Daily ReDistribution, Part 2
Many of you did the Wealth Reality Check I circulated a couple of weeks ago. I created it as an awareness-raising tool, as I’ve found that questions like Are your bills on autopay?, Do you own property?, and Do you expect inheritance? shake me out of the distorted perceptions I have of my own wealth. (You can still fill it out; your choice whether to submit it or not; all responses are anonymous and just for my edification).
Culturally, we’re conditioned to feel that we don’t have enough. Some of us actually don’t. Some of us haven’t, at some point. Most of the people on this newsletter list are like me: we may not feel that we have enough wealth to regularly share our resources, but we very much do.
The regular, ongoing practice of redistributing our wealth keeps us awake to the fact that some people matter more than others. And doing it disrupts one of the engines of our inequitable society: that some people always have to not matter.
Your action:
Create a redistribution budget (check guidelines from Resource Generation and Aware-LA). and spend it monthly. If you already have an annual giving plan, broaden it to distribute to a wider base than non-profits or alma maters (and let go of your tax savings).
If you drive, carry a stockpile of non-perishable protein-heavy snacks (jerky, bars, nuts) in your car to hand out.
Similarly, put a set number of bills (try $20s) in your wallet each month, and give them all away.
Identify an individual or family, a local mutual aid organization, and a regional activist group as recipients of your redistributed funds or donated labor.
If you suddenly come into money you didn’t expect - a bonus, gift, or refund - give it away. I got bumped off a flight for $500 and gave $100 each to a Lyft driver, a person on a street corner with a sign, a mini-mart employee, and the local indigenous tribe.
Donate items instead of selling them: bring to homeless shelters, refugee resettlement organizations, youth centers.
Redistribute something…every day.
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Organize a white affinity group or caucus at your workplace or among your people…and invite me in for deft facilitation