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shld a bookstore be transparent abt the fact that the person who owns it on paper is a multimillionaire? yes, definitely, but I don't see how it's unreasonable that the same bookstore shld do fundraising to stay open if said owner is not contributing $ (or if $ comes w/ strings)
like: I don't know directly what the structure is or how it stays afloat, but my thought when I saw a call for funding was, huh, guess the rich lady I heard abt isn't in the picture, not, this is immediately suspicious
I've seen a handful of projects start because a rich person got an idea, and some have been really fucking hands-on and others less so, and often the hands-on ones fade from the picture, whether due to boredom or recognition that it shouldn't be *theirs*
it's rare for projects to survive this- there's actually one rich guy who funded a whole lot of notable shit in the local arts scene that *all* collapsed due to his getting bored- and my feelings about that aren't 'oh good', they're 'what a colossal waste'
like: we don't live in a rental economy where wholly independent collectives are able to have storefronts in Manhattan, and I think it's generally worth assuming that someone with money was involved at some point in most such projects. it's not *good* but also very hard to avoid
it's very reasonable to ask 'are they still involved, and if so, how much, how much money is in it for them, how does that impact the running of things', but if the answer is slow, diplomatic, or complicated that's not entirely cause for suspicion
it must be said, tho, that my standard for 'fuck this project' is currently 'is the rich person involved inviting antisemitic 9/11 Truth speakers', because that actually happened with a 'leftist' 'community' space in Brooklyn (twice, actually, if we count Vox Pop, rest in piss)
like, by that standard 'transitions to apparently a more genuinely collective decision-making structure, collective is plurality POC and makes good decisions abt programming & community accountability, asks for money from public' isn't looking too bad
