Big Door Brigade

Through a conversation with Emily Hobson, author of Lavender and Red (an excellent book that includes brilliant examination of queer/trans mutual aid strategies) I just learned about this beautiful documentary, “I’m You, You’re Me,” which captures the work of women in New York State prisons supporting each other with a range of issues, especially around HIV/AIDS, during imprisonment and after release. A brilliant librarian at Seattle U found the documentary online, which was way beyond my powers.

 

I am so moved by the work being done all across the US to bail and bond people out of prisons, jails, and immigration prisons. Here are some resources that were sent to me by brilliant people at the National Bail Fund Network.

Here is a best practices guide for setting up legal defense funds.

Here is an awesome guide for community bail funds in the criminal legal system.  And keep your eye out because the National Bail Fund Network has a similar guide coming soon for immigration bond funds in about two weeks!

Here is a directory of community bail and bond funds that are regularly posting bail/bond and organizing for the end of detention in multiple forms across the country.

Here is info on the National Bail Out Collective, which organizes bail out events like the annual Black Mama’s Bail Out day.

Thanks to all the work people are doing to create these important resources for replicating this work!

I was moved by this story of neighbors coming together to block ICE from arresting an immigrant living in Nashville. The story also talks about other recent efforts by ordinary people to stop ICE arrests.

Also, don’t miss this recent article by Marisa Franco from Mijente, helping us think through what strategies are most useful in this time and how to deploy them.  Some highlights:

Taking a step back to address the big picture strategy of this time, I orient around three core strategies: reduce harm (stop deportation cases, get people out of detention even if its one person at a time), throw a wrench into the machine (target companies or groups that enable detention and deportation) and win at the ballot box (mobilizing the vote to elect people dedicated to real and bold change). In all of this we also have to hold the following orientation: roll with the punches — be ready to respond to, or take opportunities, as they come. . . .

When it comes to direct action tactics, here are three types I have been thinking a lot about: Sustained, Spectacle and Disruption. When I think about whether or not an action is ‘worth it’ I think of a couple of different criteria (not listed in order of importance): Is it going to engage new people (bonus points for folks who are new to activism) in a meaningful way? Does it reduce harm to (or at least provide a platform for) people who are directly affected? Will it expose enablers of the Trump agenda? Because Trump might not care about the optics of jailing babies, but surely some of the customers or constituents of companies, politicians, and groups who enable his agenda do.

With fires burning in Alaska, I am thinking about the mutual aid projects that emerged in California last summer to support people suffering from smoke and fire. This article talks about North Valley Mutual Aid and Mask Oakland in the context of anarchist theories of mutual aid. A good read! I also want to generally recommend the It’s Going Down Podcast, especially this episode on disaster relief efforts, and this episode specifically about mutual aid in response to the Camp Fire.

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.

Continue reading “Take Back the Land’s Work”

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!