‘Stop People from Using Our Pain for Profit’: Black Web Developer Who Push to Shut Down Shiloh Hendrix’s Fundraiser, Man Behind Viral Video Get a Barrage of Death Threats As Parents of Black Child Speaks Out
Like many who’ve observed the bizarre case of Shiloh Hendrix, the racist Minnesota woman who has raised nearly $800,000 from supporters after being caught on video repeatedly calling a 5-year-old Black child the N-word, Instagram user Kiandria Damone felt disgusted.
But she didn’t just want to be another member of the chorus calling out Hendrix’s bigoted behavior and those financially backing her. She wanted to get directly to the source, and as a web developer, she knew just how to do it.
“I opened the site, dug into the HTML source code, and read through the scripts line by line,” Damone wrote on her Instagram account. “I found keywords, traced the checkout flow and confirmed the processor: Block Inc.”
She added, triumphantly, “I keep telling ya’ll to stop playing with Black women in tech.”
Block subsidiaries, including Square, Afterpay and CashApp, were hit with boycotts. Damone said she now believes they’ve switched to a different payment processor: Stripe.
“This isn’t oversight. It’s complicity,” she said. “Let’s hold them accountable.”
Even though Damone focuses on the payment processor, the main sources Hendrix is the donors who littered the page with racist comments, and GiveSendGo, the facilitator, has stood by its decision to keep the fundraiser active.
While she’s been widely lauded for her online detective work, with one woman telling her, “This is what doing the Lord’s work looks like,” Damone’s sleuthing has taken its toll.
“I’m dealing with the death threats, the sleepless nights,” she wrote. “I’m dealing with people doxxing me, harassing me, being called racial slurs.”
Though she’d shed some light on Hendrix’s benefactors, that hasn’t curtailed the donations the Minnesota mother has received. As of Wednesday night, that total approached $750,000, with one of the donors identifying as Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general and slave trader who was a founding member of the post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan.
Hendrix has emerged as a right-wing folk hero; supporters say she is a byproduct of the backlash to the support given to Karmelo Anthony, the Black Texas high school student accused of fatally stabbing a white student from a rival school to death.
“I’m glad she raised half a million dollars. I hope she raises half a million more,” Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh wrote on X this week, sharing a video that featured an extended monologue on why he backs Hendrix, who’s portrayed as a victim of anti-white racism.
In the video that started it all, filmed by 30-year-old Sharmake Omar in a Minnesota public park, Hendrix admits calling a young Somali boy the “n-word” because “he took my son’s stuff.” She then goes on to repeat the slur multiple times before seemingly justifying her actions during the recorded confrontation with Omar.
Omar told NBC News that the child is on the autism spectrum and that the parents, whom he knows, have expressed support in filing charges against Hendrix. A local chapter of the NAACP has raised more than $300,000 for the family since the video went viral. Rochester police, meanwhile, say they completed an investigation of the incident, though it’s not clear what, if any, criminal charges Hendrix may face.
Omar has also faced death threats for exposing Hendrix.
“I’m not a man with a lot of words. And this is the first time I’ve spoken in front of people. But that didn’t stop me from protecting that child,” he said during a town hall Wednesday night in Rochester. “Right now, I am being punished. I have death threats against me. Online. Phone calls, and my information has been leaked online as well.”
Jacob Wells, co-founder of GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising platform where Hendrix launched her “defense fund,” told Piers Morgan, “she might have some racial animus,” but wouldn’t call her a racist.
He defended potentially making Hendrix a millionaire based on her racist outburst, arguing that the site is about redemption, not cancel culture.
Strangely, about the only person among Hendrix’s supporters who’s willing to call her a racist is Hendrix herself.
The boy’s parents demand that she be “held fully accountable” for her actions. They also fear retaliation and an invasion of their privacy.
“Our child deserves justice and will not rest until it is served. We appeal to all members of our community, both locally and globally, to condemn violence and work together to stop it,” the parents said in a statement. “As the parents of the young boy, as we navigate the emotional, legal and medical challenges ahead, we are asking the public for financial support. These unexpected costs are significant, and generosity will help us focus on what matters the most – caring for our child and pursuing accountability.”
“There are individuals who are attempting to benefit financially from this assault that happened to us. We request the authorities to protect us and stop people from using our pain for profit,” they added.