Who is Doing Mutual Aid Anyway?

I’m the most liberated in spaces where people are taking care of people, making a meaningful impact, sharing, trading, learning, and thriving through solidarity.

I look around in these spaces to find that they are full of the anarchists, the abolitionists, the working class, LGBTQIA+, the non-religious, the anti-war, the people for the liberation of all oppressed. The more I see the unity they are building, the common sense they embody, the more I decide that these are my people.

A group of us cook a meal every other Sunday in Nashville, TN to distribute to 100 unhoused neighbors. We talk about the Black Panthers, the Palestinian Resistance, and get to know each other. We spend time with the community, we hear their stories, and eat together, and I’m drawing the lines to Palestine.

I think to myself, “If I keep getting better at this I can cook for the kids in Gaza too, the ones with the empty pots.” I watched a video of Saleh Al-Jafarawi in Gaza going to a camp kitchen and stirring the huge pots and how difficult it was. I made a mental note to get stronger so I can stir the pots. The least I could do. Amidst the reports of anyone who takes care of someone in Gaza (paramedic, doctor, cook, mother, uncle) is being targeted by the occupation. Amidst reports of mutual aid groups in Nashville being cited with violations for feeding people. Amidst nonprofits getting put on the chopping block federally. We really are the biggest threat to the state. Otherwise they wouldn’t care about our ability to care.

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Nashville is surreal. While walking through a Broadway Ave. alley where people are living in sleeping bags, we wait to cross the street as a peddle tavern inches by. The patrons yip gleefully at their pop song as they peddle and laugh and wave at us. We’re carrying totes full of to-go containers.

I’m often left wondering what the disconnect is. Why is it that some people believe, “All people in this community deserve to be taken care of, all deserve food and shelter and kindness.” Then some people say the exact opposite. Considering that TN has some of the harshest laws criminalizing homelessness, yet not much that is useful to help people obtain and remain housed, this is a systemic issue led by a group with questionable morals.

So, I feel untethered from those around me - when it starts to snow they cozy up, make a cup of hot chocolate, and watch a movie. Meanwhile I have nothing but anxiety about people freezing to death outside. Please - send the weirdos, the readers, the anarchy tattoo on each finger, the purple haired, the wacky styles, the outcasts, the black sheep, the place where we find the people who are doing the damn thing. They don’t have to pontificate about who is worthy or deserving of their time or help. They don’t gatekeep their resources or knowledge. They don’t have an interest in climbing up a ladder to hold power over someone else. It’s so sad really. How society has been bent and broken by capitalism, by the state, by religious institutions, to the point that it’s not the norm to just work together like this anymore.

Why are there huge commercial buildings taking up all this space and doing nothing for anyone. We need a food pantry on every corner, a free health care clinic in each neighborhood, a tool library, a book library, a community garden, a clothing closet, a friends meeting space, a skill share center, and a place to make art. These are the things that the community yearns for. These are the things that are available only now in spaces of mutual aid. Organized by the people who have been ostracized and pushed to the end of society. They are the ones who know how to take care of people. They know what it takes to build a space that is welcoming, loving, and supportive. Because they know best what it looks like to be burned alive by their oppressors.

Photo taken at a Food Pantry that also serves as a safe and supportive place for the trans community.

When there’s a disaster, a war, and the end of the world. I wanna be with my rejects, my queer family, my street medics, my artists, my activists, organizers, wearing thrifted hand me downs, we don’t dead name, we have a good time. Those organizations who have those fun names and all the funding and cute websites and huge, empty buildings. They won’t know what to do when the other shoe drops. But here’s the thing - we can teach them!

I was in North Carolina organizing some hurricane relief that was donated by community members from all over. I pulled out a tote that had “valentines day decorations” marked out and underneath it said “medical supplies”. That really put things into perspective. We have been so distracted by the manufactured need to be involved in these made-up capitalist schemes, and luckily in times of a massive hurricane, most are able to step away from it. But the reality is we need to step away from it without a one time hurricane, every day is like a hurricane already, let’s act accordingly.

Nashville is chalk full of frilly orgs who talk a lot about “volunteer” work or building up their community. Yet in early December, when it started to snow, the temperature was in the 20s, they were nowhere to be found. The Governor’s Christmas tree lighting was the same night at the Capitol building, and some of these orgs attended that event. While our neighbors were freezing in the streets of Nashville, TN. Local Mutual Aid groups were frantically crowdfunding material items, getting groups of community members together to give out propane canisters, hot hands, gloves, hot food, and life saving items to our neighbors who were at risk in severe weather conditions. They were offering rides to warming shelters, and assessing needs to come back again the next day. They were walking up and down camps to reach everyone they could see. There were people sleeping in tents by a river in the snow, and their backdrop was a new multi million dollar football stadium being built with tax dollars. High rises and party buses. People cheering as they gaze upon the lights sparkling into green and red colors on a tall tree.

Walking through the encampments and handing out these items pulled me to Gaza. Palestinians living in tents amongst the rubble of their home, finding ways to stay warm in the frigid and rainy Palestine winter. Makeshift items keeping them alive.

With these experiences, any reasonable person would connect the dots between the oppressor in the US putting people in the streets being the same oppressor putting people in the streets in Palestine and Lebanon.

Let’s go, let’s organize the aid, stock the pantry, clean and wrap a flesh wound, glean some veggies, and feed some people who otherwise couldn’t eat. Let’s get to know each other. Not sure what everyone else is doing. But you’re missing out.