Many thanks to Kenyon Farrow for this wonderful interview with Jasmine Tasaki about the mutual aid work happening at WeCareTN. The image above was published in the original interview.
Things are rough right now. A lot of people are pissed, scared, and overwhelmed. What can we do? Does it make a difference to vote? To post on social media? This video is about mutual aid as a key strategy of resistance, survival, and mobilization.
Mutual aid projects are a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government, but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable. Watch this video, and check out the mutual aid toolkit to start your own local projects.
I have been taking great inspiration from the work of Take Back the Land. Take Back the Land was a network of grassroots organizations responding to the housing crisis, especially after so many homes were foreclosed when the economy tanked in 2008. Many of the organizations that were part of the network housed homeless people in squatted vacant properties that had been emptied because of foreclosure proceedings. Many also did direct actions to stop evictions. There is a book that Max Rameau wrote about Take Back the Land. My friend, Z!, was involved in Take Back the Land in Madison and connected to the national network recently shared with me a collection of videos about Take Back the Land that I want to share with you!
I include here Z!’s notes on the different themes/regions covered in the videos.
Excited to share a few resources I have come across lately that have given me inspiration about mutual aid. First, this episode of The Dig in which Naomi Klein and Mercedes Martínez talk about the current conditions in Puerto Rico under US colonialism, PROMESA, and recovery from Hurricane Maria. I especially loved their observations about how when the corporate and fossil fuel centered food and energy systems failed, what still worked and works is locally controlled, cooperative approaches to basic needs. Also, check out this very useful article about how left organizations are mobilizing mutual aid in the wake of Hurricane Michael and other disasters. And finally, this gorgeous poster made by Roger Peet for Justseeds really says it all.
I just heard from the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Network. Check out their site!
Very excited to share information Sammy sent about the jail support project that got started in Baltimore after the Baltimore Uprising. About the project:
“First imagined in response to the mass arrest of protestors and community members during the Baltimore Uprising, the Baltimore Jail Support collective organizes recurring jail care at the city detention center to reframe all prisoners as political prisoners. Jail care is a commitment to be outside jail as much as possible to provide folks with transportation, food, water, and care as they are released. In addition to direct mutual support, the collective produces material to connect people to reentry resources and information about prison abolition. Currently, we organize 2-hour shifts with drivers for 6 hours twice a week. In addition we provide jail care after protest arrests and coordinate with another local organization Baltimore Action Legal Team to provide bail when possible and for actions like Black Mama’s Bail Out Day.”
I am so inspired by this mutual aid project because of how it resists deserving/undeserving dynamics by offering help to whoever comes out of the jail during the shifts when the project is working. So many services are limited to people who fit criteria determined within racialized, classed and gendered hierarchies–like projects that only serve people with certain charges or convictions or who will agree to certain conditions. This project is about how everyone who walks out of that jail deserves support. Thanks for sharing the information, Sammy!
Sarah and Natalie, readers of this site, wrote to share lists of resources she has found helpful in her own work to prepare her community for disasters. They are not mutual aid projects, but they are resources that might help people engaging with mutual aid work, so I am including them here. Thanks for the research, Sarah!
These resources are from mainstream sources like the US government and insurance and real estate companies, so people engaging in mutual aid for vulnerable communities may have to do a lot of reading between the lines to find what is most useful here. But in case any of it is useful, I’m posting it.
Don’t miss these inspiring new tools:
Thanks to everyone for helping spread the word about this toolkit and for sending in materials to be added to it. Please keep them coming!
Two new tools recently came out specifically addressed to this moment that we wanted to highlight:
Welcome to the Big Door Brigade website! Please check out our new Mutual Aid Toolbox and write to us about resources we should add to it.
