Mutual aid is hard & I promise you can do it
You may have noticed that over that last year I’ve worked with several different folks to crowdfund for unhoused neighbors. I don’t post about it beyond asking for funds because I’m not looking for clout. But recently I was talking to a friend about what’s holding them back from being more involved in mutual aid efforts and recognized how I struggled with the same insecurities as I got more involved. I’m sharing some of my experiences and perspectives on mutual aid in the hopes that it will help other folks be able to show up for their communities too. I got involved in mutual aid and prison abolitionist organizing after being radicalized by the Black Liberation Movement uprisings of 2020. I was in grad school studying community public health while a pandemic ravished us. I was unsatisfied and increasingly fucking angry about the ways that my public health program and public health institutions at large failed us. Mutual aid work is difficult. It will uncover all of your ins...