“Why Are Your Prices so high?”
This question is always asked after I painstakingly detailed why what I do is so important. You can’t account for what is learned or understood with any level of certainty. No matter how much time, energy and heart I put into my work I can’t learn FOR them. And for transformational change to take root, it has to be self-determined. Unfortunately, for many people, the price point is the stopping point. Not because they don’t have money, when I was poor, I didn’t have much choice about where my money went. Wealth always gives you more options. So, when a White Supremacist System asks me unironically, how much my knowledge is worth to then say it's too much, is so infuriating. How is their price point determined? If someone is giving you medicine for what for you is only mild discomfort, but for others is a life-threatening poison, you base the value on who it helps survive not who would live either way.
In theory, I could set whatever price I want but the reality is I am matching my rates to this invisible and unspoken understanding that this work is not valued in a conventional capitalist system. I am providing education, support, and resources on how best to disrupt colonial systems, guess what? Capitalism is one of those systems. And when you are “winning” at these systems, disruption is not an ideal thing to court let alone fund.
As a Black Femme willingly entering these spaces that seek to dehumanize and extract from me until I’m an empty husk, why wouldn’t that impact how I price my services? If you want basic Diversity and Inclusion work, go to the many many, White-run businesses that do this work in the most palatable and assimilation-centred ways. Not through intentional malice, I’m sure, but because that is what they think will work. And bless them on that journey. I have no interest in going to a space with utter certainty I’d be harmed. But even an ideal scenario has consequences, everything that I am is devalued in this society, I may not put stock into that hierarchy, but most do. So I am in an undesirable body, saying unbelievable things and expecting sweeping change to make it work? Of course, that disruption is villainized, and while I don’t care on a personal level, that shit has a lasting impact. Fear, anxiety and stress poison the body, and I already have a traumatized body, thanks. You are putting me in harm's way when you do not act with intention when you inquire about my work and seek to negotiate like an 80s businessman.
I am seeking to alchemize the harm and cruelty I experience every day to create tangible and nuanced educational discourse. I am using my trauma to create meaning for myself and teach others the same. I am a miracle worker, is there any price too high for a miracle? If you base value on the post-Amazon buyers market you will never break out of the toxic cycle Capitalism needs you to remain in. Reframe how much things cost, for your sake as much as mine.
Image: Carles Congost
