Launching #ReparationsMonday!

To look forward towards a more just and beautiful world, we must look back towards the harms and injustices that have brought us here. Only through healing and repairing past harms can we have the collective power to transform the political, ecological, and social crises afoot.

Giving Tuesday has become a national day for making fundraising appeals and moving money towards nonprofits, primarily in the United States. Giving Tuesday supports an already unequal system where the NGOs with the largest PR budgets - and often the whitest staff - receive the bulk of donations. It also entrenches a practice of transactional giving to strategies that have short-term outcomes, rather than building longer term power in movements bringing about systemic change. We believe a different way is possible.

#ReparationsMonday, immediately following Giving Tuesday, shines a light on the transformative and healing power of reparations.

We ascribe to Movement Generation’s framing that “We must not only make amends for past harm, but we must reorganize the very nature of our economy so as to create new relationships going forward such that the harm can never happen again.”

We understand that no single action or path can make amends for the injustices borne by marginalized communities, and that only systems change will move us towards a more just world.

Through #ReparationsMonday, we seek to inspire:

1. New giving towards historically marginalized communities by individuals based on place, family, or identities; and

2. New conversation and action to reimagine our economies to ensure future healing and equity.

We will highlight that Giving Tuesday is meant to complement Black Friday (fueling consumption in an economy built from stolen labor and stolen land) and ‘Thanksgiving’ (commemorating the attempted erasure of Indigenous Peoples and dispossession from their lands). We also hope to make visible the implications and impact of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, and challenge the perpetuation of inequity through the nonprofit structures of the U.S.

Prior to and on November 30, #ReparationsMonday, we will launch a media campaign alongside ally organizations. The media campaign will invite deeper individual reflection and offer stories of how individuals and organizations have started a journey towards reparations.

We invite individuals and organizations to offer commitments with the hashtag #ReparationsMonday on their next steps.

Use our simple Media Kit to get the word out and share your commitment!

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Questions for Reflection:

• Place. Who are the Indigenous peoples who lived/live on the land I now inhabit? When did you first realize or understand your family’s connection to slavery, genocide, and colonization? How might you move money to make amends for people’s erasure, marginalization, or native communities’ dispossession from this land?

• Economies. Where has my family lived and/or from what part of our economies have they derived their wealth? How might I move money to make amends? How do I benefit from an economy built on the stolen labor of Black people and the extraction of resources from the Global South? How might I materially contribute to dismantling institutions that challenge Black self-determination?

• Identities. What are my identities and how do I or have I benefited from these identities at the expense of others? How might I redistribute money or take action to make amends?

#ReparationsMonday started as an idea at Blue Heart, and we are considering it an experiment! We are hoping to try some strategies, reflect, and re-create in coming years. We do not want to ‘brand’ this or have it owned by any one organization. And we welcome partnerships with all those who feel resonance with the concept.