We Keep Each Other Safe: Mutual Aid for Survival and Solidarity
Event Transcript (PDF)
Dean Spade’s new book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next) offers both a theoretical understanding of mutual aid and practical tools for sustaining this crucial movement work. 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. Those systems, in fact, have often created the crisis.” Spade explores how mutual aid projects have been part of every powerful social movement, citing examples such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the 1950s, the Black Panther Party’s survival programs that provided free breakfasts and medical clinics in the 1960s and 70s, and the resource and skill-sharing that emerged in the Occupy encampments starting in 2011. In the contemporary moment of the widening wealth gap, a global pandemic, increasing storms, fires, and other crises resulting from climate change, as well as myriad other social inequities, Spade demonstrates how and why mutual aid is essential for meeting people’s needs and building big, transformative movements that get to the root causes of these crises.
Rather than numb out in the face of these overwhelming problems, Spade urges us to take up mutual aid work and to take part in the collective work of building the world we want.
“In my experience, it is more engagement that actually enlivens us—more curiosity, more willingness to see the harm that surrounds us, and ask how we can relate to it differently. Being more engaged with the complex and painful realities we face, and with thoughtful, committed action alongside others for justice, feels much better than numbing out or making token, self-consoling charity gestures. It feels good to let our values guide every part of our lives.” —Dean Spade
On Nov 12, Spade will be joined by anti-violence organizers Mariame Kaba and Ejeris Dixon to discuss mutual aid as an abolitionist project. Why is mutual aid key to practicing abolition? How does mutual aid relate to transformative justice and other anti-violence frameworks and practices? How can mutual aid help us to reimagine responding to harm and violence without relying on police?
Mutual aid is a key part of building a world in which we keep each other safe, a world in which we build collectively to meet each other’s needs. Join us on November 12 to celebrate the publication of Mutual Aid and for a conversation exploring its role in abolition, transformative justice, and addressing harm.
Accessibility
Live captioning and and ASL interpretation will be provided.
Please email any additional access needs to ekausch@barnard.edu.
This event is free and open to all.
Tune in at 7 PM on Thursday, November 12, 2020.
Related links:
Black Agenda Report Abolition and Mutual Aid Spotlight: Ejeris Dixon
Interview by Dean Spade and Roberto Sirvent
Mutual Aid is Essential to Our Survival Regardless of Who is in the White House
by Dean Spade in TruthOut
About the Speakers
Dean Spade has been working in movements to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He’s the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, the director of the documentary “Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!,” and the creator of the mutual aid toolkit at BigDoorBrigade.com. His latest book is Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next).
Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator and curator who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. She is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Mariame is currently a researcher at Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, a project she co-founded with Andrea Ritchie in 2018.
Mariame has co-founded multiple other organizations and projects over the years including We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Love & Protect, the Just Practice Collaborative and Survived & Punished. Mariame’s leadership, organizing and influence extend widely as she offers a radical analysis that influences how people think and respond to how violence, prisons and policing affect the lives of people of color.
Ejeris Dixon is an organizer and political strategist with 20 years of experience working in racial justice, LGBTQ, anti-violence, and economic justice movements. She is the Founding Director of Vision Change Win Consulting where she partners with organizations to build their capacity and deepen the impact of their organizing strategies. She also serves as a consultant with RoadMap Consulting (www.roadmapconsulting.org) a national social justice consulting team. From 2010 – 2013 Ejeris served as the Deputy Director, in charge of the Community Organizing Department at the New York City Anti-Violence Project where she directed national, statewide, and local organizing and advocacy initiatives on hate violence, domestic violence, police violence, and sexual violence. From 2005 – 2010 Ejeris worked as the Founding Program Coordinator of the Safe OUTside the System Collective at the Audre Lorde Project where she worked on creating transformative justice strategies to address hate and police violence. Her essay, ” Building Community Safety: Practical Steps Toward Liberatory Transformation, ” is featured in the anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States. In January 2020, she co-edited a book with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha entitled Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement.
Books to be featured by Word Up!
Word Up! Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria, a volunteer-run community bookshop in Washington Heights, is partnering with BCRW to sell books related to our fall events online. Visit their BCRW shop to purchase these book and support your local bookseller.
Mutual Aid by Dean Spade
Fumbling Toward Repair by Shira Hassan and Mariame Kaba
Missing Daddy by Mariame Kaba
Beyond Survival edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha