猫咪社区

Last December, nonprofit executive director Malik Yakini received an unexpected call. The caller, a woman who resides in California, said she wanted to direct a sizeble portion of her inheritance to his organization, the . 

This type of windfall is indeed rare, but it was the caller鈥檚 motivation鈥攔evealed over several conversations with Yakini鈥攖hat was really unusual.  

She felt there was 鈥渟ome lack of justice in how the money was acquired鈥� and that she could 鈥渃ontribute to greater justice鈥� by transferring wealth to groups engaged in Black, land-related projects, Yakini recalls. 鈥淪he sees her work in making these donations as specifically a type of individual reparations.鈥� 

The donor, who asked to remain anonymous, is part of a cohort of White Americans of means who are moving beyond checking their privilege to taking the lead from Black folks on how to transmute their privilege into reparative and restorative justice.  

Transferring wealth to groups like DBCFSN, which organizes community agriculture and food systems activism in Detroit, is a particularly potent form of reparations with immediate benefits to communities of color and knock-on effects on the environment, health, and philanthropy. 

The national discourse on reparations tends to narrowly fixate on government-to-individual payouts, but within Black communities, reparations have long been   

That鈥檚 because 鈥渓and is the basis for self-determination,鈥� says Akua Deidre Smith, who serves as the land strategies director at BlackOUT Collective and coordinator of , a program that helps White donors give to BIPOC-led food and land initiatives without strings attached, in a way that allows organizations to decide for themselves where and how those gifts will have the most impact. 

鈥淭here has never been a significant reparations movement or ask that did not involve land… in order to build towards the reparations that we actually deserve,鈥� says Smith. 鈥淲e need land, money, and healing and transformation now.鈥� 

Black Americans鈥� connection to land and food systems is undeniably and understandably fraught. Their African ancestors were kidnapped and enslaved precisely because of their agricultural acumen and ability to cultivate appropriated land for White colonizers. Their forced labor鈥斺�渁nd intellectual property,鈥� notes Yakini鈥攎ade the United States an economic superpower. 

鈥淏ut because that value was extracted from us, we don’t see benefit from it,鈥� Yakini explains. 鈥淲hen we talk about reparations on a larger scale, I see it as an attempt to redistribute the stolen economic value that’s been extracted from Black people and that is enjoyed by the larger White society as a whole.鈥� 

For Dara Cooper, who works closely with Yakini through the , the issuance or disbursement of reparations is a process. That process, Cooper says, citing , should always begin with the cessation of the harm. 鈥淕otta stop the harm at some point.鈥�

But when it comes to food and land, harm has only persisted. From the reversal of Reconstruction-era land grants to the USDA鈥檚 blanket denial of Black farmers鈥� loan applications until 1997 to food companies鈥� ongoing there has been a perpetual loop of injustice and inequity. 

鈥淲e historically have been self-sufficient people,鈥� Cooper says of Black and Indigenous communities. 鈥淭his country and these systems have systematically disconnected us from the means to feed our own selves and our own people. It鈥檚 systematically disconnected us from even being able to recognize the foods we need.鈥� 

Black Americans living in urban centers have a particularly fractured relationship to food and land, because of factors such as food apartheid and limited access to green spaces and agricultural production. This disconnect is widened by well-meaning White people who have gentrified urban agriculture movements. Their outsized visibility obscures work Black people have already been doing and, in Black-majority Detroit, says Yakini, created somewhat of a 鈥減ower imbalance鈥� within the local food movement.  

鈥淭here were Black folks doing gardens all over the city [for decades],鈥� says Yakini, who, inspired by Malcolm X, became interested in the legacy of enslavement on Black foodways in the late 1960s. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a new thing that boho white folks jumped on board. But as happens with many things, once they jumped on board they became the spotlight.鈥� 

White people are also the face of rural agriculture鈥攗nsurprisingly, as they own 98% of farmland, . Still, , and many Black families have deep roots in America鈥檚 rural landscape. 

Foxfire Ranch, situated in northern Mississippi鈥檚 verdant hill country, has been in Annette Hollowell鈥檚 family since 1919, though the land lay 鈥渄ormant, just free and running wild鈥� for about 50 years.  

In 2000, her parents returned and began farming their food and constructing outbuildings. Needing a facility for family reunions that drew hundreds of people, they erected a 5,000-square-foot pavilion that now serves as an events venue.  

鈥淓very building, every structure has been built by my family members,鈥� says Hollowell. 鈥淭he very fencing around the 80 acres was done by my mother, my father, my uncle. I can look and see the actual blood and sweat that my family has put into this land for the last 100 years.鈥� 

Foxfire Farm, filling a gap left by defunct music venues, has also been instrumental in protecting regional blues heritage. Moving forward, Hollowell wants Foxfire to be a space where Black people can 鈥渟tep back鈥� and 鈥渏ust rest.鈥�  

It鈥檚 not a vision that these groups and communities lack, but the resources necessary for total transformation. A reposeful space for Black folks isn鈥檛 the kind of project that mainstream philanthropy usually rewards with investment. Instead, the current paradigm prioritizes , , and rewards major donors with undue influence in how their gifts are spent and what program success looks like鈥攆actors that can undermine the sustainability and self-determination of BIPOC-led nonprofit groups.  

Reparations Summer disrupts this by helping selected donor participants unlearn patters of White supremacy within charitable giving. White donors must complete a rigorous application process to even participate鈥攚ealth alone and good intentions are not enough. Then, they commit to months of learning and engagement with Black-led land projects, followed by multiyear investments starting at about $25,000.  

Wealthy White donors in Reparations Summer are 鈥渁ctually in a process of healing and transformation that will result in them not only moving their own resources, but actually organizing their communities to move resources as well,鈥� explains Janis Rosheuvel, a program director at Solidaire Network, a community of donor organizers in philanthropy who assisted with Reparations Summer. 

Over the past few years, Christine Mulvey and Jack Kuehn, also major donors to DBCFSN, have been doing similar work on their own but are finding it challenging to even connect to Indigenous and Southern communities in which to spend down their wealth. 

鈥淲e feel like we鈥檙e running into maybe a lack of experience inside of the philanthropic world,鈥� says Mulvey, who is also involved with Indigenous food and land organizations. 鈥淵ou could almost call it a type of apartheid, you know, where there鈥檚 circles that White people and White donors move in. And there鈥檚 circles that Black and Indigenous people move in.鈥� 

Mulvey and Kuehn are clear that they are shifting more than just money to DBCFSN. Their divestment of their wealth, which came from a family business that once had operations in Detroit, is also a transfer of 鈥減ower, political, and economic power into the neighborhoods of Detroit,鈥� says Kuehn.   

鈥淚 think you have to look at your own white supremacy first and try to come from there,鈥� Kuehn continues. 鈥淎nd then, when you do make the donation, get out of the way.鈥澛�

CORRECTION: This article was edited at 5:15 p.m. Pacific on Feb. 19, 2021, to update the caption on the lead image to be intentional in not identifying Malik Yakini as the sole founder of DBCFSN, as the previous caption invisibilizes the other cofounders and mischaracterizes why the farm was started. Read our聽corrections policy here.