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 insecurities and issues that you face in your existing relationships. This work requires deep internal reflection and commitment to take accountability for your own trauma and the maladaptive ways you cope with your trauma. 

During and after grad school I was very depressed. I found myself deeply craving community but struggled immensely to keep in contact with the people I cared about. How can I do mutual aid if I can’t even text my friend back? I had the privilege to be able to afford the food that I needed but I often lacked the energy and motivation to feed myself. How am I suppose to feed others if I can’t feed myself? I found myself feeling intimidated by the people doing the work I wanted to be doing. Insecure is probably a better way to describe it. Those people were clearly just better people than me. But when I jumped in, I stared realized that the people I looked up to weren’t innately better than me but rather that this work brings out the best in people. It’s brought the best out of me.

Being involved in my community has helped my mental health in a way that therapy never had - or could. The industrial mental health complex characterized our issues as individualistic and is fundamentally incapable of healing the wounds of an isolated society. I may not always have the motivation to take care of myself but I do have the motivation to take care of others. And I can’t help others if I’m struggling. Mutual aid has given me a sense of purpose and belonging that formal institutions never could. 

Mutual aid has thrown my insecurities and flaws in my face in a way I hadn’t had to deal with before. It helped me to see when problems were stemming from my own trauma and when other people were projecting onto me.

People are rightfully very fearful of the effects of climate change. Climate disaster will not create some new inequalities - it will exacerbate existing inequality. No one is coming to save us. If that’s not clear two years after the 2020 uprisings and pandemic, I’m not sure what more devastation you need to witness to make that clear. The state doesn’t take care of us, we take care of us. If you’re someone who is concerned with climate disaster please please recognize that your most vulnerable neighbors are already struggling. While you push for better climate policy, recognize that we must be building care networks now. 

I’ve worked closely with three individuals and one family through mutual aid over months. I met these folks because me and my comrades noticed them and those people asked us for support. Talk to your neighbors. Pay attention to what you need and what they need and ask for it. 

We are incredibly stressed because we are oppressed. I recognize that most of us feel like we’re drowning in the responsibilities we already have. I’m asking you to pay attention and show up for people however you can. If you’re someone who still has money in your account at the end of the month, consider integrating mutual aid into your monthly expenses. It’s not enough to donate to non-profits. I work at a non-profit and I’m proud of the work we do. Non-profits exist within the same white supremacist, oppressive structures that we are trying to mitigate the consequences of. Mutual aid has the power to create care networks that will exist beyond the oppressive structure. Whether it’s $5 or $100, there’s someone in your community right now that could use that money for their survival. 

I have and continue to work in more formalized radical grassroots organizations. That’s an entirely different story. But what I will say is that the same oppressive structure - anti-blackness, queerphobia, and ableism - will without a doubt show up in our organizations unless we are actively subverting white supremacy culture. There’s immense value in the principled struggle to make our coalitions what they need to be. That’s not what I will be speaking about today. Today I want you to know that whatever skills or resources you have to offer are immensely valuable. You don’t need lots of money or time to be able to show up for your neighbors. What you do need is the balls to do it. I’m here to help, other people are here to help. If you’re local, let’s work together. If you want to know how you can show up for your own community elsewhere, we’re happy to help talk through what that could look like.