Coming together. For each other.
What happened to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tony McDade, David McAtee, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson, and Tamir Rice is horrible. It is also not unexpected. What we’re seeing today in our streets and in our country is the logical outcome of what happens when a culture built upon hundreds of years of systemic exclusion; intentional inequity and racist/sexist rhetoric runs up against growing numbers of marginalized folks who are gaining power and the ability to push back.
We also just closed out the month of June. June is supposed to be when we celebrate LGBTQ+ life and livelihood; amplify the voices of those who are also marginalized and disenfranchised by daily discrimination, dehumanization, and defamation. Add to the list of lives destroyed by institutionally supported violence: Breonna Taylor, Natasha McKenna, Nina Pop, Walter Scott, Bettie Jones, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, Eric Reason, Dominique Clayton…
We all live with layers of intersectionality and right now, it seems as if ALL the communities I identify with are being attacked, brutalized, and murdered at the hands of white supremacy, racist government inaction, and police violence.
As co-directors of StrideLabs, Kandea, and I are committed to doing more to make sure that the communities we come from, the communities that continue to be marginalized and disrupted and under-resourced can get training, services, and advice.
StrideLabs offers IT support, training, and strategic advice to smaller nonprofits at discounted rates. At the same time, we work to ensure that our team of experts train individuals who will be staying with the org so the skills remain with the organization and within the community.
For the next 3 months, we will be offering free office hours to provide advice to nonprofit and social sector support organizations that need it, with a focus on those serving marginalized communities.
If you’d like to help support this effort and/or our organization, please click the donate button. Regardless of if you are ready/able to give, we’d appreciate it if you’d share our Office Hours with any organization that you feel could benefit from a conversation with us!
Cynthia Billops, Co-Director
Links and Lists:
List of Black folks to support: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mo2E-M9Bw57ndJrRVegxVhwhI11SWFNPQdQEFVyn02Q/preview?mc_cid=00bcf49c97&mc_eid=06df4276f0&pru=AAABcp-82UQ*QRb6wItt2o8NYfKwNvWjIg
Black owned businesses in the Bay Area: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V_JPbzf7lQur3FDmM30EEdodXWmB2onqBhPuuPjQ2k0/edit#gid=1547867908
Black owned restaurants: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/black-owned-restaurants/
Anti-racism resource list (books, articles, links and talks) list:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VXXsgSc9go6nxL7fC7X3_2Nc83hl7vn4gcEQX0nej_E/edit#gid=0
https://peopleofcolorintech.com/silicon-valley/is-google-scaling-back-its-diversity-effort-techish/