What is Mutual Aid?
Engagement
Curiosity, willingness to see harm, taking thoughtful, committed action for justice.
Separation of Politics and Injustice
Demobilizing, hiding root causes, keeping us passive and complicit.
Root Causes
Greed of bosses, landlords, health insurance companies, white supremacy, colonialism, wars, and forced migrations.
Stigmatizing Help
Humiliation, degradation, required work, small benefits, personal questions, treating recipients like frauds and crooks.
Numbing Out
Keeping people unaware of suffering, maintaining the status quo.
Activism
Living in alignment with hopes for the world, pursuing collective action for change.
Solidarity
Mobilizing people, expanding solidarity, and building movements.
Mutual Aid Projects
Mobilizing people, resisting eligibility criteria, integrating into daily life, addressing root causes.
Nonprofits
Privatized charity, replicating and legitimizing unjust systems, controlled by elite donors.
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
Programs with 'family caps' restricting benefits for new children.
Mutual Aid
Projects that meet survival needs and build shared understanding.
Racist and Sexist Tropes
Promoting stereotypes about poor women of color, immigrant women, Black families, Indigenous children, and drug use.
Charity
Rich people or government deciding who gets help and what limits are attached.
Eligibility Requirements
Sobriety, piety, curfews, job training, parenting courses, cooperation with police, lawful immigration status, or identifying paternity of children.
Nonprofit Sector
Tax shelter for rich people, directing money to pet projects, replicating inequality and exploitation.
Mass Mutual Aid Work
Threat to unjust systems, demobilized by nonprofitization and hierarchical models.