Our Fuck This Fund

Fuck the lies. Fuck the labels. Fuck the wall. Fuck the fear. Fuck the billions. Fuck the ignorance. Fuck. This.

Fuck the grabbers. I was 15 the first time it happened to me, the first time I was in a crowd and someone’s fingers jammed into my jeans, hurting me. Then there was the dick out in the movie theater and the dick out in the car and the dick out at the bus stop and the hand rubbing my thigh on the bus. This is what being a woman is like? Fuck this.

Fuck that fucking wall. Ladders are a 10,000-year-old technology, and still work for climbing walls last I heard. Fuck punishing millions of the people with the least amount of power for the problems caused by the most power few in the world. Fuck tricking people into thinking you have their best interest at heart, and playing with their lives like a game.

Fuck taking away people’s rights based on religion. The freedom to believe what you believe is the most fundamental tenet of who Americans are. Fuck this country riffing on 1930s Germany.

Fuck. This.

What is left after you feel your political power has been lost? Art, I’ve discovered, is a kind of power, or why else would dictators shoot the poets? Knowledge is a kind power, which is why those who seek to control us have been defunding our schools for decades. Money, my money, is a kind of power. I’m going to start handing over more of it to the people whose missions could be boiled down to Fuck This.

I haven’t been tithing toward that which is better. I’ve given here and there, but as a practice, as a way of life, donating some of my power to people who need it more has not been an ongoing part of my life.

It needs to be. Not because I make a ton of money and my individual donation will make such a huge difference. But because my money can join with your money. Together we can tithe toward good, gather a fund, a Fuck This Fund, that will feed and empower the people fighting for something other than this.

I will say Fuck Racism. I will tithe toward everyone being treated the same, no matter how they look, what language they speak, or what side of the line they were born on. I will say Fuck Ignorance. I will tithe toward more and better education in science, history, and respect for the rest of the world. I will say Fuck Greed. I will tithe to take better care of the earth and a more accurate reflection of ourselves as Americans, something more humble than a national version of “O’Doyle rules!”

I am for telling our story more honestly to the next generation, including the genocide and slavery and never again the word “discovered.” I am for raising up more writers of color and those from other underrepresented communities, because stories transmit empathy and understanding. I am for chasing something deeper than a million dollars, an Hermes bag, or ratings. I am for trying harder.

Every month, as part of my monthly check in, I’m going to take the money that other people pay me for my time and give part of it to an organization whose mission could be summed up as Fuck This, where “This” is the thing that’s disgusting me most that month. I’m going to aim for at least $20.16, to remember the year I felt this feeling, that I must change my life.

Together we can work to make that which we envision for ourselves, that which is better than this, more sustainable, more evolved, more human. Where others are tearing down, we’ll be building up. Where others are pushing us away, we will keep reaching back toward each other, hoping for something better. Together we can say Fuck This, and we can put our money where our tweets are.

Editing help by Claire Biggs