So, Mr Beast made a YouTube video where he dug 100 wells in impoverished areas of Kenya and other African countries. CNN did a story on how he was being criticized for his good deeds. They quoted Saran Kaba Jones, a Black woman who has been building wells in Africa for 15 years, and a single Twitter commenter.
But... The Black woman praised Mr. Beast? She only asked that we consider maintenance, because many of the wells she digs are because existing wells weren't maintained.
And Saran pointed out how difficult it has been to raise money or draw attention to the need, but a famous YouTuber, who happens to be white, is able to do so instantly. She doesn't criticize Mr. beast for this. He didn't create that funding gap. And "That's the way the world works." Again, she praised the attention.
But of course, the "They're trying to cancel Mr. Beast!" outrage machine has already spun up, so Saran is being attacked on Twitter. 🤷🏿♂️
People are primed to hate Black women.
People pointed to her Pro Publica filing, calling her a grifter, because 90% of the money her non-profit takes in, goes to their own expenses! 40% of it is her own salary! Mr Beast gives 100% away!
But, a few things:
1) She works on this full time all year. She's a consultant.
2) 90% is the same expense ratio as UNICEF and Red Cross, and... Mr. Beast's charity, (called Mr.Charity)🙂🙃
3) Saran is a Harvard grad who left a job in private equity, and only pays herself $47K a year 🤯
We're so unused to the idea of Black women being paid for their time and expertise, that we view any of the time spent coordinating the digging of wells for 100s of thousands of people across Africa, as overhead. We zero rate the value of her time.
We consider her a grifter, while Mr. Beast has the same expense ratios (in line with the industry), and he pays the Executive Director of his charity twice what Saran makes. Mr. Beast's ED is not a Harvard grad, and didn't work in private equity.
You can see the ProPublica filings for UNICEF, the American Red Cross, Face Africa, and Mr. Charity here. Why is "Face Africa" the grift one? Why is the CEO pay for Face Africa considered "excessive?"
I view it as underfunded. Not overpaid. Her work is consulting. She could do more with more.
UNICEF:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131760110
American Red Cross:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530196605
Face Africa:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261443101
Mr. Charity (Mr. Beast's Charity)
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/852067214
Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax filings going back as far as 2001.
Anyway, donate to Face Africa here:
If you want to help with water access in the USA, donate to The Human Utility here:
https://detroitwaterproject.org
The Human Utility pays water bills for people in the US that can't afford it. Water should be a right, but it's not. So until then, we need to help each other.
Both of the Black women who run these organizations face abuse and insults online. Because we don't want to accept that Black women deserve to be paid for their time.
So Mr. Beast did a good thing.👍🏿
Saran did a good thing.👍🏿
CNN did an irresponsible thing, with predictable results.😑
Which is...
Black women being abused online for doing a good thing, and being held to an unrealistic standard that no one else is held to. The anti-woke mob never misses an opportunity to be cruel to Black women.
I understand why the anti-woke mob does this. They hate Black people, and that's not going to change. But make yourselves immune to their dynamic. Don't fall for it.
@mekkaokereke This is so angering, CNN has a history of this kind of shit getting worse in the last decade; and I don't know if it's mere irresponsibility anymore.
I don't know enough to know if this is the case for sure, but it seems that, like when two medications have a destructive multiplicative effect, the intersection of people primed to question the credentials of Black women (purposefully misunderstand), and the parasocial defensiveness so many fans of 'celebs' exhibit towards the smallest perceived 'slight' of their 'icon', would combine for a drastically worse set of takes against her than the latter on its own.
The VERY least Mr. Beast could do is viciously condemn the people attacking her. Will he? Will it just be a gentle "Hey don't do that", instead of dedicating time to talking about it? Will he take the opportunity instead to target his followers with anti-racism and attempt to de-radicalize followers? I don't know of him well enough to know his attitudes other than those god-awful thumbnails. One hopes he'd use his position of prominence to condemn the vicious and speak more to what she DID say, and work to ensure they'll be maintained for decades to come! But I'm so used to being let down by popular white men giving a tepid or vicious-but-brief response to things like this that I'm already primed to assume he won't, and by proxy perpetuate doubt of Black people, women, and especially Black women. I hope he'll prove me wrong.
mekka okereke 
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