PrernaLal.com

Active DREAMS LLC

// August 13th, 2009 // Immigration

We have an LLC now: Active DREAMS LLC — a new media consulting company, a legal entity.

I wanted to reiterate this point made by Liza Sabater regarding the NOI Blogger summit yesterday:

Of course, my eye zeroed in on one item of the agenda:

2:30 – 3:15 How Bloggers Can Help Organizations — and Vice Versa

I wish these “organizers” really reckoned with the un-spoken truth of this proposition: How can bloggers who rarely get any advertising money from mainstream corporations and even less from the moneyed politocracy can work for free for non-profit organizations with million+ dollar budgets?

Here’s the deal : It’s bad business for bloggers to do anything for free. Doesnt matter who it is, doesnt matter. If they can’t sustain the work with some income stream, they should not be giving away their work for free to anybody.

Amen. I am tired of the exploitation. I have a gazillion projects. And I have been bi-coastal for months. How on earth do you expect me to give my 100% to something when I am not being compensated for anything (besides S4FC)? How am I expected to work without anger and distraction when my house has been going through foreclosure for 8 months and counting, and I feel like I have thrown away a good 3 years of my academic career to people who don’t even appreciate me? I do some of the best new media work around–I can do backend systems administration, blogging, social networking, organizing, and designing. And that’s only one component of my skill-set. Take a look at the CV.

If you want me to do ANYTHING for you, start writing checks to the LLC. If you need my advice on anything web and new media related, again, start writing checks. The ONLY exception is if you are an undocumented person–I won’t take $. But again, I refuse to be any sort of ORG-person without just compensation. I have a professional degree for crying out loud. There are plenty places in this world that would pay six figures to have someone with my numerous talents just sit on a board. And I won’t apologize for having enough self-worth to be honest about it. I am a queer immigrant woman of color, an organizer and an academic who is good with new media. That is a small part of what I can do and alone, it is priceless.

Bottomline: ‘Illegality’ is NO LONGER an excuse to not compensate undocumented students for their labor. Don’t hold a grudge against me for not jumping when you say jump if I don’t see any clear benefits coming my way.

Peace out from Pittsburgh.

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