MUTUAL AID: SOME BASICS

Welcome to the work, and let's stay out of the weeds, alright?

Folks are waking up to Mo(u)rning in America, and deciding that they want, or should, get involved in mutual aid. Some folks are running real fast - everyone’s nervous systems seem activated - and founding concept-based mutual aid groups or pages or whatnot. Social media has kind of made doing hard work that takes months or years to get rolling look easy - all you ever see are the fun promos. And the truth is that it’s not easy work (and making social media is a whole other layer of work), and that you can’t and won’t do it alone.

We’re all in it together, chat!

So here’s some basic-basics from someone with a few decades of mutual aid work and community leadership.¹ These are intended for people with zero experience in mutual aid or direct action or those whose mutual aid muscles haven’t been used in a long time. If you’re a veteran, I salute you, but this one’s for the fresh fish.

MUTUAL AID: SOME BASICS

1. WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT? WHAT DO YOU REALLY, REALLY CARE ABOUT? Mutual Aid requires time, energy, sacrifice, and is often, when done right, invisible and thankless. It’s not glamorous work - even if the charismatic and outspoken leaders of mutual aid organizations make it look exciting, it’s like any other work, much of the time. It is often Joy Work, but it’s not always going to be.

   
   Before you look outward, look inward, and think about what issues move your heart and soul. Look at your own life and think about the communities you’ve been part of or are part of and what they have needed but did not have. Be honest with yourself.

   
   Our attention is our love, and our love is where we will maintain our attentions.

2. THINK LOCAL. ACT LOCAL. A while back, I saw an interview with a refugee from the war in Ukraine. It was the early days of the war, and the woman was fleeing to Poland. Her job, before the war? Helping refugees from other conflicts resettle in Ukraine. She had become one, and her advice to folks asking how they can support the defense against Russia was to focus on doing mutual aid and other work in their own communities.
   
   I agree. I’m not gonna stop you from sending a few bucks to buy eSIMs for folks in Palestine or supporting an organization in Ukraine or the Congo. But I am going to encourage you to shift your focus from the truly terrible, violent, monstrous things happening on the other side of the globe and focusing on the very real and very present needs of those in your own community. This is not being selfish, it’s being efficient and it is about being as engaged as you can be. You will see what results from your work and that will keep you engaged and motivated.

   Most importantly, working local is a way to expand your community and building connections between communities. Community is the strongest tool we have.

3. MUTUAL AID IS ABOUT COMMUNITY. Being in community with people does not mean agreeing with them or liking them. It is not about ideological purity. It is about a mission and getting that mission done.
   

   You need to learn how to STAY in community with people that aren’t perfect - people who are just like you. I suspect that one of the reasons that people spend so much time online focused on far away crises and catastrophes instead of on present and real issues in their own or adjacent communities is because it’s easy to be in solidarity with people you will likely never meet and with whom you do not have to work. You can find someone difficult or unpleasant to work with and still appreciate the work that they do and have a good work relationship.²

   Learn how to deal with not being liked and learn how to deal with people that you do not like. Working across differences is part of the work.

4. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL. A lot of mutual aid efforts blossom forth out of righteous anger at the world’s inequities, especially in times of crisis or change. That is, it’s a product of our heart and spirit, and in times of crisis or change, our hearts and spirits can be running on empty and well over the speed limit.
   
   So…breathe first. Chill. Google shit. Ask your friends. Mutual aid is a lot like deciding to take a pottery class. If you think there’s a critical lack of pottery in your life, you don’t go out and build a kiln and start digging your own clay, do you? I remain shocked by the number of people who have both zero mutual aid experience and zero leadership experience who are out here with really, really underbaked ideas.

   Find an organization and join it. I live in Los Angeles, and Mutual Aid Network Los Angeles has just launched an excellent Mutual Aid Directory.

5. Ask Your Service Community What It Needs.
   
   If you are starting an organization, which might be necessary, start by actually talking to the people you want to help. Ask them what they need. Their leadership is as important as yours. They know what they need. Once you know something about their needs, you have to, once again, be honest with yourself, and ask “Am I capable of serving these needs?”
   
   Serving the needs of particular communities may involve taking risks, for example, that you’re not capable of, competent to, or willing to take. The stakes for some kinds of mutual aid work can be very high, especially in an authoritarian era defined by militarized policing, and high risk work often requires an entire layer of skills and practices that take time to acquire and require high levels of commitment and coordination.
   
   Don’t assume you know what will solve other peoples’ problems or remove roadblocks from their lives. Don’t assume you can help people just because you live in greater comfort or safety than they do.

6. PICK A POSITION AND PLAY IT. You can’t and shouldn’t do everything.
   
   I was the Logistics Super Auntie for the Auntie Sewing Squad (A.S.S.) during the primary phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our organization was founded by performance artist and activist Kristina Wong³ to address the complete and total unavailability of masks of any kind at the Pandemic’s onset. We grew to 800 members, mostly women, and we sewed and distributed 350,000-400,000 masks, both homemade (one member sewed over 10,000 all by herself) and sourced. I am an experienced sewer - I own over a dozen sewing machines and have made my own clothes for decades.

   How many masks did I sew? ZERO.
   
   My job was LOGISTICS. I turned my entire home into a distribution center for everything from mask-making supplies to winter clothing for some of our partners on the Standing Rock reservation. At one point we had multiple 3D printers spitting out face mask frames to be smuggled into medical facilities to protect frontline workers. As our work grew to involve partner organizations in Navajo Nation and Standing Rock, I was one of two group members leading support for those areas, and my work expanded far, far beyond just supplying masks - menstrual supplies, soap, materials to build handwashing stations, food aid, medical supplies, you name it, it got loaded into my cargo van and driven to Navajo Nation.
   
   Logistics was my one job and it was a huge job and sewing masks would have been a tremendous distraction from that job. I slept well, I ate well, I didn’t work myself to exhaustion, and, as such, I didn’t end up letting myself or others down in a spiral of burnout, which is what happens when we try to do everything.
   
   What resources do you have and what can you do that others don’t have or can’t do?

7. THERE IS A ROLE FOR EVERY BODY. Just like I’ve been a logistics specialist for A.S.S., which required me to be physically strong, capable of independent action, communicative, and also relied on me having a cheap, big house and a well-running cargo van, we had members who did nothing but spreadsheet and comms work, and members who were focused on “Auntie Care,” which distributed delicious snacks, hand-saving salves, and other blessings that are part of the joy of the work. Not everyone can or should sew, and not everyone can or should be driving an overloaded cargo van across multiple states.

   You might have a significant disability or health issue that makes it hard for you to see yourself on the front lines of a struggle. You may be shy. You may be scared. You might be poor, and lack transportation or housing or food security. You may be too old for some jobs, or you might be too young. You might have to care for others in ways that limits your ability to take on risk. And so on.
   
   Trust me, if there’s something you care about, and are willing to do actual work within the range of your abilities and resources, there is a role for you.

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That’s it for now. Good luck out there, keep your head on your shoulders, stay cool, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, etc….

1. If you don’t know me, I’ve managed arts communities for mosst of my career, both studio-based, residency programs for artists and art departments art private colleges in universities, with populations ranging from about 350 to 40. This has been my “day job.” I’ve been engaged with groups big and small, from political parties to protest movements within the art world. I have joined existing efforts and I have founded or co-founded other efforts. Most recently, I’m the Logistics Super Auntie and Navajo Nation Van Driver for the Auntie Sewing Squad, an 800-member mutual aid organization founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought together two decades of professional work as a community leader and crisis-based mutual aid.

2. Please note, this does not excuse any kind of unsafe or inappropriate workplace behavior, ever. If someone is inappropriate, they need to be called-out or called-in, and this can be a community process.

3. I am required by the staggering ego of Overlord Wong to mention that she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her one-woman play about A.S.S. and our work during the Pandemic, which involved a great prop illustrating her mid-Pandemic struggle with a Bartholin cyst.