RELIEVING
BLACK
DEBT
Relieving Black Debt is a redistribution of wealth and a Mutual Aid Project designed for and by Black people.
The goal for this project is to support Black people in creating financial ease. We hope to do this by reducing the burden of debt and so that Black people have more range in how they use their income.
Who
We
Are
Our belief is that redistribution of wealth is a form of mutual aid that normalizes and systematizes an ethic of equity, anti racism, and decreasing gender based harm. We hope this can be a model of community practice and standard of care.
This project is inspired by Sonya Renee Taylor’s Buy Back Black Debt. “BuyBackBlackDebt is a project of interracial spiritual and economic relationship building. The goal is not simply to pay off the random debt of Black folks, but to re-establish the possibility of human connections and relationship through disrupting active institutions of white supremacist delusion in Black lives. This project is a local, family and community organized process that benefits the lives of Black folks in your proximity.”
During the first round, Relieving Black Debt (RBD) redistributed up to $10,000 per recipient. In this upcoming second round of redistribution, RBD will redistribute a total of $50,000 to Black people and families.
We are a diverse group of Black folks whose identities expand and or sit at the intersection of Black, women, trans, femme, non-binary, mothers, working class, queer, fat, first generation Americans, living across the country. Together we are the steering committee and act as the governing body for the Relieving Black Debt Project.
Steering Committee
Florie St.Aime
Sarana Carter
Aja Trotter
Arvia Walker
Aysa Gray
Farron Harvey (Project Lead)
Who
We
Center
In an effort to redistribute extreme wealth into the hands of people who have been historically excluded from access to build stability through financial wealth. We are committed to centering and prioritizing all the intersections with Blackness listed below. In no particular order:
Caretakers. Caretakers are people taking care of dependents financially either inside or outside of their household. Dependents can be biological or chosen family including but not limited to children (youth or adult), parents, grandparents, aunties & uncles, best friends and life partners.
Femmes. A femme is a queer person who presents in a feminine manner. A femme can be a cis woman, a trans woman, a gender-nonconforming person, or a nonbinary person. This person may be a lesbian, pansexual, bisexual, or any other identity under the queer umbrella.
Women. A person that identifies in their gender as a woman. This includes but is not limited to people assigned female at birth, and trans women.
LGBTQI+(Lesbian, Gay, Trans, Queer, Intersex, plus more). These are samples of terms for expansive gender and sexual identities.
Poor, working poor and class people and families. Unemployed people. Employed in low wage job(s) or not making enough money or just enough money to get by.
The
Process
Applications are currently closed. Below is an overview of the application process.
Steps to applying and receiving funds:
Submit an application (currently closed)
Steering committee reviews each application to make sure that it meets our basic requirements of who we seek to center.
You will be contacted with the decision. Decisions are based on the order your application was received and if you meet the identities we center.
When applications are open applicants should expect to hear back within 6-8 weeks.
Contact relievingblackdebtproject@gmail.com with any questions.
What Types of Debt are Accepted
We recognize the urgent need for our community to pay off many forms of debt. All forms of debt are eligible to apply. However, as a newly formed project we are still learning limitations to distributing funds. There may be special circumstances that don’t allow us to pay off a debt. These situations may arise due to regulations from state, federal and other agencies. In these cases, we will strive to find ways to work with and around these barriers and recognize there may be circumstances we cannot work around.