Kid Pix 1.0 Stream for Haitian Solidarity: End Report

Hey Patrons and Followers.

EDIT: We hit our fundraiser goal! And I'm in over my head on work, so I'm no longer accepting new Kid Pix commissions. Huge thanks to everyone who built worker solidarity over the last few days. I'm gonna be chewing on this image queue for a while. In the meantime, I'm attaching a few art examples over the last days, along with a recount of what happened:

---

Some stream highlights:
I was facilitating a mutual aid fundraiser over on my stream from September15th-17th, 9AM-9PM MDT. (For the record to be explicitly stated, I didn't get any money from these events whatsoever.) Originally these streams and this ad were labelled "charity", as the limited Twitch label suggests, a word which feels off, and I'll explain why at the end of the post). People who wanted Kid Pix art, like the attached examples, donated directly to the solidarity fund for Haitian garb workers, and I was blown away by the response.

With thanks to Howlitzer for their donation

At 5PM MDT on Wednesday we took a call from a Rapid Response Network rep showing their relationship to One Struggle, the group founded by a Haitian who continues in the worker collective Batay Ouvriye, and there was a follow-up call with at 9AM MDT on Friday with two more members! RRN allowed us to show a snippet of the film Batay La, showing garment industry workers organising against the odds. This is perhaps harder now than at the time of filming almost a decade ago: the face of not only poverty from political corruption, but COVID, earthquakes, and ongoing gang violence after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. RRN's Tena and Eileen got to speak directly with our viewers!

Vikrum Nijjar, who was generous enough to code and share all of Kid Pix 1.0 into Javascript and HTML, not only joined the stream and donated to the cause, they even put a button on the Kid Pix UI that directed to the event ad on Twitter! I was so confused by that at first that I thought I surely was misclicking on something and moving to another tab. Vikrum, I'm so humbled. I never expected such a nice surprise. Thank you!

With thanks to Vernum for their donation

One friend of mine from my hometown followed the link on Facebook, and also donated to the cause. She is living in an extremely difficult season of life right now, with an abundance of responsibilities and not an abundance of funds. Especially as someone from my hometown in northeast Ohio, she has shown love towards others that moved me immensely. Vicki, I wish you could have seen my face when you donated. It really blew me away by that blessing.

Sasha (partner) always checked in on me to make sure I had enough food, and Eric (housemate) also supported me by making me a delicious pizza. Both of them were gracious as I didn't have the time to handle my typical house work.

For our community members, Vernum and Eric (not housemate Eric, but the other Eric) were so helpful in organising donations and updating the queue between reading messages. I was especially thankful for Eric's political insights, as he's been a huge influence on the direction I'm pointed today. Vex also picked up on some queue edits! Jeff shared a slew of useful links (and acronyms!) you can still access in the chat recording linked later in this post, during RRN call time. Plenty of viewers provided great insights and questions. Pineapple and Pocketnik were waiting in the wings if we needed pinch hitters during the 12-hour shifts, and many more people hosted my Twitch stream, sent in their own donations, and signal boosted the event on their own social media.

With thanks to TheRackoon for their donation

Wait... why Haiti?
You may have a pressing and understandable question: Why Haiti? I know the answer awaits in the info with the donation link, but it doesn't really include the overwhelming and awe-inspiring big picture of how Haiti got to here in the first place. If you want to learn more about Haiti's horribly understated history, I recommend listening to this podcast episode. Haitian history is an ongoing story of black liberation. Haitian history is the history of human freedom. I heard grumblings of this before, but nothing so concrete as this. It made me even more excited to contribute to Haitian solidarity.

This critical moment in time deserves so much more attention than it gets, especially from US Americans. In fact, the Haitian Revolution so incredibly important that I'm left with the impression that we have an immense debt to these people. (A debt owed to them is some dark and meta irony you'll soon learn about, if you haven't yet.) This is why it feels not like charity but like mutual aid that brings something like this fundraiser to fruition. The term mutual aid is more honest here, because it emphasizes that we build into each others lives. Haitian influence is bigger than I can wrap my dumb little brain around, and I refuse to believe that is just a thing of the past. If you don't know what I mean by the vast influence of Haiti, you're going to be in for a big surprise when you listen to that podcast. And if you are as impressed as I was, share it with your friends.

Our Interconnectedness
If there's anything I would like to leave you with, it's the understanding that we need each other. Americans need Haitians. Workers need workers. In the US, we're raised thinking we just gotta take care of ourselves, and that's a horrible lie. The "I" will never be as important as the "we", nor will it ever be as powerful. When I lost my friend to suicide at the beginning of August, I'm confident it was because he cared immensely about these topics while also being disconnected from them. I empathise completely. When at my worst, feeling as if I shouldn't go on living, I need to remember that being connected to others matters. As a human being alive in a capitalist world, Haitians died for my freedom, and for yours too. Mutual aid, it is.

The total our community members raised for this event was 3,018USD... and 0.69. RRN had done these kinds of organizing efforts for Batay Ouvriye, but never before made it this far. We were extremely fortunate to be part of something good today, but calling this a charity just isn't right. I'm ashamed BO needed to request money at all. Haitians should never have been in this position to begin with, certainly not with so much Haitian blood on the hands of much wealthier countries.

As someone reading this, you're already either a part of this journey or you're curious about more. Whether it's been years or minutes, you are now connected to something so profound. God, am I thankful that you care. Just don't forget that others out there care about you, too. If you need a reminder of that, listen to the first hour of Friday's stream and see if it helps. Tena and Eileen from the Rapid Response Network gifted us with their precious time, and I'm not alone in feeling more fulfilled because of it . I'll try to get it on Youtube in a more permanent aspect later.

There was a lot I was wrong about growing up. Before, I just wanted to draw something cool, maybe make a neat videogame to escape into, maybe just make someone laugh. That was because I knew something didn't feel right and I just wanted to feel better. Now that I've done some learning, I want my art--yes, even silly, stupid or sexy art--to encourage that interconnectedness humans need between each other and the our "non-living relatives", some wording from The Red Deal that's been occupying my thoughts. I don't want to treat symptoms. I am hungry to treat causes. So many others are hungry for that, too! Whether you feel that or not, it really is true. In moments where you don't feel it, choose to look for the helpers, and then be one for someone else. If you're still alive in 2021, you might as well do that!

And finally, to my Patrons and other monetary donors (to my expenses, I mean), thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making this event possible. I couldn't have supported this fundraiser if you all weren't investing in my life. And as seen tonight, that will make a difference in the lives of others! Let's not make it the last time.

Love and Solidarity,

-J