Mutual Aid Through a Zine

I got play where we all make bread

Hey all,

Loc here. Wanna to chat with you for a bit.

TLDR: Certain articles from the Stay Woke Gazette will been turned into PDFs that can be folded up into a zine. Once Labor cost are covered the zine is free to anyone and anyone can sell it if they need money. Check out the Patreon it is free to join.

Over the past year mutual aid has been something that I have thrown around a lot. I had no clue what it really meant when I started; if I am being honest. My one goal is to help strengthen the Black creative community.

Earlier this year I wrote about my idea to turn the Stay Woke Gazette into a writer ran publication with an editorial staff and writers, etc. The community showed no real interest in the idea; only one person reached out about becoming a member of the editorial staff. The group will always be smarter than the individual. The community was right; it was an idea that needed a lot of work still.

So we pivot.

I recently finished reading Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis by Dean Spade. It taught me the difference between mutual aid and non-profits. Mutual aid should be people from the community figuring out how to solve an issue they have in common. It is not a group a people helping the “ less fortunate”. I want to help Black creatives. Starting out as a creative or just being a creative in general there are gonna be times that money is an issue. I have odd jobs and gig jobs etc to try to survive. One idea to generate a few bucks was to create a zine and sell it to coffee shop, events, protest or wherever. I can’t sell to a coffee shop on your block but you can and for that reason the zine will be free for anyone to sell.

The idea behind giving up ownership is that; if you need 20 bucks then there is a quick way to do it. Grab your library card print some out and sell them for whatever you want. You do not need to sit down and create a zine from scratch. Focus on what you need to do and sell these when you need a little extra cash. That being said everyone who works on the zine deserves to be compensated for their labor; including myself. There will also be material things the zine will need; for example photoshop to create the PDF. However, once costs are covered the zine will be free to everyone forever.

I created a Patreon to have one place to organize everything. It will be free but anyone who tips or subscribes will get a copy of the PDF. Once the costs are covered it will be free to download on the Patreon. We can also post flyers and designs on the Patreon to share and help each other out in selling copies of the zine. A place for us to chat, meet and work together to get by.

As mentioned before I don’t know what I am doing. I am going off of an idea that is rooted in mutual aid. Feedback, criticism, or questions are all welcomed in the comments drop them below. I am excited for this adventure with y'all .

Stay woke,

Loc