We're All In This Together: Creating the World We Want to Live In Through Mutual Aid
original article can be found in the print copy of Sage MagazineTreat others as you want to be treated. Do unto others as you would have them to unto you. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. We’ve all heard it before in some form - the Golden Rule can be found through various iterations within all major religions and thoughts of morality - but what does it actually mean? How do we show love to our neighbors? How do we want to be treated?
Loving your neighbors - and ourselves - shouldn’t be reduced to merely a feeling, rather it is a call to action to aid and uplift each other, and to create the world in which we would want to live in. Worldwide, the scope of crises has become insurmountable, with the COVID-19 pandemic, wars, climate change, and infinite inequalities - racial, gender, wealth, and so on - and the toll of their effects resonating with everyone. This list can go on infinitely, and as governments fail to act, or as they even actively perpetuate these situations, regular people are stepping up and finding creative and effective ways to support their communities. This work of ensuring each other’s basic survival needs, hand in hand with social movement, greatly amplifies the demand for lasting and sustainable change. We get more when we demand more, especially when working together towards common goals. This is mutual aid - not a new term or idea, but one that largely existed outside mainstream until recently.
Through mutual aid, we can use our collective power to change the world and push back against the powers that put us into these dire situations to begin with. The systems put in place to support and protect us may fail, but we can hold each other up - we don’t have to fail each other.
By definition, mutual aid is a voluntary exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. People take responsibility for caring for each other, with the idea that everyone has something to contribute to society, and everyone can benefit from that which is offered. As humans, our survival is dependent on one another, and rather than leaving others to fend for themselves, through mutual care, our health, well-being, and dignity can thrive. On a deeper level, mutual aid is the act of unconditional love on a community scale. When we talk about mutual aid, we are extending an invitation to share in this love, and whether or not it is reciprocated, it doesn’t matter. We take care of everyone, because every single person is worth it.
Rather than waiting for the government or other decision-making bodies to take care of society’s problems, individuals can come together in an act of solidarity, building networks among neighbors to solve and alleviate their own issues. Mutual aid is shaped purely by volunteers and the recipients of aid, and doesn’t have a centralized top-down system that those in need have to depend on, rather, it is a symbiotic, horizontal relationship, where everyone is on the same level. The concept of “othering” people is avoided. If you find the work you do is putting people into categories, then it is no longer mutual aid - there is the creation of a power differential.
“Solidarity, not charity” is the cry echoed among mutual aid networks, holding support and unity above all else, rather than relying on the hierarchical assistance that charity typically provides. Many charities aim to do good work, but often, gatekeeping and bureaucracy get in the way, affecting those whom charities aim to serve. Admittedly, most of us are used to giving money to charity and calling it a day, but in reality, that money typically goes through multiple hoops before it can get to those in need.
Mutual aid funding from the community goes right back into the community, meaning no individual is profiting off of donations, and money doesn’t have to go through any hurdles in order for it to directly assist someone. Most government programs require people to prove they are in need in order to obtain assistance (for example, proof of income is typically needed to receive food stamps). A distinctive quality of mutual aid is the absence of “conditions” for those who can receive help. No one has to prove that they qualify for aid, as it’s available for all regardless of status, whether it be financial, economical, racial - the list goes on and on. It is not those with more giving to those with less - rather, we all give to each other. The ways people help each other might not be “equal” - but the idea is that that’s okay, as we all contribute in different ways.
Above all, the overarching aim of mutual aid is to treat everyone equally, with the utmost respect and dignity. The Golden Rule, put into action.
Though mutual aid has become a more prominent part of the public lexicon in recent times, people in every society since the beginning of time have worked together to ensure that their communities could survive, resulting in cooperation for the sake of the common good. One of the most well-known examples of mutual aid is the Black Panthers’ free breakfast program for school children. From 1969 through the early 1970’s, the Black Panthers’ party members and volunteers went to local grocery stores to solicit donations, consulted with nutritionists on healthy breakfast options for children, and prepared and served the food free of charge to tens of thousands of children. The result was more alert, healthier students, and the initiative put pressure on political leaders to take care of feeding children before school. Similarly, the Young Lords, operating in Puerto Rican neighborhoods primarily in Chicago as well as throughout the country in the late 1960s, occupied a Chicago church deemed as “the People’s Church,” from which they ran daycare, medical, and free breakfast programs, in addition to raising awareness of the oppression and education on the history and struggle of Puerto Ricans.
In more recent times, mutual aid groups have formed as direct responses to specific events. Occupy Sandy, created as a result of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, initially aimed to distribute resources such as clothing, blankets, and food to hurricane victims, then eventually evolved to provide community-run programs aimed at empowering those affected or displaced by the hurricane. Food Not Bombs, started in the 1980’s by anti-nuclear war activists, is an initiative focusing on nonviolent social change, and is still in operation today. Made up of a group of loosely connected independent collectives throughout the country, they provide free vegan and vegetarian meals for the public, with ingredients sourced from local businesses that would normally go to waste. All these groups were (or currently are) grassroots efforts, started and maintained by regular community members looking to fulfill the needs of their neighbors, with the understanding that whatever affects one of us, affects us all, and that we can’t wait for someone else to save us.
In a perfect world, the government would be able to take care of everyone and solve all our problems, however the reality is that existing government programs typically provide aid too slowly, or they don’t provide enough aid to those who are the most vulnerable. COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement both pulled the curtain on the structural failures in place in the United States (as well as in other countries) and lack of government support, exposing the need for systemic change across the board. In response to these staggering disparities and rather than waiting for assistance, grassroots community programs popped up rapidly across the country, with self-organized groups of neighbors mobilizing to rely on and provide support for one another. The failures of the US healthcare system during COVID-19 provided a focus on how these letdowns specifically contributed to health disparities in Black and Brown communities, and the continuing lack of affordable healthcare overall spurred the creation of free healthcare services.
Healthcare for the People, a New York City based collective of licensed medical professionals, offers services such as medical consultations, vitals and blood pressure screenings, rapid HIV tests, and contraception management.
Community free food fridges have been around since before the pandemic, and have multiplied directly as a result of COVID-19, with soaring unemployment rates and food pantry lines increasing incrementally. The “take what you need, leave what you can” model is rooted deeply in trust, requiring communication and teamwork among community members to ensure the fridges are stocked, maintained, and serving the best interests of the community. Anyone is welcome to take or donate food regardless of one’s status, and distributing to neighbors is greatly encouraged. In Our Hearts, an anarchist network of independent collectives based in New York City, opened their first community fridge in the area in early 2020, and provides assistance to the many other city fridges, in addition to supporting local Food Not Bombs chapters and a number of other mutual aid based projects. The Fridge Girls, a group of women from the Bronx, saw the dire need in keeping the fridges regularly stocked, and filled in the gap by delivering food to various community fridges in New York City, making sure they can provide further nourishment for their visitors.
Mutual aid can begin simply through the practice of just one person. During COVID-19, this could be as simple as offering to pick up groceries or medication for the elderly and other immunocompromised folk - in turn, less people out in the world means less people are exposed to the virus, overall benefitting society. To get involved in already established groups, you can reach out to a mutual aid network and find out how you can volunteer. Donating money is always great - however time and effort are also incredibly valuable, meaning anyone can get involved. If you’re looking to go further, create your own mutual aid network! Identify what there is a genuine need for in your community, find out what resources you and your immediate network have to offer, and build upon those - create bridges where others may see gaps.
How can we make sure the mutual aid movement is sustainable, and how can we continue to build solidarity into the future? Relationships are key, and continuing to form and build upon connections with individuals and businesses in your area for support is essential to growth. Fostering relationships with those in need is equally as important, as the needs of the community are constantly changing, and direct communication with neighbors will help your own system evolve in a positive way. Connecting with other mutual aid networks, continuing to recruit volunteers, and openly sharing information with them and your followers is also important in avoiding a hierarchical system. Practice care and compassion, and always remember that everyone is deserving of empathy and respect. Be curious about the space between you and others that you don’t notice until you “other” them. Understand there may be a gap between your own good intentions and the systems upon which the world actually works, and find ways to radically change these systems. Recognize its existence, and be open to staying critical, staying involved, and holding others - and yourself - accountable when the occasion arises.
We need to continue to fix things, not just in the moment of need, but in order to push back on that which creates the need. Real, sustainable change can’t happen from just adding to a community fridge every once in a while, or even through regular volunteering, no matter how much time and effort you put in - the work comes in dismantling the systems in place that create the issues. If we can’t find ourselves relating to the circumstances someone is experiencing from oppression, then we need to seek that which creates that circumstance. “Helping” without demolishing the very thing that created the need for help only serves the oppressor. A community fridge should not function to simply manage hunger, rather, through tackling a myriad of other issues such as food waste, sustainable food systems, nutrition, and income equality, the fridge’s true purpose should be to end hunger.
Overall, we deserve more from ourselves and from one another. We are only as safe as the person who has the least among us, and therefore, we are responsible for uplifting each other by creating and nurturing a world in which we would all want to live. No matter what our own individual beliefs are, a unifying characteristic of every human being is that no one on this earth truly knows why we’re here - so while we’re all in this together, let’s go all in on taking care of each other.
If you’d like to get involved with mutual aid, here are a few resources to guide and inspire you:
Big Door Brigade, an extensive collection of resources and guides: bigdoorbrigade.com
Mutual Aid Hub, a map of mutual aid groups all over the world: mutualaidhub.org
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: mutualaiddisasterrelief.org
Freedge, a worldwide network for community fridges: freedge.org
Food Not Bombs: foodnotbombs.net
In Our Hearts: inourhearts.nyc