Mutual Aid
A study guide of Dean Spade’s 2020 book ‘Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next).’
Summary, part 5
Dangers and Pitfalls of Mutual Aid
Even when trying to avoid the charity model, we can easily slip into the practices of it if we don’t watch ourselves. Mutual aid groups face four major charity model tendencies:
Dividing people into those who are deserving and undeserving of help;
Practicing saviorism;
Being co-opted; and
Collaborating with efforts to eliminate public infrastructure and replace it with private enterprise and volunteerism.
Each of these four concerns will be addressed below.
ONE. Deservingness Hierarchies
While many mutual aid groups are aware of these charity and relief pitfalls, they are not immune to setting up their own problematic deservingness hierarchies. This could take the form of replicating moralizing eligibility frameworks common in charities and NGOs by, for example, requiring sobriety, excluding certain criminals, and excluding single people without families.
Case Study: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 2018
Source: John Sepulvado/KQED
The 2018 Camp Fire which notably burned through Paradise, California, and surrounding areas was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. It left around 52,000 people displaced from damage and living in a tent city. Following the fire, people with more resources began leaving the tent city and those without those resources or connections stayed.
FEMA epitomizes the hierarchy of deservingness through their eligibility process: it excludes people who cannot confirm an address before the disaster (homeless people or those living in dwellings that do not give out individual mailing addresses).
This shows us that charity and relief discriminates, and while charity models can work to stabilize the current disaster, they do not work to transform the system and help people that are poor.
TWO. Saviorism and Paternalism
Saviors are encouraged to use their presumed superiority to ‘fix’ the old or dysfunctional ways of being with ‘smarter’ solutions, or more ‘moral’ ones. For example, philanthropists, politicians, and celebrities worked together to remake New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Those methods eliminated public housing, privatized schools, destroyed the public health infrastructure, and permanently displaced Black residents.
Paternalism is, “The idea that those giving aid need to ‘fix’ people who are in need is based on the notion that ... [their problems are] caused by their own personal shortcomings… [and] that those who provide aid are superior” (p. 52). Examples of this might be parenting classes, financial management classes, etc.
THREE & FOUR. Co-optation and collaboration to eliminate and replace mutual aid
Co-option is when the government steps in to provide the services previously only provided by mutual aid networks. We saw this in the above case study about the Black Panther Party in the 1960s-70s. Usually, co-option combines attacks on public infrastructure and public services (e.g., destruction of welfare) with endorsements of privatization and volunteerism (e.g., telling people that their family or the church will support them).
Case Study: Oakland Power Projects (OPP)
Privatization of fire services – Public firefighting is inadequate due to increasing wildfires amidst climate change and budget cuts on top of that. For private firefighting services, however, business is booming. Wealthy homeowners can pay to seal their homes or spray them with fire retardants. All of this while poorer folks are scrambling over FEMA “benefits.” Here, public firefighting, which should be a communal good, has been co-opted by private firefighting services.
Alternatives to 911 – Similar to private firefighting services, the OPP saw a need for firefighting reform. They, however, emerged out of anti-police and anti-prison groups. Usually, when 911 is called, a police officer is sent no matter what the call is about, and they have a history of hurting or killing those who called for help in the first place. OPP sought to build an alternative to 911 to avoid confrontation with the police. In doing so, the OPP responds to the needs of the most vulnerable within the community––unlike the private firefighting services.
Conclusion
“Mutual aid work plays an immediate role in helping us get through crises, but it also has the potential to build the skills and capacities we need for an entirely new way of living… As we deliver groceries, participate in meetings, sew masks, write letters to prisoners, … we are strengthening our ability to outnumber the police and military, protect our communities, and build systems that make sure everyone can have food, housing, medicine, dignity, connection, belonging, and creativity in their lives. That is the world we are fighting for. That is the world we can win” (p156-7).
Source
Spade, D. (2020). Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) [E-reader; Apple Books]. Retrieved from https://www.versobooks.com/books/3713-mutual-aid
Note: Page numbers may be inaccurate due to e-reader formatting.