The Financial Transparency Meeting (but I yell instead of show graphs).
Listen to this essay right here!
I have not been enraged enough to weep since I started working for free.
Let it be known that I wrote this little tidbit after I recorded the second video (circulating on Tuesday, July 15 2025) because I already knew it would incur the same sorts of questions. So consider this a Frequently Asked Questions sent out in advance).
Relevant Background Information: I was supposed to have a Financial Transparency Meeting today with the people who voluntarily pay $20/25 a month to me or more. These are the folks that contribute the lion’s share of the funds that support and create the political education I engage in (which happens for free) and the underlying projects I learn from to be in a position to educate. Most people find them helpful; very few people pay, so the financial transparency meeting was for them (to be made available to everyone after recording). I could not do so today because my laptop is broken, and it will cost $1500 to fix. I do not currently have that money so I have to wait to get more (I did get several hundred dollars from an Instagram story about it, so we are on a great path). For now, I have borrowed the tablet of a family member to keep plugging away.
Typically, with setbacks, I always look at the reason for them. In many African Traditional Religions, the undergirding theology is that life is supposed to move with ease, and when it does not, that’s because you were moving in the wrong direction and you needed an obstacle to reorient. I find this philosophy useful for realignment where I’ve been hardheaded and unyielding to my detriment; sitting down to journal about the nature of being a public figure that wishes to generate works of public good rather than extract from their audience for profit unearthed a lot of anger this morning. A lot of anger.
I continually feel like you all underestimate the risks of system building and, in doing so, ask me to settle for a life that is more “imaginable” than what I have actually set out to do. I have made my orientations, theses, and conclusions clearer below.
(1) I have set out for revolutionary societies in both of my home places (currently known as the nation-state technologies of The United States of America and Sierra Leone).
A revolutionary society is not defined the absence of oppression. It is the presence of generative collective sovereignty, working within the following definitions:
Generative: The ability to produce what we need and want to live flourishing lives, and to be able to sustain that production at a rate that promotes longevity for all things.
Collective: Production and sustenance occurring by the hands, feet, intuition, energy and ingenious of the masses, for the benefit of the masses. Collective production for collective gain.
Sovereignty: That the masses are independently authoritative over their means of ideation, production, and distribution/implementation over the systems we employ for our collective best. That the masses are responsible for governing ourselves.
All three pillars must be present for a revolutionary society to take hold and continue (and must include political, cultural, economic, and militaristic power under our own power).
I (ismatu) understand that each of these pillars requires the acquisition and the exercise of new skills: cooperation, communication, interdependence, discipline, self and communal education, flexibility, operational planning and execution, art-making, budgeting… the list goes on. I understand that the acquisition of new skills takes time, and the further honing of new skills requires even more focus and concentration— which is one of the reasons I am here with you in public. So that you can watch me as I hone and gain and operate these new skill sets.
Note the contradiction here: mass independent sovereignty. In previous iterations of political thought, I have interpreted the need for mass independence to mean moving completely away from any systems of hierarchy (which is the political definition of anarchism). Now, especially now that I’m in a tribal setting that has had hierarchy embedded into it for… thousands of years, longer than I can conceive… I think more so that groups of people should be able to choose the governance that works best for their collective and sustainable production, and that all people are equipped with the means and education necessary to make dynamic, informed choices about how we choose to collect and direct ourselves. I’m not sure that there is one style of government that would be best for all people for all time… my mind continues to change on this. What I do know is that collective sovereignty is a paradox I would much rather contend with than the paradox of panicking over the systems we have in place and then running right back to the systems that keep breaking and inciting panic in the first place.
(2) Friction, conflict, inconvenience are innate to a healthy society. —Nia, my mutual
Whenever I reference the risks involved— literally anytime I state the risk involved with projects like the ones I currently work towards— therein comes a chorus of people that insist I should do a better job taking “care of myself,” which always seems to mean increased individualism.
I remember the first time I came across this set of logic. I had achieved my first life’s dream of attending college for free at a prestigious university. I did not anticipate the mental perils that would come with being surrounded by more food I had ever seen in my entire life while my family at home ate bologna sandwiches from the Food Bank. I explained this to my academic advisor, who noticed I was so depressed I was losing weight. The cognitive dissonance that occurred navigating the wealth of my life at school and the lack thereof at my home life— like, literally having lobster served for lunch in the dining hall and coming home to… cup ramen… ? The people I loved continued to suffer through while I leave to go live in extravagance.
Her response was, “Well, it certainly does not help them if you starve.”
Herein is the shallow saving grace of individualism: it’s better to have one less starving person. If my needs were purely biological, this might suffice. The issue is: true wellness, for me, went beyond the ability to feed myself. Feeding myself did nothing to solve the mental anguish of my FAMILY hungry at home! Wellness for my own person was not met until I knew my family could eat as well. This is when I began to send the money from my school refund checks home so that my mother could eat. This is also when I began to become resourceful around food acquisition, because I had sent the money I intended to use for food home so that I sleep well at night.
I am simply dealing with the same conundrum on a different scale. You all keep telling me not to risk my own food money. I swallow my anger and send my money to the rice harvest. I’m tell you this because I’m really sick of being angry about this. I tell myself you would feel differently if you saw how swollen the abdomens of the children are. I swallow the anger.
This is me; I’m not evangelist. You don’t need to feel how I feel. But: I would much rather my cognitive dissonance come from building systems that actually address the problem rather than building mental walls around my mind so I don’t have to consider how fucked up all this is.
Then... this morning as I was journaling, decidedly not swallowing my anger… do you want me to keep it a buck? Financially transparent, right? I don’t know that many of you would feel the way I feel if you saw them. That’s what I tell myself; “Well, you’d feel differently if you saw them.” But I don’t know that that’s true. It’s not like I can’t pull out a video camera to show you. It’s that I am struck in the gut by what starving children in rural Sierra Leone look like because they are under my constituency. I owe something material to them. I know what it feels like to starve— not to the point of the swollen famine belly, but enough to be able to imagine. I could have very easily been born in this circumstance if my parents had not left Sierra Leone when they did, before the war marching inwards reached Freetown. I think, to many of you all, starving children in Africa are just… a feature of this world, rather than a man-made system of oppression. When I see emergency here, you all see philanthropy. No one inside a burning house thinks, wouldn’t it be nice if i could escape this? There is nothing nice about it. There is no room for wondering about escape in an emergency of that sort, no waiting around with an air of convenience— “wouldn’t it be nice.” When your life or the life of someone you love is in danger, you do everything you possibly can to get them out of the burning house and to eradicate the fire so that it does not spread. If you felt the urgency I felt, you would not ask why I stake my personal finances on making sure we can return to farming rice. If you felt the urgency I feel about entire villages of completely illiterate yet multi-lingual people— four or five languages and they can’t read in ONE of them!— you would not question my sanity for using every cent I have building libraries.
But the vast majority of you don’t feel that it’s urgent! So instead of saying to me, ismatu, how can I help? what happens is, I stake my monies and people either applaud “philanthropy,” call me “inspiring” or chide me about “boundaries.”
We will come back to this point but like: food-water-clothing-shelter-education-sanitation-medical care-and-time… those are big 8, in terms of things you need sovereignty over to live a dignified life. Under the systems of capitalism, all of these things are privileges. The idea that they are “inalienable rights” as an illusion designed to achieve mass participation in the nation state project. They can and have (and will!) be snatched away from public accessibility at any moment it suits the rulership. I have spent too much time with formerly incarcerated political prisoners to believe that (1) you cannot survive without any of the above and (2) you should never, under any circumstances, risk these things. The system that we live under right now today risks all these comforts of human existence simultaneously. We’re not actually safe!! All of the above is under risk of collapse literally right now!
I fundamentally feel like if we want a better world but we are never (ever) willing to risk any of the above… we don’t actually want it that bad. We want to achieve liberation at whatever pace it is convenient, but never at a rate where it would require risk of serious discomfort. I don’t care about that. That’s not something that compels me.
Maybe this is me speaking as someone literally born into homelessness— my mother chose to have me even though she didn’t have a place to stay. So many people over the course of my life have just looked me dead in my eyes and been like, “Oh, your mother shouldn’t have had you. You shouldn’t exist.” I will never be of the orientation that it is better to be dead than it is to be poor. You will never get me to believe that.
And now, having survived a multitude of circumstances and learning that I am far more resourceful than I thought that I was… risking these things doesn’t scare me as much. It’s okay if it scares you! Again, I am not an evangelist. But the idea that these are “boundaries” and “values” that should be universal and that nobody should ever risk anything about their personal safety… we don’t mean it then, when we say “by any means necessary.” We don’t.
If I mitigated the mental friction of manufactured scarcity— all scarcity in this world, by the way, is manufactured to weaponize poverty into a systematic killing machine— if I only set out to mitigate the mental friction, I would tell myself that it’s enough that I eat today. It’s enough I am housed. That I do Good Work (TM)z I deserve to eat, and that it’s okay not to feel a sense of urgency over other people dying.
What a pretty lie. Some nutty notes, right? Pairs so well with a full bodied Malbec.
Part of the construction of healthy revolutionary society means that we incur risk to improve the lives of the collectives that we belong to. Listen. Are you listening?
I WILL NOT BE LISTENING TO YOU WHEN YOU SAY MY OWN FOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOMEONE ELSE’S. HOW? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? HOW CAN YOU PROVE THAT? THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE TO ME. HOW OR WHY WOULD THAT EVER BE THE CASE? WHAT MAKES ME MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOMEONE ELSE? WOULD YOU FEEL THAT WAY IF YOU COULD NOT SEE MY FACE WITH THOUSANDS OF LIKES ON YOUR LITTLE PHONE SCREEN NEXT TO IT? WOULD YOU FEEL THIS WAY ABOUT MY EATING IF I WAS BORN AND RAISED IN NUMEA VILLAGE IN SIERRA LEONE? IF I DIDN’T SPEAK SUCH BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN ENGLISH? IF I DID NOT HAVE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL, WHITE-TOOTHED AFRICAN SMILE? WHY IS MY FOOD MORE IMPORTANT OR MOST IMPORTANT IN MY LIFE? BE HONEST!! AND AFTER YOU SIT WITH THESE INCREDIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE ANSWERS, HEAR ME WHEN I SAY: I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU. I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU WHEN YOU SAY IT’S “ENOUGH” THAT I EAT. IT’S NOT. SETTLING FOR AN INDIVIDUAL MEAL IS NOT ENOUGH. WHERE DOES THAT GET ME BUT THE SAME OLD SHIT? I HAVE NEVER BELIEVED THAT THE SYSTEMS THAT WE HAVE ARE ENOUGH AND I LITERALLY NEVER WILL. THAT’S WHY I WORK SO FEVERISHLY TO MAKE NEW SYSTEMS. IT WILL BE ENOUGH WHEN NO ONE STARVES. NO ONE HAS TO STARVE!
Great! Moving on.
(3) There are no worthwhile gains to be made without friction, risk, and uncertainty.
I am not talking about risk for the sake of risk, or risk because I don’t like my life. I love my life. I love being alive!! I am talking about risk that gleans significant reward. That’s why I’m taking risks, because there’s a BAG on the other side! And not just a bag of paper notes that mean nothing. It’s a bag of RICE! MANY BAGS OF RICE, IN FACT!
The life that you all seem to want me to live is one of a rich philanthropist, wherein I build public work at no significant inconvenience to myself. That’s what people of means back home (in Salone) call me, by the way. When I tell them I got a house to build a library, they give this middle-aged, good-natured laugh. Oh, she’s a ✨philanthropist.✨ Good for you! I know that it’s not meant to be insulting; I do personally take philanthropy as a pejorative. Philanthropy is what happens when rich people, out of their own consciousness and the goodness of their heart, give portions of their amassed wealth back to the public they gleaned it from for collective use. The creation of public institutions, works, or resources meets the pillar of generation necessary in the building of a revolutionary society, but fails to meet the collective nature of social building (as the person calling all the shots in the philanthropy model is the person with all the money), and it fails to become collectively sovereign (as the work or institution will only exist so long as the wealthy person, or their estate, continues to fund it).
I took up rice farming because it was placed upon me as a descendent of High Chief Bombolai. It has been an obvious collective need for the Limba tribe since the decimation that followed the Atlantic Slave Trade. It was not my idea. It was not my personal work of charity. Rice farming is a collective effort I happen to be the figurehead for. The generative nature of food production sustains itself well once supply needs are met, as the land and water system is made to grow rice. That’s why the Limba were targeted in the slave trade in the first place! They are indigenous rice farmers! The return of massive amounts of our staple grain (which industrialized farming allows us to do) allows for economic flourishing and the production of more varied foodstuffs with different means of agricultural production, including the slower work of agroforestry (also known to the West as ‘permaculture’). I am not the only one risking my livelihood to make this happen! EVERYONE: my elders who negotiate land agreements, my agemates who scatter the seeds alongside their parents, the women who weed the fields… we all took on risk for this project! ALL OF US! The risk is necessary in these beginning stages for the construction of a new, beatific, literally fruitful system!
Put some damn skin in the game! I’m so sick of this.
Then, with the library: such is the nature of production and seeking to spread sovereignty. I got there (to my village for my homecoming— we stopped in a couple villages actually) and looked around, I thought: oh, part of the reason I have a lot of power is because I’m one of the only adults here that can read. How much more could we do for collective sovereignty if EVERYBODY knew how to read and use computers?
And thus! A library was born!
Do we see how this works?
I am not the one calling the shots in these projects. I am not the only person incurring risk, displaying creativity, or utilizing the skills of resourcefulness to solve problems and broker deals. I’m just the one you can see. The significant amounts of power and authority conferred to me because of my lineage pushes me to be more skilled and more disciplined, just like the significant amounts of power and authority that come through being VERY visible push me towards MORE study, MORE discipline, more staking the resources you all entrust me with for collective sovereignty. I will never be a different way!! I was always this way!!!! My goal as a pubic servant is to make sovereignty and the acquisition of it replicable and contagious– this process innately requires risk, uncertainty, and friction. You have to be okay with being uncomfortable.
Besides… we only wade through the illusion of safety. Any of this stuff can be taken from us at any time. And learning to do without what you think you need to get through your day will only make you more resourceful. You do not actually just die! Why do we always assume risk means you don’t win? I wouldn’t take these risks if I didn’t think I could provide for myself and then some. I haven’t lost yet! Just in case we’re keepin score!!
Further: there is no reward here that does not invariably incur more risk.
That’s what happens when you build powerful structure. It is not just power to the people– power comes FROM the people. Systems of all sorts (food systems, healthcare systems, belief systems) are made more powerful the more people use them, buy into them, be among them. If I make systems that are powerful enough to incur mass participation, I will incur the risk that comes with being powerful: namely, powerful enemies.
Housing is not just at risk if I personally run out of money. Housing is also at risk when you become too powerful; the United States will simply bomb you. That’s why the MOVE bombing happened— in LIVING MEMORY. The Philadelphia MOVE Bombing happened in 1985, where members of the Philadelphia Police Department had an armed standoff with members of Black Revolutionary organization MOVE. As means to kill them, the police dropped C-4 bombs on a residential area and left around 250 people homeless. 11 people were killed— all members of MOVE. The fireman present had orders to let the fire burn. ALL OF THESE NECESSARY HUMAN COMFORTS ARE ONLY THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY! THEY CAN BE TAKEN AWAY AT ANY TIME!
So it’s great that everyone wants me to not incur personal risk by not having enough money— or not everyone, because if everyone felt that way, I would have been had the resources to build the library I want in Chicago right now. But that means absolutely nothing to me. Collective sovereignty requires collective risk. I need us to understand these things as I talk about the money systems going on behind the scenes, behind the video screens. Now you will know why I will ignore anything that resembles, keep More for yourself. You should take care of yourself. We are sitting in burning house. If you are offering to carry me out, that’s one thing. But otherwise? I’ma keep it moving!
As far as the money goes:
Between the Patreon ($7180)
and threadings.io ($4800),
I make about $11,980 per month, pre-tax. That’s more than enough to feed me and my family and continue to make essays where I study instead of live out the ideals I write about. Unfortunately! The “feed my immediate family and buy my books” route is also a life that robs me of peaceful sleep, so! I also use this money to: farm rice, buy and ship supplies, build infrastructure for a library, register businesses and non-profits to house the works legally, employ people to make the work happen, and manage to feed and house myself while showing up in whatever area of the world most needs my attention. The Patreon money goes to taking care of my parents, who are my sole responsibility financially. The threadings.io money goes towards systems management. I will never default on either of these bills, even if that requires I juggle a little money. That means I (ismatu) pretty regularly run out of money for personal funds from recurrant funds and I live on whatever direct cash assistance people decide to send me. When that’s not enough, I get creative. Asking for more cash is a last resort.
This is also why I set the goal of 10,000 paid subscribers, specifically on threadings.io (which does not charge me any fees outside of the flat rate I pay to utilize the platform), so that we could increase production and really make shit shake. In truth: I think my laptop broke to force me to take this goal seriously. I am (really) slow to ask for more money because I want to make sure I use the money you all give me well. I am wary of gluttony and overindulgence. But I think do sincerely think we do so much more.
Which is just a different kind of risk! Once again: I remind us that powerful revolutionary systems incur powerful enemies! Success actually makes me WAY LESS SAFE than failure does! Anyways! Sign up above!!
Here is the form if you have resources that are not just money! https://www.jotform.com/form/251693630800151
Conclusions (for today)
I have proven myself to be effective. I have proven to myself that I am resourceful. I have proven to myself that I can and will do what I say that I will. The risk of increased pooled resources will only shift from risks associated with a lack of personal finances to risk because our collaboration became a threat to the power systems. Both are violent. Okay?
Word. I’ve been working on an essay entitled “i am a gift// i do not worship money” so that’s up next in terms of long form stuff. The overviews of financial workings will continue to happen over short-form media for the next two weeks (?) or so because I don’t have anything else to do with a busted laptop!! Feels like grand design anyhow!
I hope the work of your day inspires you to be braver, and kinder, and more resourceful than yesterday.
Or, better said: peace.*
*Not the kind of peace you settle for. The true peace, the kind you radiate.
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