(But We Know Who’s Cashing In)
Every so often, someone stumbles into the comment section of a queer or community-focused small business and decides they’ve been wronged. That a price tag is a personal attack. That accessible, ethical goods are a scam. That someone else’s resilience is somehow oppression.
Let’s straighten something out:
Being asked to support a small vendor who prioritizes safety, sustainability, or lived experience? That’s not oppression.
Being inconvenienced by someone refusing to work for free? Still not oppression.
Being out-earned by someone who doesn’t hate themselves? Also not oppression.
What is oppression?
- Building an entire economy on the backs of low-wage, invisible labour—work that’s disproportionately done by immigrants, queer folks, disabled folks, students, seniors, and others society pretends to uplift while quietly discarding.
- Demanding those same people fill service roles, care roles, cleaning roles—then calling them “unskilled” to justify starvation wages.
- Watching megacorps rake in profits, dodge taxes, exploit supply chains, and then take multi-million dollar bailouts while front-line workers get applause and a pizza party. Maybe.
Meanwhile? Small vendors are hand-pouring soap in kitchens, screen-printing shirts in their apartments, and hustling to ship orders with care—often while juggling other jobs, disabilities, or real barriers to access. And somehow they’re accused of “cashing in”?
Let’s be perfectly queer (‘clear’ for those of you without a sense of humour):
Profiting off oppression is a corporate issue.
Sustaining yourself with dignity is survival.
There’s a world of difference between monetizing pain and refusing to be crushed by it.
And motivation matters. Is the goal to extract? Or to connect? Is the system built to serve people—or simply exploit them until they’re replaced?
Small businesses rooted in identity and community don’t need to apologize for charging what they’re worth. That includes queer creators—and it includes allies who actually show up.
Because real allyship isn’t a label—it’s labour. It’s choosing to build ethically. To prioritize access. To value people over margins.
So whether you’re packing bath bombs in your basement, printing tees in your living room, or shipping sustainable goods from a tiny corner of the internet—you’re part of the resistance if your work uplifts instead of extracts.
So if you’re really mad about price tags and profit?
Start with the corporations who built entire industries off free labour and tax evasion.
Not the folks trying to pay rent with a product that actually helps somebody feel seen.
[ts_support_turnip_style]
