Please Help Journalist Linda Tirado

Linda has a traumatic brain injury and needs support for her family and for end of life.

My friend, the journalist and photographer, Linda Tirado posted this week on substack that she is dying. Linda suffered a traumatic brain injury during the George Floyd protests when a Minneapolis cop fired a projectile at her—probably a rubber bullet. She lost her eye, and she’s been deteriorating slowly since—and now I guess less slowly. She still has some lucid moments, but they’re becoming more infrequent.

Linda received a settlement from Minneapolis, but medical care has eaten through most of it, and she and her husband and two children are struggling to afford palliative care. Please contribute if you can at one of the accounts below.

Venmo: Linda-Tirado-3

PayPal: Bootstrapindustries@gmail

Zelle: 806.433.6075

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I feel like I should talk a bit about Linda’s work and my friendship with her, but I’m worried it would be presumptuous and also it’s hard to type when you keep bursting into tears. I talked to Linda fairly regularly (she would call her friends out of the blue on a moment’s notice, basically whenever she thought of it), and I knew she was having short-term memory troubles. But she was careful not to tell me or others how badly things were going.

If you want to know more about her, Luke O’Neill has a lovely recent interview with her which covers most of the basics—including her recent, amazing work raising money for pregnant people in need of abortions in Texas. Her book about the experience of poverty, Hand To Mouth, is a must-read.

I recently came across this quote.

I have no patience with the untorn, anyone who hasn’t weathered rough weather, fallen apart, been ripped to pieces, put herself back together, big stitches, jagged cuts, nothing nice. Then something shines out. But these ones all shined up on the outside, the ass wigglers, I’ll be honest, I don’t like them. Not at all.

That’s from a short story by feminist Andrea Dworkin. Linda (like me) would reject a lot of Dworkin’s politics. But I think she’d maybe see herself in that description.

Or maybe she wouldn’t. Linda isn’t always predictable, which is one of many lovely things about her. I probably won’t get to ask her what she thinks about it now. And that really sucks.

Again, please help if you can.

Venmo: Linda-Tirado-3

PayPal: Bootstrapindustries@gmail

Zelle: 806.433.6075