“I was just kind of at a loss and was talking to my best friend and I was like, ‘Normally I would make a zine and sell it and then donate the money from that,’ but there was no way that I had the executive functioning to make anything creative,” Taylor says. “I was feeling really hopeless and helpless. My best friend who is a trauma therapist and does online workshops was like, ‘What if you raffled off or gave away some of my spots in workshops?’” 

From there, the effort quickly snowballed—not unlike Bookstores Against Borders, a campaign Taylor helped launch via Room of One’s Own in 2019 to raise money for immigrant legal aid. This time around, Taylor once again worked their contacts locally and far beyond. People started donating prints, ceramics, tattoo sessions, books, massages, tea, jewelry, and on and on. Madison-based contributors included visual artist Terrence Adeyanju (aka iampeeld),  painter Rae Senarighi (aka @transpainter), and tattoo artist nipinet. 

“Once I get a few yeses I get kind of emboldened… I started messaging Adrienne Marie Brown and fucking Angela Davis. I never heard back from Angela Davis,” Taylor adds with a laugh. “But I messaged Kehlani and Patti Smith, and just anyone, absolutely anyone I could think of that has shown even a glimmer of community care in their work.” Brown contributed a set of signed books. Taylor also secured donations from Jamila Woods, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Andrew Gibson, to name a few.

“I think 220 [artists] altogether contributed but then I only was able to get [about] 140 items up on the fundraising site, just because of how much labor it took,” Taylor says. More than 2,400 people donated money to enter their names in the raffle for various items. In fact, so many people reached out to try and support the campaign that Taylor couldn’t get back to all of them. Taylor is now taking some time to regroup.

Taylor points out that it’s important for different people to realize they can contribute to the cause in different ways, even if they don’t feel that direct action or placing lots of phone calls to lawmakers is their strong suit. That’s a helpful thing to keep in mind in the face of such overwhelming tragedy and rage.

“I’ve never seen genocide be streamed on Instagram,” Taylor adds. “It is really traumatic, and I’ve never seen so many dead people before these two weeks and it was clear that our government isn’t going to do anything besides give more money to Israel.”

“My birth dad is Egyptian and Palestinian, but I hope I would be doing this even if I didn’t share heritage with the people being murdered,” Taylor says.

SCOTT GORDON

Editor-in-chief and publisher Scott Gordon has covered music and the arts in Madison since 2006 for publications including The A.V. Club, Dane101, and Isthmus, and has also covered policy, environmental issues, and public health for WisContext. He co-founded Tone Madison in 2014.