Dean Spade is a lawyer, writer and trans activist "who has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He works as an Associate...
Dean Spade is a lawyer, writer and trans activist "who has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He works as an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law." In his essay "Solidarity Not Charity", Spade reflects on their work as an activist and makes the case for utilizing the organizational theory of mutual aid to strengthen progressive movements and build community.
The author analyzes the requisite characteristics of the systems on which society is built, and highlights the facade of reformism that he posits demobilizes popular leftist movements:
Systems of domination produce routes for channeling dissatisfaction that are nonthreatening to those systems. We are encouraged to bring our complaints in ways that are the least disruptive and the most beneficial to existing conditions.
Resistant intellectual traditions have consistently raised the concern that reforms emerge in the face of disruptive movements demanding justice but for the most part are designed to demobilize by asserting that the problem has been taken care of, meanwhile making as little material change as possible.
Spade offer's several examples such as:
half-baked immigration reform that picks and choose recipients based on arbitrary merit,
tokenization of members of marginalized groups brought into the employ of continually discriminatory organizations, and
social safety-net reform that addresses procedural gaps, without considering the root causes of disproportionate inequality in society.
In my experience as an activist and Leftist, there is near constant battle between liberals and Leftist. One of the main points of contention is the concept of reformism verses "revolution." I tend to concur with the author that systems are inherently resistant to change, that working within the system is often a lost cause. On the other hand, I have to admit the "black and white" stance that progressive movements tend to project can be detrimental to progress as well. In relation to the Black Lives Matter movement, it has lead directly to not only confusion within the movement, but misunderstanding from onlookers. The ambiguity of the movement's name is most blatant; to an outsider the natural counterpart to such a statement is that other lives don't matter. This is an absurdity, but the misinformed (a large segment of the population) are not compelled to engage with a movement that they perceive to be discriminatory in itself. I find it somewhat ironic that a progressive movement which correctly relies upon the concept of intent verses perception has struggled to identify issues of perception in relation to their messaging.
He then opines the benefits of mutual aid; by abandoning the power structures that dominate and ail society we may begin to rebuild from the bottom up a community with an embedded social characteristic of equity, absent of power structures. Spade defines mutual aid as:
Mutual aid is a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable.
The concept of caring for one another, rather than caring for others is paramount. Not only is it a mechanic for growth of a mutual aid movement, but as we'll see later it is the concept of "solidarity not charity" that defines mutual aid from the charity structure and it's implicit flaws.
Being able to get help with a crisis is often a condition of being able to politically participate. It is hard to be part of organizing when you are struggling with a barrier to survival. Getting support through a mutual aid project that has a political analysis of the conditions that produced your crisis also helps break stigma and isolation. In capitalism, social problems resulting from maldistribution and extraction are seen as individual moral failings of targeted people. Getting support in a context that sees the systems, not the people suffering in them, as the problem can help combat the isolation and stigma. People at the front lines have the most awareness of how these systems harm and are essential strategists because of their expertise. Directly impacted people and people who care about them often join movements because they want to get and give help. Mutual aid exposes the failures of the current system and shows an alternative. It builds faith in people power and fights the demobilizing impacts of individualism and hopelessness-induced apathy.
Furthermore, Spade details the difficulties of organizing mutual aid. In order to create a movement independent of systems which have intrinsic power structures, the ingrained concept of ranked leadership is a difficult one to challenge. The concept of consensus based decision making is one that can often lead to stalemate and difficulties in organizing, but it is this process that underpins mutual aid's ability to lift up marginalized communities while maintaining no such power imbalances. It balances the line of lifting up the oppressed without placing the disadvantaged on a symbolic pedestal to further irrelevant or misguided political agendas. In the essay's namesake, the concept of charity also preoccupies the ideals of many members of neoliberal society.
Mutual aid also faces the challenge of neoliberal co-optation. Neoliberalism combines attacks on public infrastructure and public services, endorsing privatization and volunteerism. As public services are cut, neoliberals push for social safety nets to be replaced by family and church, assuming that those who fail to belong to such structures deserve abandonment. Philanthropy and privatization are expected to replace public welfare, and public-private partnerships are celebrated as part of a fiction that everything should be “run like a business.” The cultural narrative about social justice entrepreneurship suggests that people who want change should not fight for justice but should invent new ways of managing poor people and social problems. This raises the question, How do mutual aid projects remain threatening and oppositional to the status quo and cultivate resistance, rather than becoming complementary to abandonment and privatization?
The concept of applying mutual aid as a broad tactic to progressive movements is not new, but it is a powerful tool to empower communities in a productive fashion. Mutual aid goes further than just dismantling oppressive systems, but it directs support to all and uses conversations started therein to build new systems that replace the old. I believe Leftists in particular can benefit from such actions, and any movement addressing oppression can as well.
One example of abandoning an existing system can be seen via the Buy Nothing Project. Whilst many see it as a way to get free stuff, the core point of it is to establish a gift economy over a...
Whilst many see it as a way to get free stuff, the core point of it is to establish a gift economy over a monetary one.
My one town regularily had 'Free fairs' (sometimes correlating with the formal town yard sale day), where it was a yard sale, but no prices.
We've given away and recieved hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. Produce, canned goods, children's toys. We got a Fitbit, used it for llike a month, and are now going to give it away.
While stuff forms the foundation, once COVID is more under control, I'm going to start offering tool lending and tech support for free as well.
Getting people familiar with a gift economy means that someday, perhaps it could replace the majority of the monetary one.
A very similar project is Freecycle. Their core focus has been to keep products from going to landfills, rather than mutual aid, but the premise still stands. I haven't used the program in quite...
A very similar project is Freecycle. Their core focus has been to keep products from going to landfills, rather than mutual aid, but the premise still stands. I haven't used the program in quite some time, and it seems to have slowed down, but it's still there!
Dean Spade is a lawyer, writer and trans activist "who has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He works as an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law." In his essay "Solidarity Not Charity", Spade reflects on their work as an activist and makes the case for utilizing the organizational theory of mutual aid to strengthen progressive movements and build community.
The author analyzes the requisite characteristics of the systems on which society is built, and highlights the facade of reformism that he posits demobilizes popular leftist movements:
Spade offer's several examples such as:
In my experience as an activist and Leftist, there is near constant battle between liberals and Leftist. One of the main points of contention is the concept of reformism verses "revolution." I tend to concur with the author that systems are inherently resistant to change, that working within the system is often a lost cause. On the other hand, I have to admit the "black and white" stance that progressive movements tend to project can be detrimental to progress as well. In relation to the Black Lives Matter movement, it has lead directly to not only confusion within the movement, but misunderstanding from onlookers. The ambiguity of the movement's name is most blatant; to an outsider the natural counterpart to such a statement is that other lives don't matter. This is an absurdity, but the misinformed (a large segment of the population) are not compelled to engage with a movement that they perceive to be discriminatory in itself. I find it somewhat ironic that a progressive movement which correctly relies upon the concept of intent verses perception has struggled to identify issues of perception in relation to their messaging.
He then opines the benefits of mutual aid; by abandoning the power structures that dominate and ail society we may begin to rebuild from the bottom up a community with an embedded social characteristic of equity, absent of power structures. Spade defines mutual aid as:
The concept of caring for one another, rather than caring for others is paramount. Not only is it a mechanic for growth of a mutual aid movement, but as we'll see later it is the concept of "solidarity not charity" that defines mutual aid from the charity structure and it's implicit flaws.
Furthermore, Spade details the difficulties of organizing mutual aid. In order to create a movement independent of systems which have intrinsic power structures, the ingrained concept of ranked leadership is a difficult one to challenge. The concept of consensus based decision making is one that can often lead to stalemate and difficulties in organizing, but it is this process that underpins mutual aid's ability to lift up marginalized communities while maintaining no such power imbalances. It balances the line of lifting up the oppressed without placing the disadvantaged on a symbolic pedestal to further irrelevant or misguided political agendas. In the essay's namesake, the concept of charity also preoccupies the ideals of many members of neoliberal society.
The concept of applying mutual aid as a broad tactic to progressive movements is not new, but it is a powerful tool to empower communities in a productive fashion. Mutual aid goes further than just dismantling oppressive systems, but it directs support to all and uses conversations started therein to build new systems that replace the old. I believe Leftists in particular can benefit from such actions, and any movement addressing oppression can as well.
One example of abandoning an existing system can be seen via the Buy Nothing Project.
Whilst many see it as a way to get free stuff, the core point of it is to establish a gift economy over a monetary one.
My one town regularily had 'Free fairs' (sometimes correlating with the formal town yard sale day), where it was a yard sale, but no prices.
We've given away and recieved hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. Produce, canned goods, children's toys. We got a Fitbit, used it for llike a month, and are now going to give it away.
While stuff forms the foundation, once COVID is more under control, I'm going to start offering tool lending and tech support for free as well.
Getting people familiar with a gift economy means that someday, perhaps it could replace the majority of the monetary one.
A very similar project is Freecycle. Their core focus has been to keep products from going to landfills, rather than mutual aid, but the premise still stands. I haven't used the program in quite some time, and it seems to have slowed down, but it's still there!