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Why Black journalists must tell our stories, and how Kiandria Demone exposed a hate-fueled fundraiser that has raised over $700k.

I first reported this story for The Black Wall Street Times.

It started with code. Nothing fancy. No hack. No breach. Just one Black woman, Kiandria Demone, using a basic tool of the internet—“inspect element”—to follow a digital breadcrumb most people would never think to look for.

But what she uncovered wasn’t just code. It was a payment pipeline that encourages hate.

Demone, a web developer, mother, and founder of a digital ad agency, discovered that GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site known for hosting campaigns for Kyle Rittenhouse and other far-right figures—was enabling a fundraiser for a white woman who hurled racial slurs at a five-year-old Black child. That fundraiser has raised over $750k.

And hidden in the site’s HTML code? The payment platform Stripe facilitating those donations, a powerful payment processor whose customers include Airbnb, Substack and Instacart.

Her discovery, made public in a viral TikTok, forced tech giants like Square and Block Inc. to clarify their roles. Stripe stayed silent. But their code said enough. Despite having policies that explicitly prohibit racism and harassment, Stripe’s infrastructure was being used to support hate.

Demone didn’t find this because she was a hacker. As she told me when I interviewed her for The Black Wall Street Times, “I’m not Batman. I just knew where to look.”

And she did something mainstream media often fails to do: she connected the dots. She followed the money. She stood her ground. She refused to look away.

This is the kind of story that rarely makes it into the headlines of legacy newsrooms.

When I pitched protest coverage at NPR, I was told it wasn’t “newsworthy.” In fact, I was blocked from reporting on protest for local NPR stations. I wasn’t surprised when I read Parker Molloy’s Substack exposé, where she revealed that NPR dismissed the largest climate protests of 2025 as “not very compelling.” That line stuck with me because I’ve lived it. That’s how systems protect themselves. That’s how the helicopter model of journalism survives: reporters parachute in during crisis, extract a quote, and leave without building trust or staying long enough to understand the fight.

That’s not how I report. At The Black Wall Street Times, I was encouraged to dig into Demone’s story. To trace the payment infrastructure. To question the ethics of Stripe’s silence. That kind of editorial support is rare in newsrooms, especially when covering environmental justice, tech accountability, or racialized harm. But that’s what made this story possible.

And what Demone’s story proves is this: resistance isn’t just in the streets. It’s in the source code. It’s in the terms of service. It’s in who gets to raise nearly a million and who gets their fundraisers taken down for nothing. Journalism has a role to play in making these systems visible. But only if we’re brave enough to ask the right questions—and stay long enough to listen to the answers.

“This isn’t just about Shiloh,” Demone told me. “It’s about who gets to raise money with impunity—and who gets shut down without warning.”

She got the steal.

Now it’s time for the rest of us—journalists, technologists, everyday users—to slam dunk it.

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