Welcome to Fingers, a newsletter by me, Dave Infante, about drinking culture, being online, and beyond. More about this project right here. If you were forwarded this email and want to subscribe to future Fingers dispatches, smash this here button:

Follow @its.fingers on Instagram! I’m posting readers’ photos of glorious barroom graffiti with the hashtag #TheBarfitiProject. DM me your photos there, or email me: dave@dinfontay.com.

I’m mailing these stickers to Friends of Fingers who make a donation of $1 or more to either BeerKulture or the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Pony up some bucks, send a screenshot of your receipt to dave@dinfontay.com, and I will mail you a sticker anywhere in the US.

I laid out the backstory in this earlier edition of Fingers:

There’s an open-source, for-charity project out of Seattle called Sticker.beer that allows people to download a file that says “I don’t drink beer with racists #blacklivesmatter” and get it printed up on stickers. Cool.

I learned about it via Chicago bar-owner Virginia Thomas, who decided to put some money up for a stack o’ stickers herself:

Wear A Mask! 😷✊🖤🤎❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 1312 @Virginia_Thomas

Hey Y'all, next week the stickers arrive! They're vinyl + 4"x4". I work Sun/Mon @Beermiscuous - if you wanna grab one from me there! I financed these myself, so I'm asking $1ea to cover costs, with the profits going to @beerkulture to help promote diversity in beer 🍻❤️

12:17 AM ∙ Jul 28, 2020

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The Sticker.beer website encourages donations to the NAACP Legal Defense or other social justice organizations. BeerKulture is a 501(c)3 dedicated to “[b]uilding trust and strengthening communities, using craft beer as a conduit to foster inclusion, equity and diversity,” so I think that plays! (Disclosure: your Fingers editor has donated to it in the past, and recently bought some of these branded masks, too!)

Thomas is a proprietor of Beermiscuous, a two-location, worker-owned beer and coffee concern in Chicago. Business has been rough during the pandemic, particularly since the city ordered its bars to shut down again for indoor service.

I asked Thomas why she opted to take this on at such a precarious moment for her bars. Thomas:

Times are tough for me personally, and for my bar, certainly, but it's nothing compared to what Black people have been dealing with for hundreds of years. I saw a way I could use my privilege, my platform, and some of my money to help amplify BlackLivesMatter and fund BeerKulture at the same time, so I did it. I hope to continue what they started in Seattle with this, and keep a directory of places that have the sticker up/believe in the cause.

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All comments, questions, lavish praise, and vicious criticism on Fingers can be sent to dave@dinfontay.com.