#BlackLivesMatter: How to Help If You Have No Funds

Hi. This isn’t our usual fun, bookish content today. Both of us feel devastated, frustrated, and angered by what is happening in the USA and around the globe. Sadly, it is nothing new. Sadly, this happens every day and the media simply refuse to report it. If you weren’t paying attention, you could easily be fooled into believing that George Floyd is an isolated case. Enough is enough.

We both stand by the Black Lives Matter movement and want to help in any way we can. We realise that Coronavirus has put a major financial strain on many of you, so we compiled a list of ways you can aid the movement and educate yourself if you’re not in a position to donate.

To our black friends around the world  – we are sorry. We are sorry that every day you wake up to a world that refuses to see you. We are sorry that you have been failed by those who should have protected you. We are sorry that you live in constant fear for the people you love. We are sorry for all the lives lost that should still be here with us today.

We stand with you. Not just while it’s trending – forever. We will speak up for you on the streets, in our workplaces, in our homes. Black lives have always mattered. Black lives will always matter.

Donate via Adsense

The creators of these videos have pledged to donate 100% of their Adsense profits to Black Lives Matter charities and organisations such as the Brooklyn Bail Fund, Minnesota Freedom Fund, Black Lives Matter Movement & Cause amongst others.

This Twitter thread also links a whole bunch of videos that allow you to donate via Adsense.

A few rules to make sure your views count…

1. Don’t watch it on repeat
2. Don’t watch it in a playlist
3. Don’t fast forward or skip
4. Don’t skip the ads
5. Watch with at least 480px and half the volume (you can mute the tab, or plug your headphones in if you need to)
6. After watching the video, watch 3-5 other videos then search for the video you want to watch again (e.g. type in ‘Stream to donate Zoe Amira’). The length of the other videos you watch don’t matter, but try to watch different ones.
7. Don’t click on the video from your watch history
8. Don’t clear your watch history and search history

Edit: A couple of the videos we uploaded have since been taken down by Youtube for violating Google monetisation guidelines, however Youtube has pledged to make the donation themselves!

Petitions you can sign

Resource: BlackLivesMatter

If you don’t live in America, the suggested postal codes you can use to sign the petitions are:

90015: LA, California

10001: NYC, New York

75001: Dallas, Texas

(Don’t donate to Change.org, the money goes to the website, not the cause itself!)

• Raise the Degree (Change.org)
• Get the Officers Charged (Change.org)

Update: the remaining 3 officers involved have now been charged with aiding and abetting murder, and Derek Chauvin’s murder chargers have been increased to second-degree murder

• #JusticeForFloyd (ColorofChange.org)
• Justice For George Floyd (Change.org)
• Justice for George Floyd #2 (Change.org)
• George Floyd (ThePetitionSite.com)
• George Floyd (Amnesty.org)
• Breonna Taylor (moveon.org)
• #JusticeforBre (ColorofChange.org)
• Justice for Breonna (ColorofChange.org)
• Justice for Breonna Taylor (Change.org)
• Breonna Taylor (The Petition Site)
• Disbarment of George E. Barnhill (Change.org)
• Justice For Ahmuad Arbery (Change.org)
• Justice for Ahmaud Arbery #2 (Change.org)
• Pass the Georgia Hate Crime Bill (Change.org)
• Defund MPD (EveryAction)
• Life sentence for police brutality (Change.org)
• Justice for Regis Korchinski-Paquet (Change.org)
• Justice For Tony McDade (Change.org)
• Tony McDade (The Action Network)
• Tony McDade (The Petition Site)
• Justice For Joāo Pedro (Change.org)
• Julius Jones (Change.org)
• Justice for Belly Mujinga (Change.org)
• Willie Simmons (Change.org)
• Hands Up Act (Change.org)
• National Act Against Police Brutality (Change.org)
• Kyjuanzi Harris (Change.org)
• Justice for Alejandro Vargas Martinez (Change.org)
• Censorship of police brutality in France (Change.org)
• Justice for Sean Reed (Change.org)
• Justice for Sean Reed #2 (Change.org)
• Reopen Kendrick Johnson’s Case (Change.org)
• Justice For Tamir Rice (Change.org)
• Justice for Tamir Rice #2 (Change.org)
• Fire Racist Criminal Michael J Reynolds from the NYPD (Change.org)
• #JusticeforJamee (OrganizeFor.org)
• Justice For Darrius Stewart (Change.org)
• Darrius Stewart (MoveOn.org)
• Abolish Prison Labor (Change.org)
• Free Siyanda (Change.org)
• Drop charges against incarcerated trafficking survivor Chrystul Kizer (Change.org)
• Chrystul Kizer (Change.org)
• Justice for Andile Mchunu (Bobo) (Change.org)

Click here for more petitions

Educate yourself

Watch

• We cannot stay silent about George Floyd (Hasan Minhaj, Youtube)
• It’s time for change in the US (James Corden, Youtube)
• Michael Che talks about the Black Lives Matter protests (Late Night with Seth Meyers, Youtube)
• 13th (Netflix)
• American Son (Netflix)
• Dear White People (Netflix)
• See You Yesterday (Netflix)
• When They See Us (Netflix)
• If Beale St Could Talk (Hulu)
• King in the Wilderness (HBO)

Listen to podcasts

• 1619 (New York Times)
• About Race
• Code Switch (NPR)
• Intersectionality Matters!
• Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
• Pod for the Cause (from the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights)
• Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
• The Combahee River Collective Statement
• How to Survive the End of the World

Read

• So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton, Lara Love Hardin and Bryan Stevenson
• Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
• Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah G. Plant
• When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Asha Bandele, Angela Y. Davis
• How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones
• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
• Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
• This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins
• Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
• What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays by Damon Young
• One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy  by Carol Anderson
• A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry, Kali Nicole Gross
• Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
• They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
• Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman
• Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine by Emily Bernard
• Overground Railroad: The Green Book & Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy A. Taylor
• Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do by Dr. Jennifer L. Eberhardt
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

For our Australian friends…

Australia is not as far removed from what’s happening across the globe as some people would care to admit. So we’ve listed articles, books, videos and documentaries that detail Australia’s violent history against its own First Nations People and discuss what it’s like living in Australia as an Aboriginal person.

• Every Indigenous death in custody since 2008 (The Guardian)
• We must bear witness to black deaths in our own country (The Canberra Times)
• Australia Day by Stan Grant
• Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee by Chloe Hooper
• Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Heiss
• City of Gold by Meyne Wyatt
• Talking To My Country by Stan Grant
• Not Just Black and White by Lesley Williams, Tammy Williams
• The Colonial Fantasy: Why White Australia Can’t Solve Black Problems by Sarah Maddison
• My stolen childhood, and a life to rebuild (Sheila Humphries – TEDxPerth)
• Stolen Generations (documentary)
• The Australian Dream (documentary)

This post has been compiled with the help of information from social media, online resources, and suggestions from our friends. It is by no means an exhaustive list, so if there’s anything you’d like us to add, please let us know and we will update our list or make a follow-up post.

#BlackLivesMatter