As government falls short, mutual aid can step in

 

Bill Knight column for 2-25, 26 or 27, 2021

 Despite President Biden on Feb. 20 issuing a major disaster declaration for 77 Texas counties, local and state government responses to winter’s recent catastrophe there saw some businesses, such as Houston’s Gallery Furniture, literally open their doors to people without power, water or food, and many individuals help neighbors and strangers stay warm, fed and safe.

That’s “mutual aid.”

And in downstate Illinois, the isolation needed in a pandemic is maintained even as dozens of people get together to work for others, even at a safe distance. That’s also mutual aid – specifically Tazewell County Mutual Aid. There, a garage outside Pekin is constantly filled and emptied of material for neighbors. A recent wish list for items to gather and distribute includes powdered milk, dish soap, coins for laundromats and gift cards (“no more than $25 increments”) for fuel.

In Texas or Tazewell, mutual-aid organizations are grassroots groups trying to take their community’s welfare into their own hands, bridging gaps in necessary goods and services. The local network was founded a year ago next month, when COVID-19 surged but aid didn’t.

“I feared and anticipated what the pandemic would do to folks,” says Erin Rockhill Brown, a 52-year-old former educator, and social-service and childcare worker.

Brown’s helped with similar projects but says this was hard to get going.

“In the beginning, we had difficulty finding folks in need of assistance,” she says. “I was the founder of our network and woefully lacking in the skills needed to put the word out.”

Lacking an identity and reputation, her effort slowly caught on through “word of mouth, social media, and referrals from similar groups,” she says.

After the number of participants grew, some with organizing skills, requests for assistance and offers of assistance took off, she says.

Some volunteers are workers, others retired or jobless; many have disabilities, and some have serious illnesses; one lives in long-term care.

“Members include people of every age,” Brown says. “Some live in houses, some in apartments, some in mobile homes, and some outdoors.

 “Several are veterans,” she continues. “Some are Republicans, some are Democrats, some Independents, and some Democratic Socialists. Some are convicted felons; one is a retired police officer. Most of us are White, some are Latina/Latino, and some are Black.

“We all look out for each other in whatever ways we can and accept assistance as needed.”

Structured informally, mutual aid doesn’t work top-down, but horizontally, and it’s designed not to be judgmental nor “charity,” Brown says.

“We’ve received messages from folks who are ashamed to ask for assistance, [but] our motto is ‘Solidarity, Not Charity.’ We make clear that the network is dependent upon all of us,” she says.

“One person who felt ashamed at first had prided himself on being self-sufficient. [Since,] he’s collected and distributed produce, performed more wellness checks than I can count, cooked meals for his neighbors, and is a wonderful asset to the network.”

Although the deadly weather disaster and pandemic have created such responses, some point to similar approaches in Puerto Rico in 2017, post-Hurricane Maria, about which anthropologist Isa Rodriguez-Soto wrote, “Only the people can save the people.” Decades before, the Black Panthers provided free breakfasts for kids who otherwise went without. And more than 100 years ago, zoologist and philosopher Peter Kropotkin wrote about people joining forces to help each other.

“It is not love and not even sympathy upon which society is based. It is the conscience – be it only at the stage of an instinct – of human solidarity,” he wrote in 1902. “It is the unconscious recognition of the force that is borrowed by each man from the practice of mutual aid.”

In fact, the idea goes back centuries. In the Bible, St. Paul in Romans writes, “Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbringing.”

A 2020 book by lawyer and Seattle University professor Dean Spade, “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next),” presents principles, one of which is “solving problems through collective action rather than waiting for saviors.

“More people are learning how to organize mutual aid than have in decades,” Spade said. “This is a big chance for us to make a lot of change.”

Change needs supplies: ter and groceries, coats and personal hygiene items, temporary indoor shelter, and more. Sometimes, the effort can seem overwhelming, concedes Brown, who adds, “It’s definitely easy to feel happy and hopeful when people in our network can come together safely to actually hang out and have more traditional friendships,” she says. “We have made friends, and the conversations are often hilarious.

“Laughter and fun don’t seem like basic needs to many people,” she adds, “but they are.”