this month I gave 25 euro to Women On Waves which is a dutch non-profit that provides abortion pills to people around the world (including those in america). I found out about them thru AidAccess which was talked about in The Atlantic's podcase The Experiment.
this is the second month in a row i've given to an abortion org, and from that podcast, I was introduced to a few more great abortion orgs so who knows, this might be my give focus this year.
one my most favorite podcasts recently replayed an old episode called Inheritance. i was specifically interested in the third section called: What If There Was No Destiny? it centers on barbara, a woman who adopted multiple children from another woman who was giving them up near annually, as soon as they were born. this woman was addicted to drugs and her children would all likely be affected, physically and mentally, because of it. she had three prior children to the four barbara had adopted also. all had given up for adoption.
after adopting the fourth child, barbara founded a non-profit called Project Prevention, which pays women with drug addictions to get IUDs or get sterilized.
obviously, this is a pretty controversial org! the money ($300-$400) is given without any drug prevention care. it's just given if the woman gets an IUD or sterilization. it's not given *for* the woman, you see. it's given to prevent more "drug addicted babies."
there are racial implications, of course, especially because barbara is white. altho she does say that the majority of the women who accept are white. (tho what's the breakdown of women they're approaching?) and you have to wonder if there's any coercion, especially when it comes to sterilization. but it's an interesting idea.
i don't have solid opinions about this org but i will say that i don't intend to donate to them. that may change, but barbara used some rather offensive (and umempathetic) language when describing some of these women and it seems like the org is very strongly driven by her vision alone, rather than by a board, which also makes me uncomfortable.
this month I donated to the national network of abortion funds which provides support and money to those seeking abortions.
remember rachel dolezal? she was the white lady who represented herself as being black, was "caught", then lost her job as instructor in africana studies at eastern washington university and position of president of the NAACP spokane chapter. turns out there's a 2018 documentary about her on netflix.
I don't remember much about the controversy. pretty much just what's in the bit above. but the documentary talks about her younger life and how here parents were very religious and strict. they had two biological children and adopted a few more. all the adopted children were black. I'm not going to go into her history because I think the documentary is really worth watching, but in watching the film, her situation made a lot more sense to me.
some interesting things that come up during the film are reactions from black women. namely, that she doesn't get to call herself black, regardless of how she feels, because she doesn't live the struggles that black people have. but is that true? sure, when she was younger, she lived life as a woman person. but in the last number of years, she outwardly presented herself as black, her job had to do with the black experience and history, and her volunteer work as naacp head was also very much done "as a black woman." so how hadn't she been discriminated against in the last number of years as a black person? does it not count because she didn't always struggle?
also, what about black people in black majority places like africa or jamaica? sure they face discrimination, but certainly it's very different than what it's like as a black american. and like, probably less racial discrimination because they're in a place with majority black people and with black people in positions of power. but they also didn't struggle primarily because of their race.
so is it more so your outward appearance and how society perceives you that makes you black? cause i also watched "passing" lately, which was also very interesting and not just because of the casting choices, and would you say that clare is less black than irene because she lives as a white woman, where irene only occasionally does? is irene less black than her husband who couldn't pass at all?
obviously it's not just culture and knowledge of history. because a lot of black (hell most people of all backgrounds) don't know the history of their people but rachel knows africana studies well enough to teach it at a university. [I do wish they had interviewed some students] of course there's a big difference between personally living experiences vs learning about them, but she does seem pretty knowledgeable, at least academically.
a lot of people are mad that she culturally appropriated blackness, and while I guess she did, she also literally tried to walk a mile in their shoes. most people just want the benefits, the cool culture, the tasty dish, the street cred. she literally tried on the whole life.
I don't have an opinion about what she did, but I do wonder if she should have been treated so harshly.
couple reviews of the documentary:
Vulture - The Rachel Divide Is a Rorschach Blot for Its Viewers
Vice - The Rachel Dolezal Documentary Is a Hollow, Manipulative Spectacle
this month I gave $50 to rachael's gofundme, which was started by a friend who loves her. i met rachael at BYO when she was hired there as a shop girl. rachael was my favorite of the shopgirls. a hard worker and a dreamer, also fairly practical. last year, or maybe the year before, she moved back home to arizona (I think). she bought an old bus and has been working to renovate it into a tiny home.
this month I gave $50 to eddy, the same person I gave money to back in august. I guess he's trying to move now? I'm not sure, but anyway, he posted on FB asking for help so here you go! it's not much, obviously, but I'm sure it'll help him more than my giving my usual $25 to a non-profit with $1m annual budget.
