And you call yourselves activists…
By: Kim Whitfield
Tags: Blm, Activism, Community Organizing, Chicago, Black Women

Never in my life have I ever been exploited and mistreated as much as I have while working for H.E.R Chicago — a Chicago-based grassroots organization founded and led by Black women.

“…aiming to dismantle systems of oppression and heal those on the front lines,” is what their IG bio reads. However I can tell you as far as I’m concerned, these so-called “revolutionaries” have accomplished nothing short of the antithesis of their mission statement in upholding the toxic behaviors and attitudes they outwardly claim to stand against. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in this outrageously drawn out mellow-drama otherwise known as my experience while working with H.E.R Chicago on the Black History Matters Festival, so I guess I’ll begin where things went left: when I decided to leave the team and quit the project altogether.

To briefly preface where this even started and how I got involved in the festival, which is another article in that of itself, I’ll sum it up to this: I have extreme difficulty in saying no. When I’m feeling like I’m working toward a worthy cause, I often find myself thanklessly “people pleasing” and never advocating for myself; which is where I take fault in all of this madness. In being silent, in continually pushing to see the project through to the end no matter what costs, many good people and I ended up hurt, confused, and disillusioned with the Chicago activist community entirely.

For those who don’t know, Black History Matters was a fundraiser intended to raise money for three different organizations local to Chicago. It was supposed to be a month long event that involved pre recorded performances, virtual live streams, and raffle games. This was undoubtedly a behemoth of a project with only months before its launch in February, but we were confident we could get it done only if everyone did their part. I was brought in to produce the pre recorded performances; at the time I was just building my media brand, Crooked Septum Pictures, and had years of experience in video production. I’ve taken on hefty projects with even shorter deadlines before, and this one also presented the possibility of raising money for my friend, Mohawk Johnson (follow @freemyniggamohawk on IG for his story) who was also hosting the event. To paint a picture for you, here’s a very brief overview of what my role entailed:

equipment rentals

hiring crew

budgeting

tech/location scouting

set design

scheduling performances

drafting and filing contracts

12–14 hr shoot days

editing 15+ different performances ranging from 10–30 minutes in length

Then there’s the live stream part of the festival…

tech scouting

stream troubleshooting

graphic overlays

segment planning

corresponding b/w guest speakers and the host

Keep in mind that I had a team of producers and an amazing crew that supported me in all of this from the kindness of their hearts only wanting to give back to the community — with no pay. However I was the point-person in all of this, the executive producer, which means I had to make sure every department was supported and everyone had what they needed to get the footage in the can. In the end we did (beautifully I might add) just for all of it to unfortunately go to waste.

By the time we aired the first stream, HC decided to cut the festival to weekends and the social media promotions had completely tanked, drastically cutting our profit margin. We were gonna end up paying more than what we would walk away with and merely inches away from going in the red. Even in knowing at this point it was basically a fool’s errand, we persevered mainly for the artists and guest speakers. It was around this time I had also already been blamed for a lot of the project’s shortcomings from miscommunication to the quality and content of the footage (which only HC seemed to be dissatisfied with) and so on and so forth. This mostly came from the founder and leader of the H.E.R Chicago team, who had yelled at me just days before the festival’s first airing in a team meeting in response to me asking if we could simply move one of the performances to the following week’s lineup because I hadn’t edited that specific footage yet and I already had three completed for each day of the first weekend and didn’t see the need to add more. Granted, festival programming was mainly her territory and outside of my department, but I was honestly just exhausted from the heavy workload and was asking for a break. We ended up airing only three performances anyway, but I still had to edit the additional performance.

By the second week of the stream we encountered yet again another hiccup. The local radio station that had allowed us to use their equipment for the stream had their own Black History event and were unavailable. We knew this and it was brought up beforehand but everyone was so overwhelmed with their workloads no one had the time to come up with a solution to prevent the issue. I informed multiple members of the team following the first weekend, including those from HC, and immediately set out to find a solution. Eventually it was decided by the tech team and I to pre record the guest speaker interviews to avoid further connectivity issues during streaming. This apparently wasn’t sufficient enough for the HC team who still wanted to keep the radio station involved (for their platform) despite not having access to their equipment nor anyone to operate it. They found an alternative immediately after we notified them of our plan, and when we pointed out several holes that could severely affect the quality of the stream, I was yelled at. Again. By the same person.

It was at this time I had reached my breaking point. I was so overworked and had taken on so many additional roles, most of which involved continuously picking up the HC team’s slack. I had to even put off my own medical treatment for several weeks so I could stay behind and support the group, which by that time was hanging on by a thread. I was glad to do it and even more to get the job done, but in that moment when she allowed me to speak only to then hang up the conference call in my (and everyone else’s) face, thus ending the meeting, I had had enough. Even at my corporate job they didn’t disrespect their workers like this, and I no longer felt endeared to work for someone who repeatedly disregarded my time, my health, and my contribution all in one go. That I gotta admit was shockingly impressive, considering this was coming from an org run by WOC. So I left the festival and took my footage with it. Each artist signed releases giving me full rights to any media to distribute however I please (you know, like a release form) and I in no way was contractually obligated to finish the project by anyone’s deadline. Shortly after I had left the project, other members of the team replaced me in my role as the group scapegoat and were reportedly mistreated while they carried on the project with little to no guidance (or support) from HC.

Even though I had quit the festival, I still was faced with several tasks from the event. Following my departure, I communicated what had happened with the artists (not the full story of course) and promised them I would deliver their edited footage for them to use freely on their social media pages as soon as I could. Since my organization was the primary account holder of all the funds raised, a responsibility we did not ask for, it was up to me and my team to issue refunds for the remaining weekends and pay off any remaining production costs. At the end we walked away owing money for rentals and reimbursements, just as we feared. All loose ends were tied and once my team delivered the bad news (with actual receipts and cost breakdowns) to the rest of the group, we unanimously agreed to never work with HC again and closed what was considered a very nasty chapter of our org’s history…or so we thought.

Weeks later, after absolutely no communication from anyone from HC, a member from my team received this email:

Sent 3.19 (four weeks after the festival)

Like a ghost from the not-so-distant past, H.E.R Chicago was back only this time they were crying fraud. As I sat in the doctor’s office staring at my phone, I was caught off guard and very confused. “They can’t be serious. We told them what happened. We showed them what happened. There’s no way.” Well turns out there was a way (see below):