“Mutual Aid” is a People’s Movement: Beyond Philanthropy, Charity, and Dependence on the (Police) State
An American Studies Association 2020 Freedom Course recorded on April 22, 2020
Framing questions: * What is “mutual aid,” and how is it different from charity, philanthropy, and state social services? * How is mutual aid part of current and historical freedom, liberation, and self-determination struggles of different peoples? * How are mutual aid efforts responding to the COVID-19 pandemic? * How can people participate in mutual aid projects RIGHT NOW?
Participants: * Rachel Gilmer, Helen Peña, and Dr. Armen Henderson Dream Defenders (https://dreamdefenders.org/) * Amika Tendaji Ujimaa Medics (https://umedics.org/) * Mariame Kaba Project NIA (http://project-nia.org/) * Dean Spade Seattle University School of Law (http://bigdoorbrigade.com/) * facilitated by Dylan Rodríguez Univ of California, Riverside; President-Elect of the American Studies Association (2020-2021)
About ten years ago I published this short essay in the lefty law journal Unbound about the myths that mislead a lot of people who want social change to think they should go to law school, and the realities people should know before going. This week, Patricia Sully from the University of Washington’s Legal Pathways program hosted a webinar on the topic where I shared some of these ideas and people asked some great questions. Here is a captioned video recording of the session.
Discussing this with some other people led me to learn about this amazing clip which I also recommend you incorporate into your deliberations about law school:
This is a difficult time, and most of us are under enormous pressure. We might be experiencing isolation, illness, income loss, fear for loved ones, loss of loved ones, anxiety, and many other painful circumstances. A mad map is a guide we can make for ourselves, usually best worked on in moments were we are feeling more centered or having more capacity, that we can turn to in moments where things go sideways or we feel ourselves slipping into more difficult states. A mad map can be like a little gift of preparation for a future self who is going into potentially dangerous waters. Your mad map could have any areas or categories, could be illustrated or include songs or physical movements. Below are just some starter ideas and examples of potential content. Change all the language and content as you want so it is meaningful to you. It could also be made as a collage, a song, a zine, or in whatever way is best for you. Some people share their mad maps with friends and loved ones. You could include sections on how other people can support you when you are in difficulty or crisis, and what you do not want them to say or do if you are in crisis.
I learned about mad maps first in an Icarus Project workshop, and later read this zine. You might also listen to this podcast episode and check out this worksheet that was distributed with the podcast.
Signs of Off-Center Thinking, Feeling, and Action
What are you noticing you are thinking, feeling, and/or doing that feels sideways? Some areas to think about when making this section might include:
Obsessively checking for news or information related to the pandemic
Obsessively checking myself for signs or symptoms of COVID-19
Over-working on anything (house cleaning, paid job, activist work, etc.)
Letting the physical space around me get chaotic
Not eating or eating in ways that make me feel bad
Not taking meds or supplements that are helpful to me regularly
Misusing alcohol, drugs, shopping
Misusing video games, TV, social media
Avoiding people I love
Short-tempered, explosive, or over-critical with loved ones
Avoiding work that is meaningful to me
Avoiding work I need to do to survive
Not taking care of bills, paperwork, unemployment applications or other logistics necessities
Escalating with a date or otherwise escaping through sex or romance highs
Any other compulsive behavior that feels imbalanced right now
Lack of sleep or oversleeping
Over exercising or not moving enough for what my body/mind needs right now
Guidelines for Greater Wellness
In this section, try set realistic expectations, not pie in the sky guidelines that will cause shame or feelings of inadequacy if they are not met. You can always increase and adjust later. Be aware of harsh “should” messages that may show up here, which many of us have in areas of eating, work, exercise, money, etc. Focus on gentle realistic steps toward greater wellness, mindful of perfectionism.
This section might include things like:
Limit of number of times per day I check news, research information about the pandemic, or look up symptoms online
Limits on amounts or times of day I do particular escapist or toxifying behaviors
How often and in what ways I want to move my body
Goals for making sure I feed myself in nourishing ways
Goals for meditation, spiritual practices, or anything else that would help but might be falling out right now
Types of media I want to avoid, might include deleting certain apps
Limits on amount of or times of using social media (like not upon waking or before bed, for example)
Goals (if appropriate for your situation) for getting outdoors or interacting with plants, animals, etc.
People I want to be connected to, how often and in what ways
People I need to limit my exposure to and what limits
Sleep schedules or other rest plans
Limits on working hours, creation day(s) off or other limits on work, including unpaid activist or artistic work if I am overworking in those areas
Timelines for taking care of essential paperwork or logistics
Baseline activities to maintain your physical space and hygiene
Bonus Activities that Help
If the prior section is baseline guidance that you are committing to, this section can have things you might aspire to do, things you know would feel good, things that are lovely extras.
Kinds of movement or exercise that are fun and feel good
Cooking adventures
Gardening
Music, art, literature I want to listen to, watch, look at, read
Music or art I want to make
Spiritual practices I want to try or return to
Additional ways I want to connect with loved ones
Additional activities that might boost my mood or sense of purpose, connection, or self-worth
Ways to beautify my space
Ways I want to be generous to others
Things I want to try to improve my sleep, reduce my pain, break my isolation, generate a more structured routine, break up a monotonous routine
Quality time with certain people or animals
Unhelpful/Untrue Thoughts
Painful or difficult distorted thinking increases when we are under pressure. Often it will be familiar thinking that has appeared in other difficult times. Often it feeds behaviors that are bad for us and disconnect us from ourselves and others. Noticing it can give us a chance to interrupt it and see if it can be reduced. Here are some types of distorted thinking that may be coming up, or you can fill this section with whatever is true for you.
I better get mine before everyone else takes it all.
Hopeless thoughts like:
There is no point in trying.
I have lost everything.
I ruined everything.
Nothing every works out for me/us.
Shame/self-hating thoughts like:
I’m a fraud.
I am undesirable.
I am the worst.
I don’t deserve help/care/support/love/admiration/survival.
I am a bad person.
Superiority thoughts like:
No one else can do this right.
No one else can see the truth like I can.
Everyone else is handling this incorrectly.
Any criticism or feedback about my behavior is incorrect/inappropriate.
Hypervigilant thoughts like:
I better check [the news, my loved ones well-being, my bank account, my body, my symptoms, my food, others’ opinions of me, social media, or anything] again and again.
Helpful Truths to Remember
In this section, call on your most centered self, your inner adult, your inner kind parent, your highest spiritual self or however you think of that part of you that has loving and compassionate perspective. Go through the distorted thoughts above and list what the part of you thinking each thought needs to hear or remember to diffuse the power of that thought a bit. The examples below may help you generate your list.
Everyone is having a hard time right now. It is okay that I am not functioning “as usual.” I can cut myself some slack.
Even if I feel alone, I am not alone. There are many people experiencing what I am experiencing. There are people who care about me.
It is okay to be distracted and disoriented right now, and to feel dissatisfied. I don’t have to try to solve those feelings. I can try to be compassionate with myself about them, and also try not to act out of them in ways that hurt myself.
There is nothing I have to do, and all that I choose to do will be better for me and others if it doesn’t come from this “must” and “should” feeling, but instead from sober discernment of how I can care for myself and others.
This is a precious time to connect with loved ones give them my attention. I can do this from a place of desire, not a place of inadequacy.
It is okay for me to place limits on what I can do for others and say no to things that don’t work for me. Everyone deserves to exist, including me.
I don’t have to do anything perfectly.
It is okay to try new things. I can stop whenever I want.
In case it’s useful to read my mad map, here’s what I have so far.
Dean’s Mad Map for the Pandemic
Off-center feelings/experiences/behaviors:
Checking the news too much/consuming too much info about pandemic
Distractedness and difficulty staying on one task
Perfectionism about tasks (mostly related to activist work)
Irritation/impatience during meetings
Critical thoughts/comments about myself and others
Sense of scarcity about time to work
Avoidance of certain people who know me well who, if I talked to them, I might feel more of my feelings or be held accountable about caring for myself
Obsessive thinking about tasks, including at night and upon waking
Craving escapist activities/judging that craving/over-regulating escapist activities
Guidelines for Greater Wellness:
Only listen to news once a day, and at most one additional podcast related to pandemic
Meditate every day at least 20 minutes
Physical therapy exercises every morning
Walk outside every day, at least 3 times a week a walk more than 2 miles
Yoga or weights at least 3 times a week
Time set aside to talk to CB when we aren’t doing anything else
Centering practice 1-5 times/day with connection to feeling of purpose
Bonus Activities That Help:
Board games or cards with family members
Listen to music instead of podcasts
Put on a fun outfit and go for a walk
Phone date with CW
Longer meditations
Bring in flowers from outside
Snail mail & crafting
Unhelpful/Untrue Thoughts:
I’m not doing enough (activist projects, self-care, writing, correspondence with loved ones).
I’m a bad friend, boyfriend, caretaker of dogs, uncle, sibling, nephew, etc.
Helpful Truths to Remember:
My conditioning makes me want to respond to the unknown of this time with over-doing. There is nothing I have to do, and all that I do will be better for me and others if it doesn’t come from this “must” and “should” feeling, but instead from choice and sober discernment of how I can be of service.
This is a precious time to be connected to the people and animals I live with and give them my attention. I can do this from a place of desire, not a place of inadequacy.
I benefit from my self-care practices and I can notice feelings of avoidance but remember and choose the benefits instead.
I don’t have to do anything perfectly. No need to use self-care practices as a space to feel inadequate.
Areas Where I Want to Build More Boundaries or Guidelines:
Start/end times for working
Focusing on one task at a time, e.g. turning of internet when writing, answering email during a distinct block separate from looking at social media or other tasks
Roberto Sirvent and I are working on a series of interviews with rad mutual aid organizations and practitioners for Black Agenda Report. The first interview, with Ujimaa Medics, is now out! Have a read and look out for more to come.
Image of Ujimaa Medics training on how to dress a gunshot wound, from this article.
Communities are pulling together to provide mutual aid amid the coronavirus outbreak. @seattleulaw's @deanspade says there's a long history of U.S. social movements providing vital services when governments fail. "We're not just gonna wait and hope that they solve our problems." pic.twitter.com/55SIjmHYok
I had the great pleasure of appearing on Democracy Now! today with my favorite thinker/talker/doer, Mariame Kaba, to talk about the growing network of mutual aid projects and pods responding to COVID-19, and the broader context of mutual aid in left social movements.
Talking about mutual aid is so particularly compelling to me right now in a presidential election year. It feels like the presidential election demands so much passivity from us, asking us to watch celebrity drama unfold on a level we can do very little to impact, leaving many people frustrated and relatively helpless. Even if a candidate we prefer wins, our experiences show that justice and alleviation of material suffering for targeted people is unlikely to be delivered from the federal level. Mutual aid projects let us engage right now, at the most local level, to help each other with immediate needs and to mobilize us to practice politics rather than just consuming information about politics and talking about it. I think many people are craving ways to participate more fully and actively in making change.
Here is an article, just out from Social Text, I have been working on for the last couple years about mutual aid, digging into the themes that I have been exploring in recent talks, in this little animated video and in my fall 2019 class at University of Chicago. Many thanks to Hi′ilei Hobart and Tamara Kneese for co-editing this special issue on Radical Care, and to the journal’s managing editor Marie Buck, and to Roberto Sirvent for giving me feedback on a prior draft.
There is nothing new about the dynamic where some people who identify as feminists struggle with transphobia and want to exclude trans people from various spaces. We’ve been battling this out for so long! Recently this came up in a feminist group I am part of, where some of the cis women in the group wanted to have an option to have cis women-only events, even though the group, overall, has a trans inclusive policy. Some people asserted that if the group has people of color-only events (which it does) it should be able to have cis women-only events. The group is intergenerational, and there are some significant differences in experience between the members that, in some ways, track to our experiences being politicized in different times with different ideas about gender. A friend in the group who is a trans person of color wrote a very clear email to the group with resources for learning, and gave me permission to share it here. I share it in case you are struggling in a similar group and can save time by cribbing any of this. I am moved by his commitment to help people with whom he shares many values to come into alignment with solidarity and care on this issue. I am interested in the moments when we confront painful differences and decide to try to influence each other with love and clarity rather than just leaving. Sometimes leaving is the right thing to do, but sometimes, if conditions are right, we can succeed at helping each other come to new understandings and actions. I hope this is the case in this instance.
Hi friends,
Thank you for including me in this conversation. I feel so grateful for this community and the many hours and years of work that so many people in this group have dedicated to creating space for lesbian and bi women, trans women, gender queer, non binary, and trans people. This is a very special space and I cherish it deeply.
I’m not able to come to the meeting, so I compiled the following resources for our group to discern how transphobia is in play at cis-only events, and how to orient to the target/agent dynamics.
I hear in the group “I think it’s okay to have cis-women-only events because we have POC-only events,” so I want to start there by saying that having a cis-only event is equivalent to having a white-only event because it excludes the target group and uses the organizational resources to create more space for the agent group.
For a short 1-page read on understanding target/agent between trans and non-trans women, please check out: Transmisogyny Primer
(If the group wanted to have a white caucus, or a cis-women’s caucus for the purpose of processing and self reflection……that would be something different. If desired, people of color or trans people would be allowed to be present/not excluded, and the intention would be to do self work for the purpose of confronting white supremacy or cisgender privilege.)
Another way I hear justification for cis-only events is from experiences of men’s violence against women.
It is a mistake to exclude trans women from women’s spaces on the basis of prior experiences of men’s violence against women. Trans women are not men.Trans women experience death and violence at extremely high rates, specifically because they are women living in sexism, misogyny, and transphobia. The concept that trans women are “really men” is a lie perpetuated to marginalize and stigmatize trans women and to divide the collective power of women. For more depth, please visit Julia Serano’s 2017 article “Debunking ‘Trans Women Are Not Women'”.
As feminists, we are dedicated to fighting gender essentialism. That means fighting against the transphobic and sexist ideas that one’s genitals at birth, or how they were regarded by their parents or society, determine their gender.
As a group, a common value is safety, and so I want to address safety in the group, too. This article by Emi Koyama from 2002 is a useful text for examining what safety could really look like in women’s spaces.
Excluding trans women from women’s spaces doesn’t make anyone safer, and creates more exclusion and danger for trans women, who are already categorically more vulnerable to death and violence, loss of family and community, and dangerous living and working conditions. If you need the numbers, here is the NGLTF and National Center for Transgender Equality report “Injustice at Every Turn”
Thank you for the group’s ongoing dedication to confronting oppression, and ongoing commitment to self reflection and living our values.
I admire the group so much, and am proud of our work together.
This fall, I taught a class about mutual aid where we talked a lot about the differences between mutual aid projects that provide direct aid as part of radical movements trying to get to the root causes of problems and charity or social services organizations that provide direct aid in ways that often supplement, stabilize, or sustain violent and coercive hierarchies. We also talked and read about organizations that have started out as mutual aid projects and become social service or charity organizations. We talked about how organizations get de-fanged or co-opted, and what kinds of efforts mutual aid participants make to prevent this. As we read various texts about mutual aid projects from different places and times, I tried to keep track on a chart of some of the qualities and tendencies that seem to be present in mutual aid projects, versus those that seem to define social service or charity projects. I hope this might be a helpful tool for people within organizations providing direct aid to talk to each other about. None of the observations below are meant to be absolutes–many organizations have a mix of these tendencies and qualities. The chart only hopes to suggest that an overwhelming presence of qualities in the right-hand column or a drift toward those tendencies and qualities sometimes undermines the potential for mutual aid projects to build new social relations.
Horizontalist and Participatory Characteristics of Mutual Aid Projects
Characteristics of Hierarchical, Charitable Non-Profits and Social Service Programs (or what tends to change about mutual aid projects as they move toward becoming charities or social service programs)
“Members” = people making decisions
“Members” = donors
De-professionalized survival work done by volunteers
Service work staffed by professionals
Beg, borrow, and steal supplies
Grant money for supplies/philanthropic control of program
Use people power to resist any efforts by government to regulate or shut down activities
Follow government regulations about how the work needs to happen (usually requiring more money, causing reliance on grants, paid staff with professional degrees)
Survival work rooted in deep and wide principles of anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, racial justice, gender justice, disability justice
Siloed single-issue work, serving a particular population or working on one area of policy reform, disconnected from other ‘issues’
Open meetings, as many people making decisions and doing the work as possible
Closed board meetings, governance by professionals or people associated with big institutions or big donors, program operated by staff, volunteers limited to stuffing envelopes or other menial tasks occasionally, volunteers not part of high level decision making
Efforts to support people facing the most dire conditions
Imposing eligibility criteria for services that divide people into “deserving” and “undeserving”
Give things away without expectations
Conditions for getting help or participating in something—you have to be sober, have a certain family status, have a certain immigration status, not have outstanding warrants, not have certain convictions, etc.
People participate voluntarily because of passion about injustice
People come looking for a job, wanting to climb a hierarchy or become “important”
Efforts to flatten hierarchies—e.g. flat wage scales if anyone is paid, training so that new people can do work they weren’t professionally trained to do, rotating facilitation roles, language access
Establishing and maintaining hierarchies of pay, status, decision-making power, influence
Values self-determination for people impacted or targeted by harmful social conditions
Offers “help” to “underprivileged” absent of a context of injustice or strategy for transforming the conditions; paternalistic; rescue fantasies and saviorism
Consensus decision-making to maximize everyone’s participation, to make sure people impacted by decisions are the ones making them, to avoid under-represented groups getting outvoted, and to build the skill of caring about each other’s participation and concerns rather than caring about being right or winning
Person on top (often Executive Director) decides things or, in some instances, a board votes and majority wins
Direct aid work is connected to other tactics, including disruptive tactics aimed at root causes of the distress the aid addresses
Direct aid work disconnected from other tactics, depoliticized, and organization distances itself from disruptive or root causes-oriented tactics in order to retain legitimacy with government or funders
Tendency to assess the work based on how the people facing the crisis the organization wants to stop regard the work
Tendency to assess the work based on opinions of elites: political officials, bureaucrats, funders, elite media
Engaging with the organization builds broader political participation, solidarity, mobilization, radicalization
Engaging with the organization not aimed at growing participants’ engagement with other “issues,” organizations, or struggles for justice
Other observations:
When groups that have been all volunteer get money, they often fall apart in conflict about that money and how to manage and use it. When they get enough money to have staff, there is greater danger of institutionalization and pandering to funders, because someone’s income will be impacted if they lose the funders’ favor.
When groups get staffed, the volunteers sometimes expect that staff person or few people to suddenly do all the work or more than they can do, and volunteers sometimes check out. This can make the group vulnerable to loss of capacity, and also to becoming more solely governed by a few staffers. It can also be a set up for initial staffers to be heavily criticized and considered failures.
Burnout is more likely when less people are involved in a group. Burnout is less likely when there are transparent participatory decision-making processes that let people feel like they are holding the project together with lots of people instead of alone. Burnout is less likely when there is a culture of feedback and humility that lets people address harmful dynamics between people or ways that hierarchies of valuation (racism, classism, sexism, etc) are showing up in the group. Burnout is more likely when there are not clear feedback processes and people stifle concerns, gossip about each other, and blow up at each other as pressure mounts.
When organizations are dependent on funders, they have an incentive to declare false victories, so that they can keep getting funding. This can prevent innovation in the work, or realizing the work needs to be scrapped because it is having an unintentional bad impact. When organizations are volunteer-based, people are more likely to want to scrap bad ideas because their time and energy is precious to them and they want to direct it toward something effective.
When organizations have no staff, it can be a challenge to do mutual aid work that takes place during typical workday times, such as accompanying people to courts or social services offices. Unstaffed organizations may want staffing because they want to increase their capacity to provide aid.
Organizations may want to become non-profits or get a non-profit fiscal sponsor so that they can receive grants and/or tax deductable donations. The downside is that this requires financial tracking and organization skills that can concentrate power in the hands of people who have had more access to such skills and systems. It also may bring government attention and cultivate a culture of less boldness and risk-taking within the organization as it considers government and funder surveillance.
