AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We end today’s program taking a look at the amazing neighborhood networks throughout the United States that are coming together to secure their neighbors during the coronavirus pandemic– and how you can get involved. As lockdowns and layoffs sweep the country, leaving millions at risk, shared help groups are forming to safeguard and offer the susceptible, consisting of the elderly, incarcerated, undocumented and unhoused. Their goal? Uniformity not charity.
In Washington, the Tacoma Mutual Help Collective is arranging complimentary food programs for kids hit by school closures. In the Bay Location of California, the West Oakland Punks with Lunch is dealing with the houseless community and dispersing lunch and materials. In Arizona, Tucson Mutual Aid is collaborating food and supply drop-offs to people’s front doors. In Colorado, the Denver Service Employee Uniformity group is developing a network to demand an immediate moratorium on lease collection and expulsions citywide. In Minnesota, the Twin Cities Queer and Trans Mutual Help group is organizing support for queer, transgender and gender nonbinary individuals impacted by COVID-19. Here in New York City City, now the center in this country, NYC United Versus Coronavirus has put together a network of resources for childcare, grocery shipment, food donations, housing needs, bail funds and other types of assistance throughout the five districts. And those are simply a few of the countless efforts.
For more, we go to 2 of the locations of the pandemic: Seattle, Washington, and here in New York City City. We’re signed up with by two longtime shared aid organizers. In New York City, Mariame Kaba is with us, longtime organizer, abolitionist, [educator] and founder of the grassroots organization Project NIA, which works to end the incarceration of children and young people. She’s raised tens of thousands of dollars and rearranged it to groups across the country in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic. She simply did a public conference call with Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on shared aid. And in Seattle, Washington, Dean Spade is with us, associate teacher at Seattle University School of Law, creator of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, creator of the mutual help resource website BigDoorBrigade.com.
We invite you both to Democracy Now! in this so tough, trying, tough time. Mariame, inform us about a few more of these shared help efforts and what you’re doing.
MARIAME KABA: Sure. As I mentioned– as you discussed, there are a number of tasks taking place around the country. I have been privy to seeing the work that’s happening in Chicago, where Kelly Hayes, Delia Galindo and other organizers gathered, on really short notice, a Google doc to assist individuals with direct requirements, who needed any variety of dollars, whether for lease or food or and so on, provided an opportunity for individuals to sign up, and after that for people who could use to support to action in to do that. That’s one method that, through technology, people are reaching out to each other in order to be able to satisfy people’s direct requirements.
There are folks here in New York City, as you pointed out, that pulled together an abolitionist group, an abolitionist shared help fund, that raised money to be able to supply groceries to folks, grocery money to individuals.
AMY GOODMAN: And describe what you indicate, Mariame, when you say “abolitionist.”
MARIAME KABA: Well, in this case, it was an abolitionist cumulative, implying individuals who are prison-industrial complex abolitionists, who think that we need to produce the conditions on the planet to be able to abolish prisons, policing and monitoring. So, in this particular case, this grouping came together– they’re socialists, abolitionists, feminists– and they try to raise money in order to be able to provide grocery cash for folks in the– not simply in New York, I think, beyond New york city, too. They got– I believe this is an essential point, which was that they raised a great deal of money rapidly, about nearly $40,000. However the requests that can be found in were $220,000. Therefore, you can see that there’s an incredible need, which need requirements to find a method to get satisfied. And it won’t simply be happening through specific contributions. It has to likewise be the state setting in motion to offer the needs of those individuals. So those are just a couple of examples.
Endured and Punished New York City did a soap drive to raise money so that soap could be sent out inside to incarcerated people, initially in New York and now around the country, because, as you understand, incarcerated individuals can be employed, for example, through Guv Cuomo, to develop hand sanitizer, that would assist the rest of the community, however they themselves can’t have hand sanitizer within the prisons due to the fact that of the alcohol level within those particular– within that specific hand sanitizer. Attempting to set in motion to meet the product needs of the folks who need support and to have that reciprocity is key.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wish to go to Dean Spade. Mariame Kaba is in Brooklyn, New York City, and Dean is in Seattle, associate professor of Seattle University School of Law. Speak about the history of shared aid, for individuals who have actually never heard that term prior to.
DEAN SPADE: Yeah. The term “shared help” essentially simply implies when individuals band together to satisfy immediate survival requirements, typically due to the fact that of a shared understanding that the systems in place aren’t coming to satisfy them, or definitely not quick enough, if at all, and that we can do it together right now. So, usually you see them truly noticeably during type of unexpected disasters, like earthquakes, storms, floods, where people are rescuing each other or distributing water or dispersing masks, things like that. But there’s also an ongoing history of individuals and a modern reality of individuals doing shared aid projects to handle the ongoing disasters of the systems we live under. An example a lot of individuals have heard of is No More Deaths in Arizona, which puts water into the desert, and food, so that people who are crossing, hopefully, are less– it’s less mortal for them; or abortion funds, that help individuals gain access to abortion right now; or bail funds, as you discussed; or tasks that assist people coming out of foster care or our of jail find real estate; or jail pen pal projects; or child care collectives. Those are all sort of ongoing methods individuals are satisfying each other’s requirements.
And I think the most probably visible historic example of mutual aid in the U.S. that people talk about a lot is, of course, the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast programs and health programs, which were an important part of the celebration’s work. And it’s a fine example of how social motions frequently, quite much always, centrally arrange mutual aid, due to the fact that people come into social motions to get immediate needs met, and they likewise frantically want to assist others facing what they’re facing. And when they exist, they can build a shared analysis: Hey, why do not we have food? Why do not we have shelter? What systems remain in location that we all really want to get to the source of?
And I believe that a person other piece to state about this is that in a country like ours, the story is elites will resolve the problems, we should change laws, or we should get policies passed, and you must sort of wait to choose those people or lobby them and ask them to do things. And shared help has a truly various feeling to it. It resembles, you know what? We’re not simply going to wait and hope that they resolve our problems, specifically since they have a bad record of not doing that, and specifically due to the fact that a lot of relief doesn’t end up reaching the poorest individuals or the most marginalized or targeted people. Rather, we’re going to do something today to develop the world we want to live in. It’s a very empowering, participatory kind of work that tends to construct individuals’s capability to set in motion typically.
AMY GOODMAN: And the concept of uniformity not charity, Dean?
DEAN SPADE: Yeah. “charity” is a word we frequently utilize to believe about like social services or nonprofits that provide things to poor people if you qualify, if you meet these eligibility confirmation requirements, if you’re the ideal kind of poor person. We do not provide it to you unless you’re sober, unless you take these medications, or unless you have kids, or– you know, there’s histories– unless you’re correctly Christian or not queer or whatever. Charity is this kind of thing where generally money’s originating from the abundant, and they get to identify who is deserving.
That’s the reverse of uniformity? Uniformity is, wow, people are in requirement? That’s not due to the fact that they have actually done something incorrect, and we require to find the great ones and reform them. It’s since there’s something wrong with the system that makes individuals homeless, that makes individuals criminalized, that makes people desperate and makes people, you know, have no immigration status– whatever the case may be. So it’s an actually various framework, and it’s not about saviorism or about elites determining who must get what relief, which is how charity looks. It’s rather about everybody getting together and virtually simply attempting to satisfy each other’s requirements and solve instant problems together, in a really grassroots, bottom-up way, rather of a top-down way.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Mariame Kaba, we only have a few minutes. How do you hope to see these networks being established in reaction to the pandemic develop even after? And that’s an enthusiastic concern, considering after the pandemic. And likewise where individuals can visit the kind of groups that they can support?
MARIAME KABA: Sure. So, I think one of the most vital parts about shared aid has to do with altering the social relationships that we have among each other, in order to have the ability to fight beyond this existing minute, beyond the existing crisis, beyond the current form of a catastrophe that we’re trying to overcome. Therefore, among the lovely elements is that you truly don’t know where the connections are going to take you. You’re going to make and build new relationships that will type of result in new jobs and will result in brand-new understandings, that will shape the potential future of, you know, your neighborhood and beyond.
I think the truth that these are like hyper-local tasks is in fact an extremely valuable thing, because you’re definitely going to run into these folks once again. And it provides a foundation for future political action, if it’s carried out in an excellent way where individuals feel excellent about it and excellent about each other. I think that’s really important.
And in regards to where individuals can go to find some of these shared aid jobs, there’s a brand-new center that was produced, that somebody created, using all of these different– how do you call it?– all the various Google docs that have actually been showing up and flowing, so that people could discover each other and find themselves. And I will send that, because I do not have the actual link for it right now. However I will send out that over so that you can put it on your website. Which’s a way where people can connect. Individuals can go to Twitter, go to Instagram, go to Facebook. There’s so numerous Facebook pages that have shown up, many– AMY
GOODMAN: And , naturally, we’ll connect to it at democracynow.org. There have been calls by progressive district attorneys, DAs and, of course, the entire abolitionist motion around the country, to release individuals in prisons at this vital point, and detention centers. Can you rapidly– we have simply 20 seconds– talk about this? MARIAME KABA: Yes, absolutely. And I desire to comment particularly for New York. Guv Cuomo has complete discretion to have the ability to release mass clemencies for the jails. We understand that de Blasio, the mayor, has the power to be able to launch hundreds and thousands of individuals from Rikers Island and other prisons. And so we truly desire them to be able to do that. There’s lots of pressure and demands that have been released by regional groups. And we desire folk– AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there. MARIAME KABA: Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: However I wish to thank you both for being with us, Mariame
Kaba, organizer, abolitionist, creator ofJob NIA, and Dean Spade, associate teacher at
Seattle University School of Law, creator of
the Sylvia Rivera Law Task, developer of mutual help resource site BigDoorBrigade.com. I wish to just take this minute to thank the amazing group of family, my colleagues at Democracy Now!, who are mainly working from house. I want to thank Julie Crosby, Miriam Barnard, Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Nermeen Shaikh, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Libby Rainey, Sam Alcoff, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Charina Nadura, Tey-Marie Astudillo, Denis Moynihan, Adriano Contreras, María Taracena.
