EEDA Newsletter Vol 5, Res 9: Investing Your Values and an EEDA Encore
This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!
Hi friends. I don’t know about you and where you’re at but for me, it’s real fuckin’ weird to be working right now and acting like everything is business as usual. It’s also weird to be doing creative work or joyful things like gardening and really anything that isn’t just being a ball of rage and sadness. I’m really trying to cultivate a sense of hope. I also realize that this is all probably something I’ve been saying since winter of 2020.
I do know that whenever there have been student protests, they’ve usually been on the right side of history. I also know that protests are meant to be disruptive. If that means that the freeway is closed or someone can’t get to the class they’re supposed to teach or people’s packages are late because the port is shut down from protests, great! That is what is supposed to happen! People confuse the idea of “peaceful” protests with protests that are somehow harmless. No group of people demanding justice received it because they asked for it using a nice, gentle whisper. A protest can be disruptive (as it should) while also being nonviolent. As we are seeing, many of the current protests are nonviolent until external forces (police, etc.) enact violence. Situations almost always escalate when cops are called in. Not all law enforcement agencies require de-escalation training, not all de-escalation training is equal, and not all de-escalation training is verbal-only.
It takes many people pushing at a thing from all sides in order to get it to move, which is why I’m sharing some of the resources that I am sharing today.
Before I get to resources, I want to share a fundraiser I am taking part in for TGI Justice Project. Every year I make a donation to TGI Justice Project and they’re currently trying to raise $5K. I set up a site for my network to pull together $500. I will share below some of the text from that site to tell you more about TGIJP but up front, it is so incredibly important to support community members in doing the work that in turn, helps their community. We as individuals don’t have to have everything all figured out. If we have resources, we can direct them to the people who know what they’re doing. Remember: Community knows what community needs. Donate here.
“For 20 years now, TGI Justice Project has been dedicated to providing invaluable services to the Black transgender, gender variant, and intersex (TGI) community of San Francisco and beyond. Our leaders’ expertise is vast, with a primary focus on Black trans leadership development, community organizing, and legal and social support services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated trans individuals, with a particular emphasis on the Black TGI community. What sets us apart is our very nature, as we are one of the first and only legal advocacy and support organizations driven by formerly incarcerated Black TGI individuals. Our services are specifically tailored to reach those in the San Francisco area who are not reached by other organizations.”
This week on the EEDA Pod, we chat about our wedding anniversary (this weekend!) and our tradition of rereading our vows every year. We talk about how the ways our vows have helped maintain our relationship and how they are useful in friendships and family relationships, too. You can find our show, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.
It’s resource week! Let’s get to it.
Resource 1: Investing Your Values via As You Sow
I’m gonna share one of my darkest secrets with you: I listen to finance podcasts and read personal finance books by women and queer folks and follow some of the finance girlies on Instagram. When I was in my late 20s, a guy (who was terrible) gave me a hundred dollar bill and a copy of this book. I was incredibly broke so I used the cash to, I don’t know, eat some food that wasn’t instant ramen or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Around the time of the Google stock split in summer of 2022, I was curious if there was a way a person could invest ethically. There are many claims out there that it can be done but I’m sorry to say, every claim I’ve looked into is bogus. Even for your “green” investments (sorry). Well technically a person can invest ethically but not if they actually want any kind of returns on their investments. Put another way, you can absolutely invest ethically if you don’t want to make any money and making money is the whole point of investing.
What funds make money? Those that are, at least partly, invested in military, guns, fossil fuels, deforestation, and private prisons. I don’t think that most people understand how dependent our entire economy is on weapons, prisons, and fossil fuels. It is terrifying and depressing. In my research, I came across the resources created by As You Sow. They have databases where you can enter the ticker symbol of an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) or Mutual Fund and you can see what portion of those funds are invested in certain things. Put overly simply, ETFs and Mutual Funds are collections of stocks that allow you to invest in a lot of things at once. As You Sow offers databases for:
I am not telling you what you should or should not do with your money but I have found these tools incredibly helpful as I learn more about capitalism both widely and also my household’s own role in it.
Resource 2: Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, Vol 4, Res 21: Podcast in the Works, 5 Calls App, and Micro Activism
Yes, I am referencing my own newsletter for the second resource because what I put in this issue needs to be re-shared, especially my book recommendation for Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World without a Bullhorn by Omkari Williams with a forward by Layla F. Saad. Like I said, movements need people pushing at a thing from different directions in order to actually move. This book helps you focus your activism in sustainable ways.
Recent & Current Reads
Inclusion of a book in this section is not necessarily a recommendation and these books won’t necessarily be added to my Bookshop.
Recently Read:
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib
How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis
Currently Reading:
Ninetails: Nine Tales by Sally Wen Mao (out 5/28)
Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook: A Cookbook by Sohla El-Waylly and a forward by Samin Nosrat
Pretty: A Memoir by KB Brookins (out 5/28)
Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams (Yes, I am still working on this. I got through one particular story and it thoroughly creeped me out so I’ve set it aside)
That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
You can find our podcast, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.