CMB 2022 Wrap Up

Liberation Programs, Political Education, and more. Check out what we have been doing to build a liberated community! Support CMB - Community Open House [View this email in your browser]( Welcome back! We have a lot of great information to share with you in today's newsletter. Here's what you can expect: - [CMB Programming](#CMB Programming) - [Campaign updates](#CMB Campaign Updates) - [A somewhat topical political education article](#Current Events/Political Education) - [A community member spotlight](#Community Member Spotlight) - [Upcoming Events](#Upcoming Events (2023)) - [Glossary](#Glossary) Feel free to jump around! Let's see what the community has been up to. [CMB Liberation Program & Stabilization Fund] Stabilization Fund: Community Movement Builders is helping Pittsburgh residents pay their rent, mortgage, utilities, and code violation fines! In 2022, we have distributed almost $20,000 in aid to residents. We do this program to help stop the displacement of working-class residents, who are struggling to keep up with housing costs as rents and property taxes increase. To access this program, sign-up at communitystabilizationfund.org, or call 678-920-6598. Liberation Program: So far, in 2022, we have completed approximately 575 distributions of groceries, personal hygiene and cleaning supplies to families in Pittsburgh and South Atlanta. Every other Saturday we gather with volunteers, including many Pittsburgh community members, to package and distribute these items. It is important to note, however, that we do not run this program as a charity operation. Our liberation programs are about building community and providing Black folks with the things we need to survive. All for the purpose of working together to build a better Pittsburgh— where Black, working-class residents are no longer being displaced and exploited. As Aisha, a CMB member and Liberation Program volunteer said, “My favorite part about participating in the program is honestly just being in the same space with people, talking, and working towards a common goal. It’s the community building piece that makes the liberation program feel special. And I’ll have to add that I love the political education piece at the beginning!” To access this program, sign-up at communitystabilizationfund.org, or text “Liberation Program” to 770-841-4812 [SIGN UP FOR THE LIBERATION PROGRAM]( 'But wait, isn't that just charity?' Not at all! Here's the difference between something like CMB's Liberation Program and charity: Liberation Program Charity Communal. Everyone participates. People who show up to organize deliveries also include people who are receiving deliveries. Therefore, the line between provider and recipient of deliveries is blurred. Paternalistic. Programs are run by charity staff, not the community, and are paternalistic and professionalized. Oftentimes it is the white middle-class charity staff serving poor and working class black and brown communities. Judgment Free. No strict criteria for receiving items or background checks. For instance, no need to show ID or “prove” you need help to receive it Judgmental. Programs commonly run based on deserving/undeserving criteria attached to charity. In other words, with most nonprofits there are criteria people have to meet in order to receive services or support. Engaging. To get at the root causes of the problems in our community, we have political education sessions at the beginning of each packing day to help us unpack how oppression manifests in our day-to-day lives and what we can do about it collectively. Surface-Level. Traditional nonprofits and charity typically only focus on providing services and support, rather than engaging in critical dialogue and building a political analysis. The reason traditional nonprofits and charities do not typically do this is because they’re providing A Band-Aid solution rather than getting at the root causes of systemic injustices. [CMB Campaign Updates] Stop Cop Housing! Did you know the Atlanta Police Foundation is building 5 new houses in Pittsburgh exclusively for police officers? We think that if any new development is happening in the neighborhood it should be for long term residents who are getting priced out of their own community! We started a petition and got over 223 signatures from Pittsburgh residents who say we don’t want these cop houses built in our neighborhood. This is only the beginning. If you’re interested in joining this campaign, call us at 770-841-4812 and we’ll get you plugged in. Community Safety Survey: We want to hear from you about safety in our community. - Do you feel safe? - What (if any) role do you see the police have when it comes to safety? - What kinds of things can we build as a community to make us all more safe? [Fill out this survey here]( or scan the QR code below so we can build a safe neighborhood with each other. [Current Events / Political Education] What Jay Z’s Meltdown Shows Us About Capitalism A few weeks ago, Jay Z got it in his head that the term “capitalist” was just a “new slur they invented to keep the black man down”... or whatever. Why would he think this? As someone with so much money and resources, it would only take a quick search to see that ‘capitalist’ has been a term for well over two hundred years. Capitalists are the small class of elites who own the means of production–like land, machines, natural resources and raw materials. People like Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla (and Space X, and now Twitter), or Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon. Capitalists, and their prioritization of profits over people, have caused the massive pollution and poverty that we still deal with today. It was the capitalists who normalized child labor in factories. It was the capitalists that knew they were causing climate change decades before it was a big issue, but kept going, kept mining, kept extracting and polluting. Jay Z should easily be able to verify these facts. But instead, he deluded himself into thinking people calling him a “capitalist” was simply because they’re haters. One of the biggest problems with partaking in capitalism and being one of the ‘winners’ is that you buy into the delusion that capitalism is a good thing. What’s even more ridiculous about this statement is that Jay-Z himself is not even a capitalist. He doesn’t own the music industry or the technology used to create music. As Kwame Ture once said, “If you understand…the correct definition of a capitalist, then you would know there are no black capitalists in America. You would know that because there's no black man who owns and controls the means of anything. So that when people talk about black capitalists, you would know that they don't know what they are talking about. No, there's no black capitalist.” Ture points out, however, that Black people may serve the interests of the capitalists. Jay-Z does this by rapping about hustling to make money and buy property as a way to encourage Black people to join the system instead of fighting against it. In our society, this mentality is understandable. Many of us raised in rough neighborhoods have necessarily learned the ‘hustle mentality’. Such a mindset is core to hip-hop culture. Countless athletes, artists, and entrepreneurs have built up amazing wealth by hustling and aspiring to be capitalists. But here’s the problem: their individual success does nothing for the rest of us. With all of the Oprahs, Jay-Zs, LeBrons and Rihannas, why aren’t we all living better lives? Where are all of the thriving new Black cities? Take Atlanta for example. Atlanta is known as the ‘Black Mecca’, and yet, Atlanta has one of the highest rates of poverty in America at about 20% (meaning 1 in every 5 people are impoverished). 33% of Black people are impoverished (1 in every 3 people). Only roughly 4% of Black people in Atlanta actually make it out of poverty. That’s the thing many love to ignore about all these ‘success stories’… they are the exception to the rule. For every Jay Z, there are millions of young people that died, got locked up, or just got stuck in poverty instead. Capitalism does not allow everyone to win. In fact, a landmark study ([Sullivan & Hickelson, Capitalism and Extreme Poverty]( shows that the idea that ‘capitalism brought the most people out of poverty’ is complete propaganda. In reality, capitalism stole the land, resources, and intimate community that most people enjoyed in order to privatize and sell it back as soulless commodities. Poverty actually increased under capitalism, as well as early mortality. Health declined so dramatically that the average height of people fell as a result of chronic malnutrition. It wasn’t until the anti-colonial and socialist policies that people began to recover. Simply hustling to get money won’t solve these problems. 100 years of this shows that some Black people “winning” in this capitalist system just makes the problems worse for everyone else. It doesn’t matter what color the people are who have a seat at the table when the whole house is built on the suffering of countless people, animals, and nature. In fact, even if you are a hustler, there’s no guarantee that will be enough, because a huge part of ‘success’ under capitalism is pure luck and/or privilege. Then, even if you have made it out of poverty, but aren’t quite a millionaire (and sometimes even then), you could still be living paycheck-to-paycheck or fall into poverty if you get one to many hospital bills. If we ever want to live in a world where we are not constantly scrabbling for scraps and having to hustle out of poverty, or worse, then we have to move beyond capitalism. For rich people, like Jay-Z, that means redistributing his wealth to the people, not co-signing the NFL or rapping about buying expensive art. If he, and all of these other Black billionaires, are really about the people–Black people--they would give us their money so that we can start to build our own liberated communities. This is one first step in the movement away from capitalism. We have to teach ourselves that true wealth and success can only be found by building communities where nobody has to spend money to live or own property to thrive. Real wealth is being able to live free… free from poverty, free from hierarchies, free from bills, free to be our best selves. There’s ample technologies, resources, and people to live in abundance. There always has been. We just have to learn to use them sustainably, and communally. Here is just one example to get you started: [Library Economies by Andrewism](. -- PS: This article was written about a month before Twitter got bought by Elon, and the ensuing drama/disaster with the social media site is an even bigger case study of how capitalists destroy more than they build. Even the supposed success of Elon's other ventures (SpaceX, Tesla, the Boring company, etc) all have significant problems that are now becoming more and more apparent. In addition, you have Mark Zuckerberg trying to turn Facebook (infamous for causing genocides in other countries, plus the collapse of democracy and rise of polarization around the world) into the worst version of the metaverse, as well as Jeff Bezos consistently overworking people to the point of them getting UTIs from not being able to use the bathroom, to Sam Bankman-Fried who was running a high-profile crypto ponzi-scheme with FTX. We are seeing more and more examples of the so called 'elites' showing off their true natures. -- This article was written by Elijah Claude, but edited down to fit into the newsletter, if you'd like to read the full version (or ask questions and leave comments), please feel free to [read the longer article here](. [Community Member Spotlight] Meet Ms. Harriet Hawkins, a long time Pittsburgh resident and first-time homeowner. After 15 years in housekeeping, Harriet Hawkins saved enough to buy an $80,000 home in Pittsburgh for her family in 2014. “It’s a drastic change. [Now] you can’t work in housekeeping and talk about living over here in Pittsburgh.” Ms. Hawkins, 56, has joined Community Movement Builders in the fight to protect Black Pittsburgh as the price of buying a house skyrockets. “[They are] putting people out that’s renting, gentrification that’s going on…it’s a lot of pressure in Pittsburgh right now for some people.” She notes that new people just “trying to get closer to downtown and the Beltline” bring unaffordable prices. “I was just blessed to move over here and it's tempting because they …want to buy this house for a lot of money. But, for right now, I’m not moving. I'm staying right here.” Unlike Ms. Hawkins, a Grady baby, transplants are ousting Atlanta community members along with long-standing history, “It’s difficult for people to live here. It's becoming like New York and San Francisco and I never would have thought that. I still love Atlanta but it’s trying to like flush us out.” Gentrification is yet another battleground for Black people seeking to be respected in Atlanta. For example, Ms. Hawkins recalls the difficulty in trying to use a Grant Park pool in the 1970s. She uses her experiences to educate younger generations about the importance of Black history and staying connected as a community, “I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way…I constantly try to teach them.” As a survivor of mass incarceration and a battle with drug use, Ms. Hawkins empathizes with the many other challenges facing Black Atlantans, “people need to see other people that got off drugs too.” 25 years clean, Ms. Hawkins shares her story proudly. She is “grateful for each and every day” and glad she chose her family and community. She encourages others to choose community as well. She speaks of community not just as a way to help each other, but as an effort to “keep your neighbor in place, in their home, if you can.” She seeks to do this, just like others, including her sisters, have done for her. Her sisters, Monica and Marlene, join her at CMB’s Liberation Programs and “were just happy to hear about the group” since, as people of faith, they were raised to take care of their neighbors. Ms. Hawkins’ own involvement with CMB was the simple result of talking with a volunteer who knocked on her door; she has been a staple of the program ever since. She advises others to “...take a chance and come out and help because you really helping yourself.” She enjoys the political education sessions before the distribution of items for the community as well as the familiar, “positive” faces at the program who are “always there with a smile” and “seem really genuine about helping the community…about helping Black people.” She recognizes taking care of each other as the only way forward. “People struggling to live… we still got to move forward [together] at the same time.” Powerfully, she adds, “they got us programmed to hate on each other, dislike each other— because they know if we ever get together, we gon’ be a force to be reckoned with.” [Important Upcoming Events] GARDEN DAY - JAN. 22 & FEB. 26 Join the Food Sovereignty and Wellness committee every 4th Sunday at the 790 Welch St Community Garden. Build your skills, connect with others, and help grow food for our community. Healthy food and wellness is our divine right. 💚 FOOD ACCESS WORKING GROUP MEETINGS - TBD The food access working group was developed in response to what we heard at past town halls. Join us every other Wednesday at 11:30am! The exact dates for 2023 aren’t set but you can reach out to us at organizing@communitymovement builders.org to join these meetings. HOUSING WORKING GROUP MEETINGS - TBD The housing working group was also developed in response to what we heard at past town halls. The exact dates for 2023 aren’t set but you can reach out to us at 770-841-4812 to join these meetings. [Support CMB's work! Click here to donate now, or become a Sustainer for $10 a month.]( [Glossary] - Atlanta Police Foundation - The Atlanta Police Foundation is a private organization that funds the police and initiatives involving the police using large donations from corporations. The APF, in partnership with the government, backs the expansion of police occupation of our communities using their resources. - Capitalism - Capitalism is an economic system in which some people privately own the means by which people make things, like tools, factories, and workplaces. Even though all of these things were created by working people, because they are owned by the capitalist class, people must work for the capitalist to earn a wage. Despite not doing any work themselves, the capitalist profits from the labor of their workers, by paying them less than their work is valued at. - Capitalist - The capitalist class is the class of people that makes its living from the work of the people they employ rather than their own work. They can do this because they own the businesses, tools, machinery, land etc. that people need to work, even though all of those things were produced by working people themselves. Thus, the capitalist class is one that exploits the workers. - Charity - Charity is the simple giving of resources or money to people in need. It is not intended to change the conditions that put people in a desperate situation in the first place, but is more like a band-aid over a gaping wound. Charities often come from outside poor communities and are led by folks with lots of resources, not by community members themselves. The difference between CMB’s programs and charity, is that our programs are collective, community based, and are intended to meet the survival needs of community members as part of a larger process to change the system that threatens our survival in the first place. - Gentrification - Gentrification is a process in which private interests displace residents of poor communities by raising the cost of living, building housing too expensive for poor folks to afford, and encouraging wealthier people and big businesses to move in and replace poor residents. [Visit us on Facebook!]( [Visit our website!](www.communitymovementbuilders.org) [Email us!](mailto:communitymovementbuilders@gmail.co) [Instagram]( Copyright © 2022 Community Movement Builders, Inc., All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](