This Is Not a Retreat

This article is republished with author permission from LinkedIn.

The change in the administration’s tactics in Minneapolis is not a retreat. Instead, they are regrouping and planning another mode of attack, with the hopes that their repression might be met with resistance that is easier to control and contain. People who garner their relevancy and power through the dehumanization and oppression of others will do whatever it takes to cling to their soulless sense of self.

Authoritarianism never acquiesces. It only shape-shifts its cruel intentions into new messaging or band-aid policies that keep the core of their ill intentions intact, while masquerading as reform and change. Trump and his administration are not going back into their box. Their terror has been unleashed, and it must be snuffed out once and for all.

For those of us in philanthropy: we helped create this authoritarian Pandora’s Box. The project to remake the US into a white nationalist state was pursued under Reconstruction and again under Jim Crow. It was a project that started long before Carnegie and Rockefeller masterminded the creation of the charitable sector, and it has continued through our complicity. Their vision for philanthropy is centered on the preservation of wealth and power within the control of the white and wealthy elite. Foundations retracted funding from Black-led social movements that called us to “Defund the Police” after the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. For decades, funders have abandoned those who chose to stand in solidarity with Palestine; most recently, against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

As a sector, we have become so attached to our own power and wealth that we were willing to undermine any social movements that we thought might threaten the order and comfort we enjoyed. What we didn’t understand is that our cowardice and instinct for self-preservation at the expense of others would eventually lead the demons to knock on our own doors. When dealing with an insatiable monster who feeds on people’s blood, tears, and fears, there is no amount of freeze, flight, or fawning that will keep you from its hunger. It’s only a matter of time before that monster sets its sights on you.

We performed sympathy and understanding to communities after George Floyd’s murder through unfulfilled promises of funding and solidarity. At the first threat from this regime, many obeyed in advance. Not only did we abandon all the statements we made in the summer of 2020, but we wholly turned our backs on diversity, equity, and inclusion and eliminated any mention of race and structural inequality. Consequently, we are now forced to turn our eyes back to the streets of Minneapolis and watch as children are used as bait and detained in filthy ICE prisons, as people are gunned down in the street while protecting their neighbors.

When organizers called for the demilitarization of the police, philanthropy responded with depreciation calls for “more training.” When organizers said, “stop the police brutality,” and demanded police accountability, philanthropy responded by suggesting, instead, a wider use of body cameras. The terror remains, but now we all watch it happen in all its gore. When organizers said, “Defund the Police” philanthropy responded by saying that their demands were “not nice,” or “impractical”. Communities continue to protest and philanthropy continues to scold them to protest “peacefully.”

We cannot reform our way out of a militarized authoritarian police state. This is the monster that philanthropy helped create. So, we must do our part to bring about its end.

I’ve long expressed my disinterest in the debate of philanthropy existing into perpetuity or spend-out. However, I can’t help but see how some in our sector that have rationalized their business model (and yes, it’s a business) under the presumption that we cannot move all of our resources to the grassroots because there will be a storm-filled rainy day when those resources will be needed even more –are you still denying that the day has come? Have you considered that if we had loosened the purse strings just a little bit, even ten years ago, maybe we wouldn’t be here in the first place?

It seemed more palatable for us to support reformist strategies, which kept the status quo intact and preserved our own comfort, than to look at the bold-faced lie that “Stop-and-Frisk” policies, carbon trading taxes and fracking, minimum wage policies, eligibility requirements for access to public benefits, and sadly so, so much more, were simply strategies to scaffold the authoritarian state around the rubble of a democracy. And it was our sector which provided the resources for that very demolition into rubble by funding what we decided was politically viable, rather than by being rigorous and firm in our analysis and practice of what makes for a thriving democracy.

There is much to be said about the internalized anti-Blackness that lay beneath our rationalization for supporting measures which we knew disproportionality targeted Black communities. We seemed to think that the bloodied waters would never reach our own doorsteps. But that is for a future discussion.

Right now, left standing among the rubble, breathing in the dust and wondering what we should do now. Now is the time we get to work. Now is the time that we recognize that private organizations, financial institutions, and individual wealth holders are the last line of defense that can protect and provide for the people that are on the frontlines of this fight. We have no more time to wait. It’s time to conquer the fear that keeps us isolated and complacent in our own private nightmares. It’s time to summon the courage to reach towards our collective liberation and the freedom that we can only experience inside of beloved community.

Now is when we, as a sector and as the people who lead it, get to be the Superheroes who save the day. We can be the star player who makes the last second Hail Mary shot to win the game. This is our moment to shine as bright as we’ve ever dreamed. Now is the time, because if we wait any longer, we might not have another chance.

Does this all sound incredibly self-righteous? I am not above reproach. I have made plenty of missteps, even in the short time I have been in leadership Kataly. It is in fact because of my own mistakes that I share this plea with our sector to do more. Let us look back and know that we left it all on the field, instead of wringing our hands about the right play. I do not claim to have all the answers. But it is my genuine hope that something I have written here will be resonant.

Some possible next steps:

• Resource Mutual-Aid–There are endless lists of mutual-aid networks across the country that provide legal aid, direct action support, food, care, immigration support, and more. Chances are that our existing grantees already mobilize or are connected to some mutual aid networks that we can quickly resource. Reach out to grantees if you are stuck or unsure how to begin.
• Be Bold and Fund Outside of the 501(c)3 Structure–It’s time to take the big swing and consider forgoing charitable tax credits to directly resource the individuals and families who are in desperate need of financial assistance. As more fearful families remain huddled inside their homes, afraid of an encounter with ICE, they are forgoing their income for safety. As a result, though, they risk losing the safety of home if they’re unable to pay for rent, utilities, food, or basic care. The need to develop the mechanisms and infrastructure to resource individuals, and even for-profit entities, will only grow as the administration continues to target nonprofit organizations and their 501(c)3 status.
• Fund Movement Infrastructure–Not ready to experiment with expenditure reports and funding outside of the nonprofit structure? Then direct resources toward movement infrastructure. Support the technical assistance and capacity building needed by organizations that flank social movements to resist these attacks and implement their campaigns and projects for a just future. This looks like resourcing organizations focused on power building and narrative strategy, movement-aligned lawyers, healers, and more.

We have approached that moment as a nation where if those of us committed to justice and peace don’t rise to the occasion to resource the critical resistance that the people of Minneapolis are waging out in its sleet-covered streets, then this administration will continue to move as though it is above reproach, because we have allowed them to be just that.

We will never reform, or even move incrementally out of this moment, through false solutions like body cameras, additional training for law enforcement, or removing masks. Those tactics are intended to provide a false sense of control and repair when in truth ICE and law enforcement never should have been given the authority, weapons, and budget to enable the continued murder and criminalization of poor Black and Brown people. And now they continue to extend that power, to devastating effect, just as we’ve always known that they would, to white women and men.

For too long we’ve failed to “fund social movements like we want them to win”. The stakes have only risen. Now, we must “fund social movements like we (the collective) want to live.” Because our lives do, indeed, depend on it.