If the people who want to silence me know my name, I need the people who will protect black.
Women to know my name too.
There are no girls on the Internet. As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd and this is there are no girls on the Internet. The video is hard to watch.
That gives you that I have to call the child five years old and the nward that's what you're gonna call.
Him At a white woman in Minnesota, Shiloh Hendrix was caught on camera in the aftermath of hurling a racial slur at a black child on a playground. What happened next is even more upsetting. Shiloh Hendrix launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Christian platform give Sengo. I called the kid out for what he was, she wrote in her plea. As of today, Shiloh Hendrix has raised over seven hundred
thousand dollars. She's just the latest figure to be embraced as a right wing folk hero or anti hero, depending on who you ask, after a moment of very public, very ugly behavior, and once again the wagons are circling all in the name of fighting so called cancel culture. But what kind of society rewards racial slurs being hurled at children coming with a six figure payout, not one that Ca Andrea d'mone is fighting for. What about this situation?
Spoke to you? Like, how did you first find out about this situation?
So one of the things I do on my social media is I'm known for exposing racist people on the Internet.
That's just kind of my niche.
Ca Andrea is the black woman leading a growing movement to make sure Shiloh Hendrix never sees a dime of that money.
It came to my attention because my follow were bringing it to me saying, Hey, here's somebody who you need to expose, here's somebody you need to target. They're like, ke Andrea, did you see this right? So I went and I checked out the video and I was just disgusted by it. I was so disgusted and it was so disheartening, like and originally it just made me sad, and I sat on it, like there were a few days that went by and people were like, Oh, I know you're about to drag her. I know you're about
to drag her. As the story continued to grow, but I was so sad.
I was just so sad. I was silent about it for a while.
I know that silence. When this story first hit my feed, I froze. It was so upsetting. I couldn't even bring myself to click into it, not right away, because what was there to say? What could we do? Wasn't this just the state of the world now, a world where someone can shout a slur at a child, a baby and walk away with a huge payday. It didn't feel like there was much to be done other than ignoring
it and kind of moving on in this moment. I have often found myself feeling sort of disempowered, like, well, what can we do? Like this is the norm, now, what can we do? But luckily you had a very different reaction. So what was it that made you be like, I am not going to like just sit in my sadness and feel disempowered. I am actually going to do something. What made you take that choice? Right?
So, initially I was like you, I was choosing not to engage with it. I was I wouldn't share anything, I wouldn't comment on anything. I did not want to put her on my page because I felt like, okay, same old saying. You know, another racist person getting famous for being a racist. So originally I saw people outraged, but I felt like the outrage was really just amplifying her.
And then she had the call to monetize it, and I'm just like, Okay, no, enough is enough, you know what I mean, Like, you have to draw the line at something.
It's not enough that you did it.
It's not enough that you are unapologetic and you've done it publicly.
Now you want to make money off of it.
An entrepreneur with a background and web development, and Andrea starts digging, searching for anything, something that could be the key to stopping this payment from going through.
I was hoping to catch something that could potentially stop Giftsing Go from operating. So I thought about it and I'm like, you know what, even if I find something, cause I'm just down this rabbit hole on their website at this point. I'm like, even if I find something, they're just gonna fix it the minute it comes to their attention. They are gonna fix that same day, and then they're gonna be right back on the same bullshit. And so I started thinking, like where is the money at?
Like we may not be able to stop them from operating. This website, but somebody somewhere has a bank, and in this country, banks do have policies. You can't just do what you want to when it comes to mind monetizing something. And that's what a lot of people don't understand. I have heard a lot of people arguing free speech, free speech. This is protected under free speech. Her actions are not protected under free speech once it is monetized, and that
is two completely different things. Once you start making money and selling it, there are laws that you have to adhere to. And so I just started thinking about that and trying to find who is processing these payments for her.
So I want to talk more about that. Can you tell us a bit about how you went through that process of like figuring out like oh, Square might be involved here, Like who was the payment processor?
Yeah, so I was again, I was on their website and I went to their checkout page and I'm trying to figure out who the payment processor was from the checkout page and it wasn't really clear like who it was, right, So I'm looking at the checkout page and then I think, hmmm, I know how to break down there, Like I remember this old dusty skill that I used.
To use in your Go.
If only someone were to break down the entire code of this website, then I could find what plugins are attached to it. And I knew that because when I had clients who would maybe have an issue with their checkout, or there's a bug on their site, it's lagging, whatever, We'll have to go and break that code down and find.
Where the bug is or where the issue is.
Right.
So that's something it was your second nature to do that because I did that as a job for so long, And so I started thinking, like, there's a plug in, right, this.
Is an online website. Gifts and Go is not the bank.
They're not that big of a platform, right, So I thought they have to have a third party payment processor, and that third party payment processor is going to be a plug in, and plug ins can be found in your HTML code.
When you learned how to do this, you certainly weren't like one day I will be exclusing the payment processor for a racist. But the way that we develop skills and retain those skills that you never know how they're going to be useful like that is that's I mean, it's almost like you've updated the way that an earlier generation of activists and organizers were is like for the digital.
Age, right absolutely, And that's something I've spoken with activists in my area now, like prominent activists in the area. And also I've connected with the local and national chapter of the NAACP, and that is one of the things that they not only commended me for, they're excited for me to step into this space and join and partner with their organization to bring Really I don't want to get I don't want to say, oh, we're bringing protesting
to the digital age, because it's bigger than that. We are bringing an entire civil rights movement and merging it, fusing it with the digital age. Because social media is such a powerful tool right now, it's arguably one of the most powerful tools to sway the masses. So if you can use social media, you can really do anything.
On this show, we talk a lot about changes to social media platforms, you know, threads, Facebook, Instagram, we can Twitter, slash ex as a whole or other thing. But like the changes that they've made, I would say specifically to keep marginalized people, so like black folks, women, from being able to use those platforms to organize. Like right now,
if you talk about anything political on Instagram. You do like they've been explicit about this, they are suppressing that kind of content, and so honestly, your work and really trying to build this momentum on social media was one of the first organizing moments that I saw this year that really seemed to connect and take off. It was maybe this and the target boycotts, which have also been
pretty successful. So one, I want to lift up the importance of being able to cut through on social media at all when these platforms have been so clear and explicit about trying to suppress exactly that kind of organizing content, like Mark Zuckerberg worked hard, but black women work harder.
But also it kind of turned the tide a little bit because it's been a depressing year of what feels like great losses and I don't know, now I'm gonna feel like, Okay, maybe maybe we have this right, like determined skilled black women in tech knowing how to look at the code, like we might we might have gained a little more ground than I sort of was feeling at the beginning of the year. Did you know what I mean?
I know exactly what you mean, And there's something in that that's so powerful and remembering who we are, because, like you said, we were in a space where everybody was said, everybody was defeated, and they want us to feel like that. They don't want us to know how capable we are. And one thing I love about this whole thing is I think it woke a lot of black women.
Up to who they are.
I've had other black women reach out and they're like, oh, I don't know how to code, but I do know law right, and the law says ABCDE right. So they're like, hmmm, I didn't I knew I had that skill, but I didn't know oh where I could apply it to And now I know how I can apply it to make a difference. We've had people reach out about taxes, accounting. They're like, you know, she has to report this, she has to report that, so.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
And it's just been such an eye opening experience for a lot of people that once you have a plan and you decide, you know we are going to we're going to fight back. I'm not going to be defeated. I'm going to fight back. And I think that's the difference it made for a lot of people.
So what is the current status of the donations today?
So the status of the donations, the site is still operating. A lot of people get discouraged by that, but I want people to remember we are not targeting Give Seeing Go right, So the site is still operating. But the CEO of Give Seeing God made a statement publicly to the press and he said it in an interview that she has not cashed out to funds that have not been collected. She has to undergo a very rigorous verification process.
And from my experience with these payment processors, anytime something is under investigation, I've done a lot of assuaging people and just assuring them it's going to be okay, because not everybody has.
The experience I have.
But if you've ever worked with a third third party payment process or be a striped square PayPal, if there's an investigation open, they are going to protect themselves as a company to freeze those funds.
So let's use our deductive reasoning here.
Even though they didn't explicitly and probably can't explicitly say we're not paying her, they he confirmed he has not paid it out. And from my experience with these payment processors, any sort of investigation will freeze your funds. So the funds as of now, my understanding is it's sitting in limbo and we are pressing these payment processors not to pay it out to her.
Let's take a quick break at our back. As of this recording, the funds have still not been released. Shiloh has yet to receive her nearly one million dollars. The CFO of sen Give Go, Joshua Wells, defended Hendrix.
When you start going down the road of cancelation and cancel culture, it actually breeds the very things that we say that we're against.
So there's the difference between cancel culture and canceling someone and and give and giving them a platform to raise a million dollars. I mean that there's a difference.
No, that's there. No, No, it's not.
It's actually the same exact thing, saying. The company's mission is to show the power of Jesus's light in dark times. Shiloh is going through a dark moment just as much as his other family is, and we want to be a light on all of these moments. He said. But even if the funds are released, Candrea has a plan.
So here is the plant.
Now, if they continue to collect the funds unless say, worst case scenario, she does receive that payout. Her collecting those funds and monetizing hate speech is against all of their policy, whether it's PayPal square, I don't give them anymore. Who she attaches that campaign to any bank in this country that I know of, if they pay her those funds,
they have violated that policy. And so what we're going to do is get other people involved, because there are so many people, myself included, who have utilized these payment processors, and we have had our funds frozen, we have had our accounts closed, we have had financial delays, we have had hardships to our life and businesses, all in the name of this policy. So we have to adhere to this strict policy and we have to bear the consequences.
But you're willing to make an exception for racism and white supremacy. So if they choose that, then that's them. But we do have a battle strategy and we have a game plan, and that plan is to collect signatures and to have people create a paper trail.
So keep following those reports.
Docus meant everything that happened to you and the widespread harm it has caused, and we are gearing up to sue them in a class action lawsuit if they paid that out, and we have attorneys willing to get involved as well, volunteering pro bono if they paid that money out to her, anybody who has ever ever been affected negatively by their company and that policy will have legal grounds for a lawsuit because in this country, you don't get to pick and choose who you apply your policy to,
and you damn sure cannot make exceptions for racism.
Wow, that is brilliant. We've done episodes on the show before about how payment processes, how payment processors will just freeze your funds and really not give you a lot of explanation. It's happened to me, It's happened to a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, frankly, a lot of people at the margins who they I think they suspect are not really gonna
push or really gonna fight. And so I love how you're organizing this of like, okay, so so if they say we can make this exception for someone who called a black child a slur, then like, why did I not get an exception as an entrepreneur.
Where's my money?
A right, and we're urging everybody to start asking d where's my money at? Not just the lawsuit. Let's hold them accountable. Hey, that money you froze indefinitely. If she can get hers, y'all need to run me mine too.
Yeah, run me my money.
Run it.
When someone becomes a right wing folk hero online after a very public display of bad behavior, one of the first things they sometimes go looking for is a big payday, and that payday depends on digital infrastructure, crowdfunding platforms, payment processors, and more. But Keandrea isn't just trying to stop Shiloh Hendrix from cash again. Oh no, She's going after the entire ecosystem that makes it possible, the digital pipelines that
let people like Shiloh turn hate into profit. So you are not just targeting any one payment process, You're also targeting cash, app after pay we believe title spiral and you say, if they're funding hate, they are fair game. How do you see all of these that's sort of connected.
I see them as connected because it has become commonplace and it has been normalized to profit off of hate and racism.
So whether it's Stripe, whether it's Square.
We want to make an example out of them, and we want these companies to know they will be held accountable. Right, So the goal is and they've been scrambling. We've seen it happen in real time. It's been documented on my social media and in other places as well. They've been scrambling,
trying to make excuses, trying to deny it. And now she is using a different payment processor right now, she's currently using Stripe, that the campaign is connected to Stripe now, but we want anybody involved to know, like, hey, I don't care if she switches to Stripe, PayPal, I don't.
Care who she connects.
You are getting your hands dirty by getting involved, and we will hold you accountable. So what we are aiming to do is to pretty much make her persona non graded right, this lump sum of money from gives saying go, if you pay it out, we are gonna cost you way more than that.
It probably won't surprise you that Ca Andrea is facing a tax online for what she's doing. She says she's been duckst threatened even had her business is targeted to her. It kind of comes with the territory. But what stings. Even more is being erased from the very movement she's helping to build. She's expected to carry the weight of
the work without even getting credit for it. People are attacking your your business, your work because of the organizing that you're doing around this, and so like it is not without cost what you are doing, like personal cost, personal stakes. And still I've seen people essentially like erase the labor that you're doing, Like the expectation is that you absorb all the all the cost and the risk and the docxing and threats associated with this work, but
also get none of the shine. Is that how you felt it is?
And to me, it wasn't even necessarily about shine, which I'm not apologizing for that. Yes, I want recognition and I want the accolades for my work regardless of what
it is. You're not going to erase me from a narrative that I created in its entirety, especially when it is about racism like that's so it's it's so ironic that it infuriates me because they have pushed us to the background, and they have they're expecting our labor, labor, they are needing our labor, they are depending on our labor, but wanting to erase us from the narrative.
And that is not leadership. That is exploitation.
That is what has been happening since the beginning of our existence in this country. We're keeping everything running, we're holding everything together, we are literally building everything, but also being mistreated and disrespected and treated as less than people.
And I don't like that. And one of the things that I'm adamant about.
Is people say in my name, and it's not because you know, I want the cloud and I want some type of like.
It's not I'm trying to be a star.
The fact is, before this even blew up, those racist white supremacists, they knew my name. They knew exactly who did it and who were targeting. They started organizing and growing before we even did. Honestly, before this went viral, they were targeting me. So if the people who hate black women, if the people who want to silence me know my name, I need the people who will protect black women to know my name too, because it's not
just the cost, it is the risk. That's why I was intentional about amplifying my name, because you can't just make Chy Andrea disappear now and nobody's gonna ask questions about it.
Yeah, I mean, is it has really been something the way people I mean, I've seen people straight up say like Candrea, I don't know her like this, like like and it's it's so silly and petty and stupid, like come on. But also people will straight like take credit for it, which I find really shocking because it's very clear who or who is the organizer of business. I just,
I just I don't even really have a question. I've just been really surprised by how the quickness with which people will erase your name, erase your labor, erase your voice, even as something as small as like people tagging some of those big kind of like call out accounts. And it's like, do you think that I don't think. I don't look at you and think like, oh, you're someone who needs help doing this, You're someone who needs help
calling out racial injustice. Like I feel like you're handling it quite well.
No, I'm actually really incredible. I'm actually leading in that right. So whether or not they know me by numbers, whether or not there's a million people people here just watching the forty thousand that were there, Baby, they were engaged okay. The people who were there and have been there and have been supporting me, they know I'm no nonsense. They know the work that I do, and they support me completely, and it does make a difference. It makes an impact.
There have been several times. That's one of the things I'm known for is running racist people off the internet. When somebody gets known for being blatantly racist, we will expose you and drag you, and then we will have a digital funeral and people will laugh about it and we will have fun. And it's so delicious because they deserve that. I personally condone bullying only when it's a racist person, because at this point they don't seem to be receptive of anything else. More.
After a quick break, let's get right back into it. Story has been everywhere, blasted across social media, shared and be shared, but Ca Andrea's work, her organizing efforts, have gotten far less attention, and to her, that speaks to a deeper problem, a problem with how stories driven by
outrage and emotions tend to play out online. We started this conversation talking about seeing the whole Shiloh Hendrix story everywhere online, and it really a lot of ink online has been dedicated to this woman and what she did, something that you said, you said. Aside from this particular situation, I feel that if you share news that insights extreme outrage and emotion in people, like racism, does you have a responsibility to follow up and give updates regarding a
possible solution. And that really stuck with me because they're for all. If for every news outlet that covered what happened, far less of them are covering your organizing effort, And like, what's happening now? How do you how would you want this story to be covered in a way that really tells the full story.
That's a great question because I just had an experience today with a black news outlet, a black news outlet that covered this story and they have a large following, and the bias in that article was so insane, right, And this is what stuck with me and what bothered me when I read this article. It presented the narrative as if oh, key Andrea tried, but she was still unable to stop them, and she's been receiving death threats
and this fighting them back is taking a toll. Right, They positioned me as defeated and positioned her as.
The hero, and that is not the reality.
The reality is right now, in our plan of action, we have accomplished our first goal.
She has not received that payout. We have not been defeated.
And regardless of what the outcome is, I have been showing up day in and day out, online and offline. At this point, I have been showing up and I have been fighting this tire carelessly. Right, So when people are telling this story, it's not even about mentioning my name. I want you to say we are fighting back. We are fighting back, and we will hold them accountable. And that's one of the reasons why you mentioned earlier. So I wanted to circle back to that. You mentioned how
these platforms suppress us. Right, this story was viral for days on another platform. It was unfolding for days before a lot of these bigger platforms even picked it up. Before a lot of like Instagram, that literally just happened like yesterday. Nobody on Instagram even knew what was going on. And I appreciate the people who support me and the people who tagged me because it was word of mouth. What I know for a fact is word of mouth, aside from technology, word of mouth is still the best
form of marketing, right. So there were so many people saying, Hey, you have to check out ca Andrea, you have to check out Candre, you have to go and look at what k Andrea is doing. It got to the point where on the Internet, from what I saw, you could not mention this case. You could not mention Shiloh Hendrix, you couldn't mention what was going on without people tagging me.
And I wanted that because it brought the traffic to the solution, right, and it brought the traffic to the people who were actually fighting back.
I didn't like that. I think that a lot of the.
Time in the media in general, and content creators, if I'm being honest, even some of these larger accounts, they want the views and they want to feel like they want to do enough to say I was engaged enough to talk about it so that they could get the views, but they're not really doing the necessary like journalism that should be involved, which content creators aren't journalists. So that's understandable, but I think that's across the board. If you're gonna
talk about it, talk about the solution. If you don't talk about the solution, let me say that because I want to make that clear. If you tell this story and you don't tell that we're fighting back, that is intentional.
We perceive that as intentional. That's not just me.
My entire following this consensus is if you don't tell that we're fighting deck, if you intentionally minimize that or leave that out, you are making it very clear which side you're on. We are look at the say that the world, looking at the state of our country. There is no more strattle in defense. There is no more playing it safe in between. You have to pick one, and your silence will be taken as complicity.
Why would anyone donate to Shiloh Hendrix in the first place. For some, at least based on the comments left on the crowdfunding campaign, it's pretty explicitly about race. Gibson Go eventually disabled the comments because so many of them were filled with outright racial slurs and references to Nazism. But it's not just about race. It's also about this perceived racial retribution. Back in April, some teenagers got into a fight at a swim meet. Austin Metcalfe, who is white,
was killed. Carmelo Anthony, who was black, cooperated with police and claim to self defense. Still, he's now being charged with first degree murder. His family launched a crowdfunding campaign on gibson Go to raise money for his legal defense. Shiloh's story in Carmelo's story aren't really alike in any meaningful way, but that hasn't stopped some of the most toxic voices on the far right from drawing a false equivalence.
White supremacist and Trump Dinner guest Nick fuent As posted quote, black people just raised five hundred thousand dollars for a cold blooded killer who stabbed a white teenager to death. So I don't want to hear one word about the Shiloh Hendricks fundraiser. Either everybody gets to be tribal or nobody does. They're saying, well, you know, black people raised all this money for him, this is the same. What do you say to people who feel that way?
I usually don't say shit to them. I use black them immediately. But if you want to know my stance when it comes to that, I've had a few people me just fairly like, how do you feel about Carmelo? Like do you not feel like that's the same? And no, I don't feel like that's the same at all. One thing I know about this other side that we're fighting white supremacists or racist overall, One thing I know about them is how petty and childish they can be.
They thrive off of that.
There usually is no real logic behind the things that they're saying, Like if you were really a logical thinker, you wouldn't be a fucking white.
Supremacist, you know.
So a lot of the time it's just nonsense that they're spouting overall. So I don't engage in that. But anybody who is even on like supporting me, but wants to understand Carmelo and Austin were children. They were children, and that entire situation is a tragedy. If I'm being honest, I feel transparently that Austin I do feel if they attacked Carmelo, I do feel like that was wrong, and I think it's unfortunate.
That it led to a lot of life.
But I also do feel this, and this might not be something that everybody agrees with, but I do still feel like he was a kid. I do still feel like Austin was a kid, you know, and kids they fuck up sometimes, you know what I mean. So even though even if they were racists, even if they were targeting them, even if they were raised that way, I don't know. Whatever they did. They were kids, and kids fuck up. So anytime I see a child being hurt, period,
my heart breaks. And in this case, two children were hurt. It wasn't just him, It wasn't just Austin. Austin lost his life and that's heartbreaking. But look at what this is doing to Carmelo. And if they attacked him, he didn't deserve that either. He doesn't deserve to be targeted. Does he had a right to defend hisself. It's unfortunately, it's unfortunate that it ended in a loss of life,
but he had a right to defend hisself. That whole situation is unfortunate, and I can understand what even though I wouldn't donate to Austin's family, honestly, I can understand communities supporting the families on either side because this is a situation that just never should have happened to begin with. So many things could have been done differently, and both
of those kids, unfortunately are victims. They're like two things can exist in the same space, And to me that was just heartbreaking because they were kids, and none of that should have happened. And I understand both sides wanting to support them because that whole situation was just sad and messed up.
That is completely different then this, this person.
That is completely different than a grown fucking woman attacking a child.
Even with Carmelo.
And Austin, these are two kids that at least were capable of speaking up and you know, advocating for themselves to some extent.
This is a baby.
She is targeting a baby that can't defend themselves, an autistic child that cannot defend themselves. Are an adult to attack and target a baby and use a racial slur and to profit off just doing it, like she didn't have any real need to raise any funds. Like people, if people are dotsing you, if people are targeting you, threatening you, that sometimes racism pisses people off. That is
the consequences of your own action. So save the white woman tears, that is the consequences of you being racist. And that's not the same a tragedy and the consequences of her own actions are not the same at all.
I think you put it so well, and I think, like, how is the world made better by having a world where there is a financial incentive to attacking a like a defenseless baby in public, like Who's life. And so these people who are like on her side are advocating for her. I would really love to ask them, there is that a better world, a world where somebody will attack a baby and get half over half a million dollars for that?
Is that a better world for them?
I'm sure for them, I think they want to put black people in our place, and they want to send a message that they support that and they will uphold their racist values. That's what it was about. It wasn't just about her. It is about them saying I saw comments that are saying the white race will rise, like they feel like they are dying breed, and that is in fact a dying ideology. White supremacy and that sort of racism, that's a dying ideology. It's way way more
frowned upon than it used to be. So they feel like they're essentially a dying breed, and that was their attempt to send a message that they are going to uphold that.
It's like the last gasps of something there. They feel, they feel this pendulum swinging back and they're like, no, we have to do all we can to get to get more ground.
Yeah, they're grasping, yes, Charles, for sure.
And I was watching this Pierce Morgan's show. They did a panel on this with like four different panelists. There was a white panelist on the show who basically was like saying, the inWORD is free speech. She goes on to talk about how she calls black people the N word whenever she feels like it, whenever it's warranted, and I don't know, it made me wonder if we are going to a place where we're moving backward where people don't necessarily feel any kind of shame or issue with
using a slur directed toward a baby in public. Do you think that this is like a last gasp or do you think we're moving toward a place where like, actually that's cool again, Like it's totally fine to use a salad of baby in public. Right.
No, I don't believe that at all, because of all of the public outrage.
She was terrible.
She's just horrible, Like she's among them people. When you talk to her, you leave feeling less than you were, Like, how did I get dumber by talking to you? So I didn't listen to a lot of what she have to say anything. No, a lot of those people, they're just not logical. And I don't think that. I don't think that the entire country is moving backwards. I don't think that at all. I think that they're trying to manipulate us into thinking that we are, so we feel defeated.
But you can tell by the outrage that that's not the direction we're going. We're not going We're never going.
Back to where it was just okay with no consequence.
We're never ever ever going back to where you can do stuff like that and nobody is going to check you about it.
So that's the difference.
I don't believe we're ever going to go back there, but I do believe that they want us to think that we will, so that we won't feel like we have the power to fight back. One of the things that I think about, and I know this is this is the same random but follow me here, So I think about, you know, when during slavery, the slaves did not know they intentionally kept them from getting an education, reading from even leaving the plantation because they did not
know that they outnumbered them. It's the same thing, like they need to get a new fucking playbook, like you know what I mean, Well, like we peep this shit by now, like we can see, like, hey, y'all are trying to manipulate us. But the masses, I don't think the masses agree with you. And when people, even though they don't have.
Any shame.
To me from my perspective, when people just go publicly saying stuff like that you look like a weirdo, I feel like the masses either think you're tripping, they're like, ugh, I don't know about that, or they're outraged, but it's very few of them that are actually siding with you. I don't want people to be swayed by that, Like, don't think that they outnumber us or that we're going back there.
No keep calling them out like the weirdos that they are.
And there are more of us than there are of them.
That is, so there are They don't want us to know that, they don't want us to know that, but there's absolutely more of us.
And it's not just morel.
There are more people who don't want to live in a society like that. There are people who say even if they aren't like even if their heart isn't so invested in black culture in the black community, they feel like, Okay, if it's so okay to target them, one day, it'll be okay to target me. And I need people that I need people to keep thinking like that, if they will go after black people, they'll go after me because I'm Asian, or because I'm a woman, or because I'm Hispanic or whatever.
That looks like.
There are a lot of people who don't want to live in a society like that.
Something that you said on Threads that I thought was so good. You said, although this entire movement is centered around race, race is not the only issue. The bigger issue is allowing people to profit off of harm. These companies have made their fortunes on the backs of vulnerable people. Racism is just the current vehicle to do so. So this particular situation is about whether or not companies can
help somebody monetize and profit off of hate. Racism specifically, but tomorrow, maybe it's immigration status, maybe it's gender, maybe it's sexuality, you know it. And I think that was so important that, like, I think that is what is galvanizing people in this movement is like I think people are smart enough to see, like, this is not the world I want to live in where somebody can it's incentivized to be this hateful towards towards a baby that wasn't doing like a.
Baby, you know, a baby doing baby shit. Kids they get into things, you know. So I agree that there are a lot of people who they just don't want to live in a society like that, and I think that's important that we keep calling them out, because you're right, it's this society in general.
There's so much of that.
I want to say, Honestly, our society, unfortunately, is built like that. There are so many systems that are profiting off of harm. Even I won't get into Luigi and I won't talk about what he did, but this is the same thing. It is people profiting off of harm. It's all circular. And until we start speaking up and tearing those fucking systems down, I ain't even saying we gotta tear them down.
I ain't tearing it down. You built it, you fix it.
How can people support you, support this work? Take action? Like what should listeners be doing?
Thank you for asking that. So, first of all, taking action is one of the things that's the most important to me. So I've created an entire Google document that you can download. It's that the link in my bio on all my social media platforms, it's called Square Up for Change, which I'm so I'm just so proud of that hashtag.
That is what the links in the in the show notes of the episode as well. The folks can find it.
Yeah, I'm so proud of that hashtag.
That's like, that's that's just one of my favorite things. So they can either search that hashtag Square up for Justice, or they can just go to the link in my bio. I've documented and gave steps to every thing, right, so that's the first thing they can do if they want
to stay active. What I want people to do right now, because this whole Square back and forth has become a whole thing, and we don't give a fuck about that, right they their grave has been dug all right, Square, they didn't signed their death certificate and now they're just spiraling.
So what we're not gonna.
Do is let them, let them leach our energy and drain us into a back and forth. We're not gonna be pulled into a back and forth with Square and forget about what we're doing. So right now, Square, we've like, we've targeted them, We've targeted Block. We're gonna keep holding them accountable. We're gonna keep following those complaints. If you haven't already, go and follow that complaint. But if you have already been active, it is time for us to
target Stripe. Not just target Stripe, it is time for us to do the same thing. File complaints any sort of any sort of product that they have. We need to be calling for a boycott if they don't freeze those funds. And it's the same thing right now, file the complaint and they will be the subject of a class action of lawsuit if they pay the those funds out to her. Now, one of the things I just learned before i even got on here with you that I'm starting to see a little bit of I'm kind
of seeing some scuttle but that I didn't really like. Right, I'm the type, I'm really no nonsense and I'm like focus y'all, like, don't let this shit get y'all off the course. Right, So this is one of the things I want people to pay attention to, because Stripe is they are big, and they are embedded like everywhere somebody sent me a screenshop from their website, and I looked
on their website. They have partners who they are connected to, so it lists, Uber, it lists, Etsy, it lists, Anthropology, talk Space. They have a whole list of partners, right, And so we're now calling out those partners too. Now we're not calling for a boycott of them yet, but we are calling out those partners and saying, hey, are you cool with this shit your friends doing. We want to hold all of them accountable, and we are pressing all of them. And honestly, I don't have to call
for a boycott at this point. If you don't choose the side those companies know they're gonna lose business, or if they don't know they're about to find out.
They're about to find out. I love it. You know, we've talked a lot about the movement you've been organizing. How does it personally feel? You know, I was listening to that Sam Cook song A Change is Gonna Come. I know that that song. Somebody was telling you about how that song felt in this moment in light of the work that you're doing, How does this personally feel
to you to be anchoring such an impactful movement? That is really inspiring so many folks who maybe felt disempowered like I did coming into the year.
I feel like this is a.
I feel like I have known for a while, and I don't want to be a cliche, but I don't want to be cliche but a shoe. I've known for a while I was gonna do something. I have this fire inside of me, and I just I'm so righteous and I always stand up for what I feel is right. So I've known that I had the inside of me for a long time. So when this started unfolding, I didn't know how big it was gonna be. But it feels like, Okay, that's what I was supposed to do.
So to me, it's grounding, and it feels like, oh, fucking finally, because all the work that I've been doing to leave me here, so many things make sense. There is a part of it that's a little bittersweet to me. That's the part I haven't talked about. I haven't gone on my social media or anything to talk about it because I am from Alabama, right, so I do come from a family that is rooted in the.
South, and a lot of it, a lot of this feels personal to me.
And there's a part of it where I know I've shared before that my mom is sick now, so she's like she's medically incapacitated. So there is a part of me personally that's like, I wish my mama could see, you know what I mean.
I don't think.
She She's always she calls me, you're my good baby, You're my special baby.
She always tells me, go to law school, go to law school.
You're gonna do something with yourself, right, And she thought being a lawyer was making it for me. She would not It would blow her mind if she could see what I'm doing now. So that's the part to me that's a little heavy when I talk about it or think about it, because I haven't talked about it at all.
But that's the part as heavy.
As I know my mom, I know she would be mind blowing if she could see, because she is one person who always knew I was going to do something.
She had I think she probably had no idea what she was speaking into existence for you, No beyond her, beyond her wildest dreams.
Yeah, and mine for sure for sure, because where I'm come where I come from, people don't do stuff like that. So I know, you know, I'm from Alabama, so obviously they have people who led the civil rights movement, But the environment I come from, if you are financially successful, it's because you're.
A drug dealer. Other than that, they're working dead and jobs.
They're caught up in this same cycle, right, and a lot of them don't even make it out of there where I'm from.
So for me to have not only.
Made it out of this town that's in the South, in Alabama, that it's riddle racism, Like that's one of the things I think prepared me for. Like, I'm from the South. Do you think this is the first time I've ever been called the end work? So for me to make it out of that environment, not only to do something that made an impact, but to specifically be fighting racism in the way I am, it's all circular, and it's just it's really grounding for me.
That's I mean. It is circular because you're creating a climate where less black babies have to grow up being like, oh, it's fine to call me the N.
Word, and you know what, if nothing else, I would be happy, if nothing else, if people think twice before doing shit like that. So before I go and attack this little black child. M Is it going to be a whole movement against me?
Like? Am I going to have to relocate after that?
Is there anything that I did not ask that you want to make sure it gets included in this conversation.
You asked me, but I didn't answer because I got off on a different topic with Adhd, Right. But you ask me how people could support me, because a lot of people are supporting me personally. So I do have a nonprofit organization that's called Project ninety two.
You known Club Show, So I have.
A nonprofit that will be the umbrella for all of my activism. As of now, I don't have any crowdfunding campaign. A lot of people keep asking me that because you know, y'all know good damn well, if I make a go fund me, there's just gonna report it and snatch it down. So I'm working with a web developer now to add a page to my website to where we can start collecting donations and people can support specifically support my activism. But as of now, any product that I have my
business is fem finds Atl, So it's www. Dot fm finds Atl. That's not a plug for me to try to sell products. I'm not trying to monetize this, but the reality is this is a lot of time and it is a lot of energy. So keeping me financially stable gives me the freedom to continue to do this work.
So if they want to support me, I'm not gonna create a gofund me, but you can shop on my site and there's also an option to leave a tip, and when you leave a tip, that goes directly to my nonprofit organization.
And I'm gonna say I think people should shop your site, and I think people should leave a tip because this work is hard, it's costly, like like we were saying, like it is not without personal risk and cost, and yeah, it's like it's it's a marathon, not a sprint. And we have to make sure that the people who are who are leading these movements are taken care of and that we have we have the backs of people who are doing the work and like actually walking the walk,
not just talking the talk. So will I am saying I think people should financially.
Support There is something that I don't want to say struggle, something I deal with and battle with sometimes.
It's imposter syndrome.
So I almost like, I'm like, I don't uh. I don't want to feel like I'm plugging myself, you know what I mean. It's crazy that I can go and I can go head first and fight them fearlessly. But when people are like, what can we do for you, I'm like, I don't know, or you know what I mean. But it is the reality that in the world that we live in, like shit costs money, bro, Like I have to be able to work and I have to be able to pay bills, you know what I mean.
I can't focus if I'm worried about where I'm gonna lay my head at. So supporting me does make a huge difference. And I am working on that. I am working on the channels that they can just directly donate. But I also after taking on all those payment processors, I think it would be wise to just build my own platform on my own site. There was something in me.
I'm not afraid of the movement, but there was something in me that was low key terrified of people just thinking this was a money grap for me because I'm so passionate, I'm so about this work, and I knew if it wasn't nobody, but me doing the work she's not about. I don't want to just sit back and watch her profit from verbally attacking the child.
Right So, people were.
Asking how can we support you? How can we support you? And I just I was afraid of that. I didn't want people like, oh, another grift like cloud Chaser, you know what I mean, because that will minimize the work that I'm doing. If right now I were to like put up a GoFundMe and then it gets all these donations, I know for a fact the narrative is going to be, which maybe I shouldn't care. I'll talk to my therapist about that, but I know for a fact the narrative is going to be.
Like, see, this is why she did this. She just wanted to make money.
So that's why I'm intentional about the channels that I tell y'all to go through, because I'm not just telling y'all to just give me money, give me money, give me money, give me money. You can support my business. But I'm not just asking for a big lump sum of money like y'all like.
Her, like her.
I mean, you're better than that. You're actually doing work that I think it's worth a million dollars right right?
And I told you know what's funny.
I told my son that yesterday because people kept telling me, like, you need to make a gofunme.
You need to make a gofunme me girl. You could right now?
People want to donate, and I am nothing if not a strategic thinker, especially when it comes to my business.
Because I'm gonna be real. Could I have the first day it went viral and people like Kendrew saved the day?
Could I have put up some sort of crowdfunding and got maybe one hundred K two three right? I could have done that. I absolutely could. I could probably do that right now. But I want to position myself a leader here long term. So the money's gonna come. I'm not worried about that. The money is gonna come. There will be more opportunities, there will be people will continue to support my site.
The bigger my brand grows. The money's gonna come, So I don't feel like I have to make this desperate move to grab that.
I love this abundant mindset of like. It will come. The timing will align. You know you were meant to be I think that you were meant to be doing exactly what you're doing right now. I think that's exactly the right mindset.
Thank you. I appreciate it. And frankly, I was already successful. I'm just pissed.
Off now you're successful and pissed.
Yeah, I already had money.
I'm fine.
My business was here before this happened. I'm just irritated by that shit.
I love it. Is there anything else that you want to add before we stop the recording? This has been great, Like you're such a breath of fresh air to speak to.
Thank you.
I appreciate it. No, I want to add that I appreciate you. I appreciate you in any platform, any person that is intentional about telling this story and telling it in the right way. As you said, people erase us from the narrative. There are people blatantly like being biased the other way, even a black platform, you know what I mean. There are so many people that are just casual, casually getting this story wrong just for the sake of
views because it's viral right now. But you are intentional in getting the story right and telling the correct narrative, and I appreciate you in any platform that does that.
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi. You can reach us at Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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