiming) that I was reading and some lectures I was listening to... and suddenly my actions (and thinking and hopes, etc) were changing in accordance with newfound meaning and understanding of this world here and beyond. This weaving together makes me feel that there is no need for a particular thank you/form of appreciation because I will receive that appreciation in greater ways. I am simply doing the right thing--paying you for your work because I have the income to do so. And if I approach that with the intention of growing and changing and learning and connecting, then the appreciation is already there,...it is there in the ways that my giving is given back. Perhaps a much simpler way to say that is: I might not read your writing if I did not have financial investment in it,,,but because I do, I save every email I get and make sure I read it eventually and inevitably am changed in ways that Allah swt has planned through your incredible work and the ways it connects with other scholars' work. And perhaps that is just the meaning of being a public good! For lack of a better phrase, my financial investment is also a commitment to myself to always read your writing and always stew on it and that, itself, is a gift of appreciation. I hope that makes any sense at all! Thank you, again, and I look forward to the ways we will create public good in community as community (and beyond)
this, + what was shared below about not engaging in transactional relationships, is everything I came here to say as a paid subscriber. I don't expect anything more from you. the Benevolent Divine moves through you and I give in response to feeling that movement and what it calls forward in me. i don't feel entitled to nor do I need a "special space" - it feels so enough, more than enough, to get to share this little space with you in whatever way i get to (which given the nature of the internet is thru a screen, so i know it's only a slice).
1. I don't need anything. Thank you for your public service. While I, personally, love books and reading and feel like you say a lot of things I do (in a MUCH softer and kinder way) I believe by investing in you this resource becomes more accessible to more people. A young man told me that he does not like books because they make him think about things he does not want to think about. I shared this with my followers and found out that this was a common sentiment amongst our young black boys. I pray some of those black boys can find your words, your thoughts, your understandings and fight back against the forces that took them away from books and from learning and from understanding.
2. We make every day a revolutionary act of goodness. "Do literally anything, but do something because so far many people have only argued on the internet and not actually made material change in their life." - me.
That is pretty sad if a young person feels this way. I read a piece in Dazed recently, which stated a similar thing. Young straight men read less and mostly nonfiction because they consider novels a waste of their time. Apparently, this is an old capitalist mentality (surprise, surprise) from a Victorian era.
Thank you so much, Ismatu. There’s a lot of social stigma these days for variance in behavior (specifically that of the mentally ill and emotionally vulnerable), and I think that can make the pursuit of art an extremely psychologically taxing effort. So much stimuli and so many faces to interact with! I often don’t feel as though I’m contributing, so thank you for your public service in teaching peace.
1) You are already doing enough. I pay you for your labour because it's the best way for me (a white person with heavy settler roots in a western colonized part of the world) to exchange the value I get from your work in a way that means the most to you and your needs at this time. Focusing on your work and what it means to do your best work (rest!) is how you say thank you.
2) I've been thinking that I should start keeping track of each new 'voluntary subscription' I've started to pay for (things like Signal, Wikipedia and creators such as yourself) . I've started 'funding' the things I use often enough that I would care if it went away or got changed for the worse if they were purchased by some mega-corp or something. I have a complicated relationship with money because it's so symbolic of capitalism but it does seem to be the most rational way for folks to pay people for their labour rather than their overlords. I'd rather live the life of 'a random garden witch that doles out random bits of advice to those deserving of help based on my own chosen (often with great amounts of whimsy) data analysis work' but I'm forced to work for a series of employers who 'conveniently' cannot solve the problems they are tasked with solving. It's exhausting and I applaud you for taking the risk of doing it for yourself.
love love love both of these points !! thank you for putting into words what i was struggling to
1. I feel like that was a pretty damn good thank you. I can't speak for anyone else but I feel those who are able to support you do it not to access some privatized content, but because we genuinely believe in you and are excited by what you are creating. I remember one instagram live you hosted not a bit ago where you got a question about the Benevolent Divine in your life, how you maintained a faith practice, and you turned the live off, because some answers are meant to be "private" conversations not in an exclusionary sense, they're just meant for who is in the room. So ig that's how I thought of the paid threadings, as "we are in the room." But if other people can't be (and I think your thoughts should be able to reach as many folks as possible) then idk. Alls to say, I feel like hearing these thoughts, hearing about your journey and mission and ups and downs in the work and how we move together, that's a good thank you.
2. I wish I knew. I work in the non profit sector and hate it for what I have to say no to. Maybe we have to trust the goodness of the Divine that we try to serve.
Thank you for all of this!
Also sorry on the subject of appreciation, you have this incredible way of making people feel valued in a space. I think it's your honesty. I feel like I'm being spoken to as a person, which is strangely rare from anyone who creates online. So that's something
Ismatu, I feel appreciated when I can connect with divine writing, so thank you for that opportunity on this occasion and in all the rest of what you've offered so far.
Public good might be intuitively communicated during our work. Considering what’s “good” is a philosophical journey, and that journey can take you places. It’s also, to me personally, a linguistic journey. It’s a complex journey, and I don’t think we should romanticize an urgency in simplifying answers to such important questions in order to solve for them (something I see a lot online, but I know it’s an expression of outrage, too). I think what’s actually romantic is like what you acknowledge about sovereignty generally. There’s a beauty in how you’re describing what that looks like to you, but you can see the sublime in the nature of it. I see that what you give to the public is good--and is ultimately helpful, loving, and healing, and so much more. Coexisting with your work and really trying alongside you has only helped me help you, even at a new $6 subscription level.
I think you already know that you’re someone who needs to speak and write your truth, and you pose great questions (dare I say better than good). I think we know what risks we take in this endeavor of making great things public in contrast to what’s popular, even if it is framed as a singular substack post and the replying comments. Great things need to be done, even if they seem silly or not great at all! I also am a writer and speaker of truth, and sometimes I cannot help it that I should feel ashamed of my words or confused by them. Other times I can help it because I know the work is intellectually exhausting but necessary. I keep threading ;)
Further, as a writer, I should acknowledge that you've influenced me, and therefore my thoughts and my writing. It's also a fair deal that you be paid out of my pocket specifically! I hope to continue engaging with your asks because what you have to offer is priceless, in my opinion. And I thank God or the universe for how it's possible for me to thank you, engage, and co-create so that our passions can flourish in our own ways.
Hey Ismatu, I have been a paid subscriber on here for a year now and I wanted to let you know that there is absolutely nothing more you can do to make me feel more appreciated. A while ago, in an essay that has shifted the way I perceive the world, you said that it is not about what we deserve, but what we owe to one another. I think that sentiment applies here. We do not deserve ur exclusive gratitude just because we slide you a dime once in a while. We owe the people who influece and guide us towards embracing radical change and community love something - and for most of us, one of them happens to be you. Personally, I'm a humble teeny bopper sparing my pocket change for you monthly because I am not yet able to engage in radical community projects as much as I'd like to. I am in the beginning of my journey and so incredibly eager to learn everything you are willing to teach. So no, I do not think that there is anything you can do to make us feel appreciated - I think most of us are just grateful for your thoughts and want to contribute to the substantial change we see you making. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to watch you learn in real time and to contribute to such important and incredible projects such as the Ebola Survivors UBI programm. Thank you for asking, but I think you probably anticipated the responses being similar to the ones I have already read - we are your pupils after all and the lessons don't go unheard. Now as for the second question, I think it completes the first one in a way. Being a public good, as I have learned so far, is contributing your skill, thought and compassionate towards the public at your own pace, with the expectation of the public contributing the same too. Public goods are public goods for a reason - they are not motivated by individual greed or economic growth, they exist to serve everyone with resources provided but everyone. It's difficult to figure out how to fit yourself as an individual into this, so I don't have a concrete answer, but I think just sitting down and thinking about what resources and skills I, as an individual, have and which of them are currently needed for the public is a good first step. Hopefully in the future I will know where to go from there. So once again, thank you for providing us the opportunity to learn with you and for motivating us to think beyond what we can see.
“We do not deserve ur exclusive gratitude just because we slide you a dime once in a while. We owe the people who influece and guide us towards embracing radical change and community love something - and for most of us, one of them happens to be you.”
this needs to be read and re read over and over again
Yes, so much this!
This !!!
This
As always thanks for sharing your thoughts with all of us. Since I discovered your account your videos and writing have become a major source of inspiration for my own decolonial and anticapitalist reading and thinking. Your thoughts resonate a lot with me and I am grateful for everything you share. I subscribed after you put up your last text behind a paywall. I always wanted to support you but with everything that was going on in my life Incould only safely commit to that this month. And I am also happy to contribute without any special thanks. I can afford it right now and if that helps keeping your work available for everyone then that's wonderful. I have been grateful for every paying follower who made it possible that you do this and now I am very happy to be one of them. You enrich my life and I am happy to give back what I can.
Of course doing things for money always feels off, especially when you want to do this as community work. I am however very far away from you and wouldn't know how to support you otherwise. If you have any ideas let me know haha. Anyways, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your work!
All the love, Franziska
ismatu! firstly, thank you - and know that we are here because in some weird parasocial way we SEE your “good” and your light, your intelligence, and we enjoy the way you write. i’m subscribed because i want to make it EASIER for you to be in control of your intellectual property and time. the idea of community love and mutual aid are concepts and lifestyles i want to fully embrace, and this is part of it. it doesn't fit in your values or mine to be so constrained by expectations of money. i agree with you in that your content is good available to all.
i've been toying around with how to get out of autopilot in my own life. although i dislike the idea that only those who have funds or are in a separate group will get something exclusive, i see that you want us to not slip by unrecognized. but watch how much we can do! ask us for help if you have the capacity to do so! we want to show up for you because love is what keeps things pushing. tell us about your tea, or somehow include a little sentence or personal context for the essays you write. we want to learn more about the things that keep and collect you, and we are simply learning from you and supporting you in the ways we can. you have so many villages of people who get to witness parts of you and your brain, and if that is not the purest form of being human and being in community, i’m not sure what is.
one last thing - it does feel strange to love your work but not know you, never have interacted with you, but still i learn from you every time i read your work. trying to figure out the balance of what this means for how i support you, how receptive i am/should be to the work, and how these interactions go knowing i’m commenting on a random internet person’s post. but i suppose as long as we remember that you are a person also behind the other side of the screen.
long story short, we’re here for you. when you need to break, that’s okay - we’ll still hold the same space when you come back.
Dearest Ismatu,
Firstly, as always, I am so appreciative of your reflections and willingness to share your brilliance with the rest of us.
Something that I am learning more about right now is the transactional nature of relationships that has been so ingrained in us by white supremacy. Personally, I support you because I want to, I believe in your mission, I get a great value out of your writings and your thoughts, and I'm seriously in love with your voice, lol. I want to pay you for your labor in sharing yourself with us so you don't have to work for the UN or anywhere you don't want to. I don't want or need anything "exclusive" in return. I just want you to keep being you!
It's funny because I have been grappling with similar issues the last few weeks. I've been inspired by you providing your free mental health services, and I've been trying to figure out a way to incorporate this into my own practice (I'm a currently non-practicing nutritionist. I am teaching in student nutrition clinic at a university). When you said "all cost is a barrier to healing" that hit me like a ton of bricks. So I'd like to start providing a free service, but unsure of where to start.
So, 1. I don't need to feel appreciated in this space. I don't need or want anything in return. I appreciate YOU and that is why I'm a paid subscriber.
and 2. This community is already a public good and we keep it going by continuing to build community, connect with and listen to each other, and care for each other. That's it!
Hello, ismatu 👋🏻 It is always good to hear from you. I came here after reading Harris, Palestine, and the Spectacle of Liberation. In that vein,
1. Write. Continue to write what we need. I do not need exclusivity from you, but the education I've received, the seeds that you have planted, are sprouting. The rabbit holes of information I have stumbled into following your essays have taken me to beautifully painful and painfully beautiful places, and I wouldn't trade a single one of those for any amount of personal gain. When I finally came to a place to be able to become a paid substagander, I was thrilled. I had been learning from your free content for a few months, taking that shit to heart, and wishing desperately to support this endeavor of yours. To help you provide your public service without charging. I was inspired. You were living a life completely different and yet so very similar to mine, at times running parallel. I began asking how I could be the change in my communities. How I could load the preverbial gun. Your free work did that. I flocked to you like so many others, seeking some sort of savior and learned instead that WE must save us. There is no great hero coming to save us. I have seen change in my communities bc you nurtured change in me. If you feel some need to show me gratitude, then continue doing the work, loading the gun, sparking change, writing.
2. I've been pondering this more lately as I've been given the opportunity to soon leave my capitalist work to rest and recover a body I have spent the past too many years abusing to survive the death machine. While there, in the care and stability of my friends, I intend to study and learn about community organizing, about bringing people together to affect material, sustainable change. And I intend to create. I will pour out my heart and soul through art and creativity to load the gun, to inspire my own communities, to make revolution irresistible. As I learn the balance of self care and community care, such that they become cyclical and sustainable, I believe I'll better understand how to be a public good.
As always, you have my love and solidarity,
Mav B.
PS- If you find yourself in Colorado again this month, and have the bandwidth to see strangers, I would like to hug you and exchange our thanks in person. After that, for at least a few months, you can find me resting, gardening, and creating in VA. 🩵
I'd like to be apart of the change I know we can all create. As in, I want to help make the world better and commune with everyone here to make that a reality
sincerely agree that you are brilliant...
need: to be at choice when i give. I have resistance to a subscription model bc it can catch me off guard when i inevitably forget that i signed up for something. an easeful non subscription model - just having your venmo / cashapp link handy with posts - would help me contribute more.
be a public good: quarterly round table? it would be great to get to meet the other folks who are inspired by your thoughts and words in real time and build a sense of community
Agree with round table or more inter-constituency conversation
Hi ismatu,
Thank you for asking for what you need, and thank you for helping your community become more interdependent.
In solidarity,
Deb
Ismatu, thank you for being who you are. I've been a paid subscriber for a while, I think I was a yearly payment option that I really appreciated because I had the money then and never know what each month might bring, I say that to say this: I'm not a paid subscriber to gain access to "better" things, I am a paid subscriber because you deserve to survive and thrive while doing the work you do. You are an amazing human, astounding, and also human. You need food and water and shelter and all of that costs money (it shouldn't, but it does). You cannot do the work you do while starving, and it's up to those who can pay to pay with what they can, (be it attention, money, etc) so that those who cannot pay can still have access to education and community.
I'm not here for special treatment, I'm here to learn (and unlearn and reframe and commit) to be a well rounded community member. You offer connection and opportunities that are unmatched. I appreciate you! Thank you for everything you do