It’s Wednesday, I have at least 10 balls in the air between work and home. Funding season is in full swing which translates into writing grants and in person begging to keep the doors to my center open. I have a wee one with a cold and feel the rumblings of a cold brewing myself but none of that matters.
Unless you have lived under a rock for the past 24 hours, you are aware that a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti. Haiti needs you, they need me and more importantly they need some money. Last night as I channel surfed myself to sleep, I was amazed that only one of the cable news networks had any coverage about what was happening in Haiti. As a buddy of mine on Facebook mentioned, the previous night it was breaking news that Simon was leaving American Idol…but let a country of poor folks of color get hit with a major catastrophe and well we will cover that when we get to it.
Now I realize that my readership has grown from the days when only Black folks read me, but this message is to the brothers and sisters that read me…get off your ass and do something to help our folks. I have never been to Haiti, I have no direct connection to Haiti but those folks are part of the diaspora and they need us. Yes, the American Red Cross will be there and other countries will send some relief but dammit we need to help our own.
Black folks, we spend a lot of money on fly hairdo’s, eating tasty lunches, getting our nails done and the list goes on. I am asking you to give that up at least for a day. I am forgoing my almost daily Peppermint Mocha and sending the cash to the Red Cross. I have seen a slew of organizations where you can send a text message and your cell will be billed so if you don’t want to be ole school like me and write a check, that’s cool. Point is we need to do something. Those folks are us and they need our help so forgo whatever you were going to spend money on today that you really don’t need and do some good.
Oh yeah and if you are white, you can help out too, the more the merrier the key thing is to do more than write a cute status update on your social media of choice, that’s not activism and change…no they need money. So just do it.