I grew up in section 8 housing, needing food stamps to get buy, & I’ve been working since I was 15. I’m grateful to have emerged from that struggle. But I’m enraged that wealth and income inequality is worse now than it was 30 years ago. And it continues to get even worse.

I’m running for Congress because I realized something many years ago. Poverty isn’t a life choice. We cannot tolerate policies that make it a life sentence. Let’s get to work. Because Justice cannot wait.

Two splendid San Francisco bookstores, Fabulosa Books and Booksmith, will let you pay for queer books that'll be shipped to places where those books are desperately needed. Please support this incredible effort!

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/229799/377fedf3e9/1579000000/5c4d1b00fe/

UPDATE: Sorry for the notification, but as this post is circulating again I wanted to make it clear that we are not using Open Collective for donations at this time. You can, however, donate through Ko-Fi here: https://ko-fi.com/blackqueerlife thank you thank you thank you!!

Hello Fediverse! I am coming before you all today to promote my new instance: blackqueer.life! You may have seen my post on my old account about it a few weeks back. I wanted to wait until I finished migrating my old account over here, got the instance up and running to where I wanted it, etc before promoting it fully.

We all know Fedi isn't always kind to Black users, doubly so for Black queers. My instance represents my attempt to continue the amazing work some folks are doing in the Fediverse to make these platforms more accessible and safer for all users, ESPECIALLY marginalized folks.

When I joined the fediverse, the first thing I was searching for almost from the beginning was an instance dedicated to or centering Black queer people explicitly. While there are a few amazing communities like that out there, many of them are either not federating, offering limited federation only, or are currently closed to new users.

This allows them to have much greater control over the content their users are exposed to, which I have tremendous respect and appreciation for. Hell, I've got alts in some of those places!

However. As a newcomer to Fedi, it was not overly easy for me to find these places and gain access, which I recognize is somewhat by design. Limited or no federation meant the only way to locate them was by word of mouth and extensive research.

This is where BlackQueerLife comes in. I want to build a place where Black queer, trans, and GNC folks can feel safe making a home while also being able to venture out into the rest of the fediverse. I want somewhere they can use as a landing pad. I want as many multiply marginalized Black folks off of corporate hellsites like Twitter and Bluesky as possible. We are not safe being corporate playthings.

Most importantly, I want every Black queer person who joins Fedi to know that they have somewhere they can go. I don't expect that all would necessarily want to join, but I want all Black queer fedizens to know that they are welcome to.

So if you see this, please boost this post to spread the word. If you already boosted the other posts that have gone out about this instance, no pressure. Thanks so much!

@[email protected] @BlackMastodon

#BlackMastodon #BlackFedi #BlackFediverse #BlackQueer #BIPOC #QTPOC #LGBTQ