HBAM Presents: The #GiftPritty Campaign

HBAM’s Mission:

To optimize everyone’s healing potential through powering people, projects, and causes at the intersection of arts, media, and culture in service of narrative and systems change.

The Problem: Book Bans

In 2019, suicide was the second leading cause of death for Black students, ages 15 to 24 (Office of Minority Health). In 2021, nearly half of all LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered suicide (NPR, 2022). But the intersectional realities for Black LGBTQ+ youth can be especially crushing with 90% of them still experiencing discrimination based on race, particularly in schools (HRC Black and African American LGBTQ Report, 2019). But as the nation struggles to address this public health crisis, an aggressive wave of intolerance is gaining speed. School censorship, curriculum restrictions, and book bans, which overwhelmingly target textbooks and affirming stories by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ people (PEN America), have been enacted in 31 of 50 states, despite the presence and needs of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ youth for culturally affirming and sustaining texts.

Our Response: Pritty: The Novel (+ Self-Care Kits)

After Pritty: The Animation made Kickstarter fame in 2021 successfully fundraising over $100K toward the animatic (moving storyboard) development and receiving more than 400,000 views on YouTube at the top of 2023, we’re excited about Pritty: The. Novel, which inspired the animated short, to hit shelves across the country on November 14, 2023.

Described as “the sensuality of Frank Ocean meets the rhythm of Toni Morrison,” and a “staggering achievement in young adult literature,” Pritty is considered a “triumphant and deeply moving…life-affirming love letter to Black and Brown queer boys that offers them hope and purpose.”

Given its message of affirmation, acceptance, hope, and love, especially for BIPOPC and LGBTQ+ populations, we’re expecting it to not only top bestseller lists but also the banned books list (which we consider a compliment), as it pays homage to the trauma and healing that is Black and Brown culture, and serves as a powerful (re)introduction to the unforgettable figures and unsung (s)heroes many of us couldn’t live without: the matriarchs, the candy ladies, the aunties, the grandmas in their church hats, the brothas and sistahs from other mothas and fictive kin.

Most of all, Pritty: The Novel, is an invitation to all of us to join and become an essential part of this moment, THIS MOVEMENT, of love and being loved BECAUSE of who we are now and will become.

With Your Donation, Book Banners Don’t Have to Win

We’re well aware that some folks will want to prevent this powerful work from getting into schools and libraries across the nation. But we also know that they aren’t the only gatekeepers—that BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities and everyone that supports them can be louder, proving that a conservative minority doesn’t get to determine what BIPOC and LGBTQ+ youth need to heal: Enter, the #GiftPritty Campaign.

Your donation will fund our partnerships with community centers, nonprofits, libraries, and anyone else who wants to gift this novel to those who need its message of hope most. It will also ensure that, as the nominations pour in from people across the country who want to gift this work to others in their community, we are able to meet that need through books, self-care packages, merchandise and more.

Donation Tiers (Explained)

Our base donation tiers are as follows:

and so on!

Images of similar kits created in the past can be found in the images and videos ☺

This initiative is powered by Nafasi Fund, a fiscal sponsor that provides the 501(c)(3) and audit-worthy infrastructure Black-led organizations need to be eligible for funding that supports transformative work.