Give Us Water Or Give Us Death! (Well, maybe not death.)

We’ve passed out school uniforms and backpacks to families who needed that assistance for nine years. This would be the tenth. However, on Wednesday, we were informed that we wouldn’t be receiving the grant that we were counting on to fund this annual day of giving. And it's put us in a position where we have a list of children who need uniforms and school supplies, but at this late hour, no way to afford them. I’m not saying that our fight with the city is what cost us this sudden loss of funding. However, I can say it didn’t help. A grant for 40k could’ve not only paid for uniforms and backpacks, but it could've gone a long way to helping us transform our space. 

We know that it’s the eleventh hour, and kids start school on Monday. However, I guarantee there will still be families in need next week, and we still want to be able to do what we’ve always done: HELP. 

So we’re asking you to donate. To buy a uniform or two. And we’ve never had too many backpacks. The same kids who need supplies in the fall also need just as many supplies after winter break. So nothing will go unused.

I’m all about solutions. And making sure young people have what they need,  and don’t need to resort to their own devices to get it, is one. We’ve been doing that on the block for years. Water is important. But apparently, it isn't the only thing. 

Now that you’re here, indulge me for a couple of minutes, please and thank you…

For all of my adult life, I've struggled with uterine fibroids, as many women do. In the summer of 2017, they were exceptionally severe. The condition caused anemia, intense abdominal cramping, and hemorrhaging. 

I didn't see my doctor because I was on the corner every single day, for the entire summer. And I couldn't abandon my post. 

There were days I felt faint. There were times my mom had to bring me a change of clothes because the ones I was wearing were soiled, and I had to use the bathroom of an angelic elder who lived on the block to get myself together. And when I did, I went right back to my lawn chair.

Two days after we wrapped up for the summer and the kids went back to school, I had surgery. 

The persistent loss of blood had caused me to become tachycardic. 

This embarrassing and painful episode played out on the corner, in public, for all to see. This bad situation wouldn't have been so traumatic if there had been a bathroom and clean running water on site. 

  My family used to vacation together every summer. They went on cruises and visited beautiful island destinations. They shared photos and enjoyed just being with each other. 

I never went because I was on the corner. 

I've missed out on barbecues, festivals, birthday parties, and reunions because I was on the block. 

I once had to load my car with a barbecue grill, charcoal, lawn chairs, and enough food to feed a hundred people every day. 

I have sat outside in the rain and in punishing heat. 

I remember when kids who are now fifth graders were born. 

I've been there for baby showers and funerals alike. I have celebrated with the people on the block and cried with them. 

Before heavy machinery was donated, we removed boulder-sized chunks of the foundation of the building that once stood on our lot, with our bare hands. 

With that came all sorts of injuries, but with the finished product came pride, and a place where we would open the first pod school in the city—the day after CPS was shut down due to the pandemic. 

I love the block. I love the people there, and I love what we've built. I even love what we're going to do next because there's always something next. 

Last year, I considered quitting. The problem is that's just not possible. I need those people as much as they need me. 

There's no stopping, especially not now. 

There have been laws passed that will affect people in poor Black communities in ways we may not be able even to imagine just yet. 

We may be looking at the gradual phasing out of public school education. We're going to have to contend with children no longer receiving school lunches, and the question of whether or not they are getting meals at home.

We're going to have to find a way to bring in more food for giveaways once people's food stamps are cut. After witnessing what is happening in DC and what happened in LA, Chicago may soon be faced with the occupation of the National Guard and federal agents in our neighborhoods. Someone is going to have to be there to bear witness to any potential civil rights violations or dissuade them because we are watching. 

We want to build a space where we can provide early childhood educational opportunities and support for kids who may be struggling in their respective public schools, and we may want to start our very own school. Because yes, homeschooling may soon become a necessity for Black parents. 

In short, the rain is coming, and we should all be working on building our ark.

For over a decade, we've done this great work without a bathroom or running water. We need to be able to grow and expand to meet the changing needs of the community that we serve. But that can't be done with a Portopotty and trips to McDonald's, that's three blocks away.

I am sad and a bit afraid that we are even here. I'm sorry because I don't understand how this is even a matter that has to be debated. Doesn't everyone deserve a place where they can use a clean toilet and turn on a faucet to wash their hands with clean water?

 And I'm also afraid that there will be retaliation because we dared to ask for something that we believe to be a fundamental human right. 

The problem shouldn't be that we have asked and we've been asking. After all the work we've d and our dedication to improving the community and our city, we're still treated as if we haven't earned it.

WOOSAAAHHH, Thank you for hearing me out and, hopefully, donating. 

GIVE US WATER, OR GIVE US DEATH

Why did the ADL slam Whoopi Goldberg but give ‘grace’ to Elon Musk?As a Black Jew, I wonder why some antisemitic actions get a pass

When the Anti-Defamation League, the self-described “leading anti-hate organization in the world,” gave Elon Musk an immediate pass for the Nazi salute he gave at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, I thought of Whoopi Goldberg.

In 2022, Goldberg made a comment that the Holocaust wasn’t about race, rather that it was a beef between two groups of white people. Back then, the ADL, more specifically its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, took to social media to tell the world that Goldberg’s “comments about the Holocaust and race are deeply offensive and incredibly ignorant.”

He went on to demand an apology and that Goldberg, “actually commit to educating herself on the true nature of #antisemitism.”

Not long after that, Greenblatt was invited on to “The View” where he and Goldberg hashed things out. Goldberg said that she “misspoke” and that she stood with the Jewish people.

The next day, ABC suspended Goldberg for two weeks.

At the time, I wrote an open letter in the Forward telling Greenblatt that if he truly wanted to build bridges to the African American community, he would call upon ABC to reverse its decision and reinstate Goldberg. Greenblatt did go on CNN to argue that Goldberg shouldn’t be “canceled” — but the suspension wasn’t rescinded.

So much for the benefit of the doubt.

Save your outrage: Elon Musk’s inauguration salute is just another distracting meme

As for me, I learned the hard way that being critical of an organization like the ADL can get you cancelled by the American Jewish community. After my piece was published, many of the Jewish donors to my organization, MASK, discontinued their support.

African Americans are not blind. And those of us who identify as Jewish have 20/20 vision.

After Musk gave his Nazi salute — twice — the ADL assured the world that Musk’s gesture was most definitely, absolutely, positively not a Nazi salute and asked for “a bit of grace” and “perhaps even the benefit of the doubt.”

Because I live in an African American neighborhood that is overwhelmingly not Jewish, I have to pick a side when Blacks are called out for alleged antisemitism. When the ADL decides it has no grace for a Black woman like Whoopi Goldberg, and is quick to decry antisemitic comments from  a Black man like Nick Cannon, I feel it in my neighborhood.

As latest Elon Musk controversy swirls, some American Jews come to his defense

Even Greenblatt and Cannon’s reconciliation plays differently in the African American community than it does in white America. Black people understand what it means to get “Nick Cannoned,” and are afraid of running afoul of the ADL.

Now when that same organization that is so quick to decry antisemitism when it comes from people in my community, but seems to have an abundance of it for a South African-raised oligarch whom even Stephen Bannon has called a racist and a “truly evil guy,” I can not sit back in silence.

I choose to give grace to the ones who deserve it, and Musk certainly does not deserve it.

True moral leaders speak truth to power; being an apologist for the richest man in the world is not a good look. Especially when you are never as generous with your grace when it comes to people who look like me.

Tamar Manasseh is the founder and president of Mothers Against Senseless Killings.MaskChicago.bsky.social

Article published January 24, 2025 Forward

forward.com/opinion/691282/elon-musk-did-the-adl-slam-whoopi-goldberg-but-give-grace/

MASK IS HOSTING FREE FAMILY TREE FEBRUARY

MASK will be hosting free genealogy clinics in person and online for the entire month of February. It’s time. The mission of MASK is to stop violence and killing and to challenge ourselves to constantly come up with more innovative solutions. 

While we’re still pushing for speed bumps on the block and fulfilling as many of the needs of the community as we can, we know that it's still not enough. 

They say if you want to change what's around, you must first change what's inside of you. That could be difficult if you don’t know what that is.

  This is why a specialized education can play a huge role in combating violence. The majority of community service is education and connection. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are all very important and are undoubtedly taught in some of the same classrooms where we learned them. However, on the block, we plan on making knowledge of ourselves and how we came to be wherever we are in this country a top priority.

The story of Black people is as unique as that of other groups. Yet, it's often reduced to slavery, freedom, the civil rights movement, and now Barak Obama. There's more to us and our history than that. 

 Other communities don’t suffer the level of human loss that we do because they belong to someone or a people, and membership in that group comes with a level of responsibility to preserve their history, teach their children that history, and charge their children with taking their people into the future. Each community member is important because they have been entrusted with growing their community. Everyone has value.

  Other cultures make their history central to their identities and communities. Their history is often tied to their survival. They never forget. We’re just the opposite. We don’t know the history, and if we do, it doesn’t have much value.

Meanwhile, we’re celebrating other people's heritage and holidays. While not paying very much attention to our own. Juneteenth is great, but it’s not the day many former enslaved people learned about their emancipation. Other formerly enslaved people were just as jubilant the day they found out they were free. Those stories are part of the histories of some of us, and they are important, too. Not just the ones that Congress has given us a day off to “observe.”   

The Black community is missing a common story and history that we can center our communities around. This project makes it personal. It approaches the issue of gun violence unconventionally. Genealogical research is quite personal because it clarifies why we are the way we are. 

 The problem isn’t only the guns. It’s why we need them in the first place. We don’t know each other anymore, and that makes us feel fearful and paranoid.

 If we knew our history, we would know that those emotions used to be reserved for those who enslaved us. 

They were the ones who wronged us and constantly feared uprisings and retribution.

  Why did we have to be fearful or paranoid of what we might do to one another? Especially when you consider the slave who damaged another slave could be beaten, sold off, or even killed for harming the property of a white slaveholder.

That was their job. But somehow, now it's ours?

 We used to be in this together. We had an enemy but it wasn’t each other. 

When the knowledge of our history and our own story no longer exists in your consciousness because it's been erased and you’ve been convinced it doesn’t matter, someone else's stories and all the things that come with it will occupy that space. 

That is one of the main reasons we kill each other.

  Learning about one's history could once again familiarize us and our children with each other. 

You may find out your difficult neighbor is actually a relative, and we have more in common than we previously thought. This project can go a long way to helping kids with no family who may be wards of the state. Perhaps they find out the opp that they’re contemplating shooting or vice versa, maybe kin? It may save both lives? It could potentially give a kid who has been alone in the world for so long an actual family and not just a gang that acts as a surrogate.

So much of our personal information and the vital stories that tell us who we are and who we’re connected to have been hidden away from us, and our children are dying because of it. 

This is us doing what we do best: trying to find solutions. Summer will be back soon. We’ll still want our speed bumps to accompany our lights and cameras. People will still be screaming for shot spotter and they’ll put more police on the street. Will that work? We don’t know. But we do know we can’t say we did or are doing everything we can if we’re not battling this issue from every angle, even this one. So please take advantage of this free opportunity, FREE y'all, to improve yourself and your community. Knowing where you come from shouldn't be a privilege. It's a right! 

Sign up today!