Practicing Mutual Aid as Abolition in Action: A Student's Guide to Organizing

Practicing Mutual Aid as Abolition in Action: A student's guide to organizing SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.........................................................3 PART ONE: What World Do We Want to Build?

The Failings of Legal Reforms and Electoral Politics....................................................................8 What is Mutual Aid?.........................................12 Important Values within Mutual Aid..........17 The Non-Profit Industrial Complex............22 Abolition Begins Within..................................25 PART TWO: Taking Action My Location........................................................38 Juneteenth Drive...............................................44 A Conversation with Student Organizers...........................................................45 Wealth Redistribution How To....................46 Building a Defense Campaign.......................51 Resources............................................................56 Citations..............................................................58

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INTRODUCTION In her book, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us, Mariame Kaba teaches us that Prison Industrial Complex] (PIC) abolition "is a vision of a restructured society in a world where we have everything we need: food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water, and more things that are foundational to our personal and community safety.” (Kaba 31) The end of prisons and police is only one tenet of abolition. The hope is that in this society where we are better at meeting one another's needs it becomes possible to address harm without reliance on systems rooted in violence and white supremacy.

The project of PIC abolition seems like a daunting task. For one, the number of abolitionists are relatively small and most people aren't informed on what alternatives exist. I've told family members that I think we should get rid of prisons and police and they looked at me like I’m crazy. These reactions show how successful neoliberal propaganda is at convincing people that we would not be safe without prisons and police.

Even though conversations on abolition began to enter the mainstream from last summer, it still

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has a ways to go before becoming a dominant viewpoint. Getting people on board with abolition will take a lot political education to convince people, and even then folks remain hesitant because abolitionists are trying to create a world that has never existed before. People have a lot of fears about what would happen if there were no prisons or police and little knowledge about alternatives or how we go about addressing the root conditions of harm. The US empire has the upper hand in shaping people's perceptions about safety, so it’s difficult to make the case that prisons and police create more violence than they do safety.

The ways that we (dis)engage with electoral politics, the criminal legal system, and the nonprofit system while organizing outside of these avenues is inextricably linked to the world we end up creating. As Dean Spade articulates in Normal Life “We must endeavor to create and practice a critical trans politics that contributes to building a political context for massive redistribution. A critical trans politics imagines and demands an end to prisons, homelessness, landlords, bosses, immigration enforcement, poverty, and wealth. It imagines a world in which people have what they need and govern themselves in ways that value collectivity, interdependence, and difference.”

We rarely talk about the inherent limitations of

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government sponsored institutions in their ability to support social movements and alter material conditions because of their subservience to the state. The relationship between the state, foundations, and organizations is a part of a system I will focus on later in this zine, sometimes referred to as the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC). I do not argue that any efforts within the NPIC or other state-sponsored institutions are futile, but simply that this institution cannot be our only recourse.

So where do we begin with educating people on PIC abolition and building this world of abolition?

My answer would be that this project has already started in small and large movements around the world, in the form of mutual aid and combined with other kinds of collective action. Dean Spade defines mutual aid as “collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them” (Spade 13).

I see mutual aid as abolition in action. As we meet each other's needs we come to realize that we keep each other safe in ways that the state, prisons and police never have if you are not are not a rich cis-het white man. It also reveals that another world is possible because we are mobilizing people to create change right now. Mutual aid can be combined with other tactics such as direct action and political education, allowing us to make real strides towards an abolitionist future.

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My aspirations with this zine are threefold: To examine potential modes of organizing, to document some of the work that me and other Vassar student organizers have done surrounding mutual aid, abolition, and wealth redistribution, and overall, to provide guidance to youth organizers.

The first half of the zine focuses on why we should be engaging more in mutual aid if we want to achieve an abolitionist world. The second half centers my own experiences organizing and provides a guide for the work of wealth redistributions as well as other different organizing tactics.

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PART ONE: What World Do We Want to build?

THE FAILINGS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS AND LEGAL REFORMS Using the "master's tools" in a settler colonial state inherently limits the potential for radical change. Thus, it's necessary to find avenues of resistance that don't reinforce state institutions. While Black anarchists have argued this for decades, many are written off as being unrealistic and utopic.

But the reality is that the current system cannot be “fixed” because it operates on inequality. The global pandemic has laid bare these violent inequalities that capitalism creates and maintains. We were in crisis before COVID-19 hit and now conditions have only been exacerbated.

Despite what liberals might say, we cannot vote our way out of this mess-especially within our corrupt two party system.

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The agenda of the Democratic party does not align with the material needs of Black people and other oppressed groups. Their desire to preserve the settler colonial state and the afterlives of slavery is evident by their support for police and prisons, the Iraq War, post 9/11 demestic policy, and various other projects of the US empire that are antithetical to liberation.

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The Law Will Not Save Us The law reform agenda individualizes racism; for example, discrimination law says racism is about bad individuals that deliberately make discriminatory choices and must be punished, rendering systemic racism invisible. Other major disparities are not even considered violations like access to education, health, employment, housing, and clean air and water.

Ultimately, law reforms help to refine the system by allowing it to claim equality and fairness while it continues to target and kill the most vulnerable people while only partially or temporarily mitigating harm of less vulnerable groups. For the law to hold a white supremacist settler state accountable, it would have to destroy itself.

Take for example, hate crime laws, which do nothing to stop violence against trans and queer people. A lot of this violence actually happens within the criminal legal system, which hate crime laws give more resources to.

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If certain populations (like Black and Indigenous people) have already been excluded from the social contract of the US since its founding, any progress we might get from elections and legal reforms are conditional at best. Let’s not forget that everything gained from the state can be reversed. As Malcolm X said “Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something that you have to do for yourselves.” We need to take a transformative approach and organize with principles grounded in radical love and solidarity instead of trying to make capitalist, white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, transphobic, etc. systems include us. The work of mutual aid is a way for people to build autonomy and challenge the state!

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WHAT IS MUTUAL AID? Dean Spade defines mutual aid as “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 representatives, but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable” Many of us feel disempowered by white supremacy and capitalism but mutual aid is a way for us build the people power necessary to fight against these systems!

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CHARITY VS. MUTUAL AID

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EXAMPLES OF MUTUAL AID 1. Food assistance networks 2. Prison letter writing projects 3. Defense campaigns

4. Community Bail Funds 5. Ride systems

6. Emergency Response Systems 7. Legal assistance projects

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The examples on the previous page are not an exhaustive list!

Mariame Kaba talks about the importance of “building a million different little experiments” as a PIC abolitionist. We can imagine millions of mutual aid projects to put abolition in action!

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MUTUAL AID VIDEO Click the image below for more information and ideas about mutual aid! This is a 7 minute video on mutual aid projects by Dean Spade.

Much of the content in this video was used to create the information provided in this section

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IMPORTANT VALUES WITHIN MUTUAL AID 1. We don't need the state to survive. We keep each other safe.

For thousands of years, Black and Indigenous communities have worked together to meet each other's needs outside of global capitalism and the neoliberal state. Today, many people cling to the state as our only hope, ignoring how we can survive and thrive in collectivities.

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2. Solidarity, not charity will liberate us.

The work of mutual aid is horizontal out of necessity. Solidarity asks us to develop relationships of reciprocity and co-resistance. Charity, on the other hand, enforces a top down charity model that maintains the power dynamics that we are seeking to destroy.

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3. We have to make lasting commitments to this work.

Resistance isn't a career or a hobby.

Instead of being reactive we must put are values into practice in our everyday lives and within our interpersonal relationships. Our lifestyle must be consistent with our demands for justice, it can't be something that we come back to later.

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4. We must aim to dismantle all systems of oppression.

All of our struggles and freedoms are interconnected. Isolating them from one another weakens our power and fails to bring true liberation. We're not free until we are all free.

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5. We must practice community accountability within our movements. @mollyccostello

Our movements will suffer if we cannot be in healthy relation with one another.

Building community in which we are accountable is an essential part of revolutionary organizing and building mass movements that are grounded in radical love solidarity.

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The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) The NPIC refers to the relationship between the state, foundations, and organizations to highlight the ways that this system impedes radical organizing

The rise of the NPIC occurred as the government abandoned services and policies designed to help the poor, and the FBI dismantled the radical projects of the 1960s and 70s.

Work that was done voluntarily started becoming more professionalized and an organizational infrastructure was created.

This new elite sector of law and policy is often funded by wealthy philanthropists and/or the government.

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Common Issues within the NPIC 1. Mission drift is one of the biggest threats to non-profit organizing. This is when an organization loses sight of its original purpose, usually because their primary work is getting funding by foundations or the government.

2. Business culture and management models are now common in many non-profits, making them more like corporations than community organizations 3. Hierarchical structuring is prevalent and usually elitist; leadership and decision-making power is disproportionately white, upper-class employees and donors 4. Career activism is normalized by the NPIC over a model of everyday activism 5. Reformism is frequently centered which encour­ages activists to negotiate or even collaborate with the state 6. Lack of community accountability is inevitable when non-profits fail to communicate and be transparent with the communities they claim to be serving.

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Queer Dreams and Non-Profit Blues

This is an excellent 6 part video series that talks in depth about the problems within the NPIC and where we go from here which you can access by clicking the photo above!

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Abolition Begins Within

@ashluka

Abolition Begins Within This chapter is about organizing with accountability. It's about the internal work that we need to do within our communities. When we are engaging in mutual aid we have to practice being intentional in relation to one another. It's incredibly important to work at community accountability because the logics of oppression are internalized in us and we end up reproducing that harm with each other. So, we must remain accountable to one another and do the transformative work within ourselves if we hope to transform the systems around us.

The revolution starts at home.

How are we supposed to find alternatives to policing if we can't

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even address the small things with each other? The little conflicts that show up so frequently in our lives?

Accountability is a muscle so the "small things" actually matter a lot.

We must be better prepared to address harm when it occurs in our groups. As abolitionists, this means we have to approach it without reproducing carceral logics. We have to kill the cops in our heads and our hearts.

The work of addressing harm without prisons and police is called transformative justice (TJ) or community accountability. While I can't go in depth about these approaches in one chapter of this zine, I will talk about the important lessons I've learned from TJ practitioners and include recommendations at the end for further reading.

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Be honest about what you have capacity for Organizing with accountability requires us to be honest with ourselves and each other about what we can and cannot do.

Kaba talks about the importance of organizers understanding their actions are accountable to someone else. When you take on too much and do not communicate it, “the people who are most directly impacted by the things people are doing are failed. Because they should have a say and be part of the shaping of that thing that is about them.”

Don’t take on more work just because you feel like you have to. The reality is that falling through at the last minute, will do more harm than if yo communicate as early as possible what you have capacity for.

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Unlearn the ways we police each other The work of abolition entails unlearning carceral logics that we have been taught. Carcerality is all about control, which is why the state prioritizes punishment over transforming the root causes of harm.

Consequently, carceral responses only perpetuate cycles of violence. The ways that we police one another may show up in the work of mutual aid in more covert ways. For example, if people seeking resources have to jump through unnecessary hoops to access what they need then we are reproducing the carceral logic of the state.

Kill the cop in your head!!

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@loveiswiseillu

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Disrupt internalized logics of oppression through everyday practice Everyday practices can help us become aware of how deeply logics of oppression are situated within us and then disrupt them. In moments of emergency and pressure we don’t act in accordance to our greatest ideals, but our everyday habits. To move beyond awareness, and achieve a change in behavior practice is essential. An example of an everyday practice is meditation. Meditation gives you the space everyday to realize that you have choices in how you respond to situations. When you get to a heated moment you don’t have to follow your body’s initial response, but realize you have choices and act intentionally.

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"Sometimes we may need to quietly tune inwardly in order to loudly radiate outwardly!"

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Learn to overcome shame in order to take accountability When you harm someone, shame can block your ability to take accountability. Feeling shame is different from feeling remorse or guilt. Guilt focuses on behavior, while shame focuses on identity.

“If identity—who you are—is equated with your worst behaviors, you will not accept responsibility or access genuine feelings of sorrow—because to do so would invite feelings of worthlessness. How can we apologize for something we are, rather than something we did?”

(Nathan Shara)

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Do the work in collectivities Even though this chapter talks about the work we need to do internally, this process should not be individualistic. Just as mutual aid is about collectivity, the work of reflection, accountability and healing requires us to be in relation with each other.

We’re often taught to deal with healing work in isolated and alienating spaces (like therapy) instead of making room for community care.

Growing up, Mariame Kaba’s father (Moussa Kaba) ingrained in her the notion that everything worthwhile is done with others. He said “You are interconnected to everyone, because the world doesn’t work without everyone. You may think that you’re alone, but you’re never actually alone.” Similarly, Angela Davis teaches us that “It is collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism” .

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Further Readings on Transformative Justice

Beyond Survival is a resource on transformative justice to help guide people through emergencies and violence without relying on the police.

We Do This 'Til We Free Us provides more background about the reasons why abolition and TJ, while also diving into what real accountability looks like.

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@monicatrinidad

PART TWO: How To Take Action

MY LOCATION Hi! This section is here for me to introduce myself and talk about what my connection is to this project. My name is Hayley Dawn Craig and I’m writing this zine for my senior thesis at Vassar College. I’m a Black queer woman and I use she/her pronouns. I was born and raised in Bowie, Maryland in an upper-middle class family.

I came to Vassar in the fall of 2018. As other Black and POC students know, going to a PWI is rough because you’re constantly reminded that you don’t belong. I experienced strong feelings of alienation and loneliness in my first few years.

Being surrounded by whiteness while it also felt like the world was falling apart and trying to do well in school was very draining. Luckily, I found grounding in my community and many of the relationships I built started when I began organizing.

When I first started college I was somewhat informed about mass incarceration from reading

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books like the New Jim Crow and watching the 13th documentary, and I thought I wanted to go into Civil Rights law. But I didn’t know anything about PIC abolition or leftist politics since I hadn’t been exposed to it yet. My radicalization started halfway through my first year and things really started clicking during my sophomore year. It wasn’t my classes (except the few I took on abolition) that got me there, and it definitely wasn’t white “Leftists" at Vassar. It was the friends that I made through the Black Students' Union (BSU) and the work we did that really challenged the liberal politics I learned from my parents and peers in high school. This shift began when I joined the executive board of BSU as the co-chair of the org’s Political Education Committee during the spring of my first year.

My first semester on the committee, we did a lot of work to support two young girls, Julissa and Jamelia, who were brutalized by Poughkeepsie police outside of their school in March of 2019. At the time Julissa and Jameilia were 12 and 15 respectively and they were charged with resisting arrest. The community and our BSU responded with several actions and events until the County Attorney finally dropped the charges in the

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the summer of 2020.

While this was going on I was also beginning to learn about abolition from students in the BSU and in one of my classes called Policing the Planet. I was outraged about what the system was putting these two young Black girls through when they were the ones who had been harmed. The issue here wasn’t just a few “bad” cops. If you read about the case in the chapter “Defense Campaigns” it clearly goes beyond the two officers that assaulted them. There were also the officers that refused Jamelia access to a bathroom and sanitary wipes, forcing her to sit in her menstrual blood. There were the detectives that threatened them with jail time in an attempt to coerce them into giving statements in support of the officers. There were the officers that deleted video evidence of the assault off of Jamelia’s cell phone. And finally the City of Poughkeepsie mayor (a retired police officer) who failed to take action when the case was brought to his attention. As the chant goes “The whole damn system is guilty as hell!”

Building a relationship with the girls and their mom, hearing their stories, and supporting them stuck with me more than any class discussion I’ve ever had at Vassar. I remember missing classes to attend the girls’ court dates and thinking how frustrated I was being a student.

We prioritize papers, exams and classroom discussions (that often feel performative and/or pointless) over

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meaningful real world experiences. Education under capitalism and all its cognitive dissonances with regards to theory and practice were a growing frustration for me and many of my other friends.

Then the pandemic hit in 2020 and these tensions felt even more intense. I was tired of school. I was tired of seeing the people I love unhappy and struggling to get by. I was tired of people who were advocating for the reform of capitalism. I was trying to imagine what could be done at a collective level and also figure out what my personal responsibility was being in a privileged position because of my class status. Unlike some of my other friends I didn’t have to worry about providing for my family and taking care of them while also trying to do school from home. I had to ask myself how I would be in solidarity with, listen to and follow the lead of people with lived experiences of poverty and homelessness.

I would continue reflecting and acting on the question of personal and collective responsibility that summer, in which there were mass protests around the country and the world in the wake of the police murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and many others. This is when my work with Vassar Political Education and Wealth Redistribution started.

Originally our mission was to redistribute wealth to Black community based organizations working against

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the carceral state through community care. We recruited volunteers and raised over $65,000 for 9 different Black-led organizations in Minnesota and Washington D.C. after holding two redistribution drives.

Those drives taught me about ways that people with resources must show up materially and not in the way of charity, but solidarity. My learning grew as we were starting to shift into the work of mutual aid. This happened when Cleland, a Black trans man from Maryland, reached out to our page because he was short on rent and at risk of losing housing. We used the platform we had built to help him crowdfund and he raised the money in just a day.

On the following page there’s a message from Cleland that transformed my understanding of organizing possibilities through the power of mutual aid. Realizing the impact we could have when we collectively make sure that people’s needs are met was a huge turning point for me and VPEWR. While it still felt impactful to give to the community orgs that we supported, getting resources directly was also necessary work we wanted to be involved with.

We’re still engaged in this work today and we plan to continue beyond Vassar.

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Cleland is a Black trans man who reached out to us seeking mutual aid. He is the first individual we crowdfunded for, which led us to shift the work we were doing.. Below is a message he shared on his instagram after he raised his rent:

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Juneteenth Drive VPEWR held a Juneteenth Drive June 14th-20th, 2021 which you can read about in the infographic below and on the next page!

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Juneteenth Drive

By the end of the drive we collected over $22k which we redistributed to 16 Black incarcerated folks!

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A CONVERSATION WITH STUDENT ORGANIZERS

Please click the icon above or scan the QR code below to listen to a podcast on Juneteenth and the experiences of student organizers featuring Hayley Craig, Chelsea Quayenortey and Paris Whitfield!

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Wealth Redistribution How To 1. Join or establish a group of people with shared goals and values that are committed to your project 2. Create a name and mission statement Creating a mission statement is especially helpful for long-term groups rather than a spontaneous group that will disband shortly after their goal is achieved. Mission statements help a group determine what their purpose, goals and values are.

A mission statement is something that you all are constantly working towards rather than something you are already perfectly executing. Your mission statement may change as your group or organization changes. On the next page is an earlier iteration of one of VPEWR’s mission statements.

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VPEWR Mission Statement Vassar Political Education Wealth Redistribution (VPEWR) is a student-led initiative that is working under the Vassar BSU Political Education committee. Our goal is to redistribute wealth to communities most affected by and actively working against police brutality. To do so, we are tapping into networks and asking individuals for reasonable donations to VPEWR. We are organizing a series of week-long fundraising drives to benefit different locations across the US. For the second wealth redistribution week (7/20-7/26) we are supporting 5 organizations based in D.C.: No Justice No Pride (NJNP), P0stb1nary World, BYP100 D.C. Chapter, Life After Release (LAR), and Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS).

For more information on these organizations, please go to “Organizations we are supporting in D.C.” on the linktree.

For the first week we redistributed to organizations based in Minnesota. For information on those orgs go to “Organizations We Supported For Week 1 in Minnesota” on the linktree.

We hope that our communities (Vassar and beyond) can create a network dedicated to redistributing monetary funds towards those who are advocating for investment in community care and divestment from inherently violent police forces.

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3. Recruit volunteers a. Identify people in your network who might be willing to join your cause. Then have the people who agree to volunteer reach out to their own networks and recruit even more volunteers! You can access a guide for asking people to join here!

4. Divide up the labor a. Who knows or is willing to learn how to make graphics/logos? Who is good with finances?

Who wants to create and run social media accounts?

5. Decide where the money is going to a. You should be intentional when deciding this step. For our first two drives we decided to redistribute to community organizations. We took time to research different organizations we felt aligned with our visions of an abolitionist future . We took two votes; one to decide what location we were focusing on and second to determine which specific organizations.

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6. Research and decide how you will handle the money Common ways that groups handle money: A member’s account (bank account, Venmo, Cash App, Paypal) Fiscal Sponsor Unincorporated association account Tax exempt organization 7. Political Education In addition to redistributing wealth, it's important to deepen the political consciousness of your group and within your larger community Create a list of books and podcasts for those interested in learning more about abolition beyond social media.

Infographics can be an easy to spread information but the drawback is that things can be glossed over and it does not help develop deeper understandings of the issues.

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Building a Defense Campaign Defense campaigns are when people come together to raise awareness and take action in solidarity with those being targeted by the criminal legal system.

Defense campaigns are also a form of mutual aid.

NOTE: It’s important that these campaigns do not reinforce notions of a “deserving” and “undeserving” subject. Ultimately, abolitionists believe imprisonment is not a viable solution for anyone, not just those who are perceived as innocent or did not commit a violent crime.

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HOW TO START 1. Make sure you have a good understanding of the case.

Is there someone with knowledge of the legal system willing to share their knowledge with you?

2. Raise Awareness Collaborate with people in your community to plan an event where you inform people about the case.

Are there racial justice groups in your area that are willing to collaborate with you? Are there organizations at your school that you can work with or are willing to share information?

Create infographics so you have a way to share a concise and accessible summary of the case. See an example on pages 45 and 46!

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JUSTICE FOR JULISSA & JAMELIA INFOGRAPHICS

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JUSTICE FOR JULISSA & JAMELIA INFOGRAPHICS

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3. Take Direct Action Pack the court events - Accompany the person facing charges to their court dates -- influences lawyers, judges, and jury by showing support for the person Is there a representative who has the power to get the charges dropped?

Once you’ve identified this person try to plan an action that will put pressure on them to meet your demand such as a sit in if there is a town hall event or letter writing campaign.

Crowdfunding for the impacted people.

Having to deal with the criminal legal system can take a toll emotionally, financially, physically, etc. If there is a need for the person(s) to be compensated you can crowdfund in your community/via social media

Click here to access the Campaign Toolkit created by Survived and Punished & Love and Protect or scan the QR code!

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Resources

@redistributeurwealth on Instagram 56

Resources Abolish Policing Toolkit The pieces in this Toolkit from Critical Resistance (CR) are organizing tools and key points of analysis, such as definitions of policing and abolition, key terms, and talking points on defunding the police Grow Abolition on Campus (8 Steps) This is a list of strategies and actions from CR that students and educators can take up on campuses Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence This is an extensive 500 page guide from Creative Interventions on how to stop interpersonal violence without relying on the prison industrial complex Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing These charts from CR break down the difference between reformist reforms which continue or expand the reach of policing, and abolitionist steps that work to chip away and reduce its overall impact

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CITATIONS [1] Anderson, William C. The Anarchism of Blackness. ROAR magazine, 2017.

[2] Spade, Dean. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during This Crisis (and the next). Verso, 2020.

[3] Spade, Dean. Normal Life Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. Duke University Press, 2015.

[4] INCITE!, editor. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. Duke University Press, 2007, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smnz6.

[5] Kaba, Mariame. We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice.

Haymarket Books, 2021.

[6] Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. University Of Minnesota Press, 2020.

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IMAGE CITATIONS Amika Cooper @blackpowerbarbie Amber Williams-King @elle.mahogany Ashley Lukashevsky @ashluka Barry Lee @barryleeart @bbyanarchists Loveis Wise @loveiswiseillu Monica Trinidad @monicatrinidad Molly Costello @Mollyccostello Seth Tobocman Vienna Rye @vrye

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@ashluka