Mutual Aid is the Backbone

Like the overwhelming majority of high schoolers, I needed to fulfill a volunteering requirement to cross the stage and attain my diploma. Coming from a low-income, largely people-of-color neighborhood, my type of service work pertained to giving back to my own community. For my more formal service, as the high school robotics team captain, I mentored eleven to fourteen-year-olds in their middle school robotics competition projects. This was mostly from my own experience; I had gone through the same program they did which then led me to join the high school team. Unlike our counterparts in competition, neither of us had access to the advanced placement computer science classes or the parent volunteers who just so happen to be engineers, motivating me to share even a sliver of insight with the kids whose shoes I was once in. Of course, working with younger kids as an older student without trying to perpetuate the power dynamic is always a challenge. I was personable but strict, letting them know I was a friendly face who understood how difficult this endeavor could be but also ensured that they remained on track. Having to constantly remind them to focus or to stop their horseplay was necessary, however, it paid for itself upon witnessing their performance at the competition. Maybe it was the fear of the judges or our harsh ex-marine robotics coordinator but the students put in their best effort against the other teams with loads more funding and resources than ours, winning the “Core Values” award.

In contrast, I’ve had volunteering experiences where a power dynamic was unavoidable or our life experiences didn’t align. As captain of my high school robotics team, we followed a tradition: attending an annual event named “Gobble, Gobble, Give”. We’d meet on Thanksgiving every year, packing plates of delicious food and delivering it to our unhoused neighbors. My mother was incredibly proud of me then, telling her friends how I spent my Thanksgiving mornings aiding the less fortunate. This has always made me feel off. Though it may seem that I’m making an enormous sacrifice to spend my holiday packing food for others, I rarely ever came in contact with the audience we were meant to be helping, perpetuating the power gaps where they were forced to be awaiting our actions. Some may not understand why this dynamic is damaging but the pity that stems from these gaps does not build community but dependency and erasure of a community’s strengths. The impact of this form of once-a-year, here-and-there volunteering is undeniably valuable as hungry mouths were getting fed, nevertheless, it isn’t meant to be praised, especially since I couldn’t promise their stomach would be full the day after Thanksgiving when we leave. While drop-in volunteering can impact an individual’s life and be meaningful change, I argue that we need to participate in mutual aid to make long-lasting change because it empowers the disadvantaged which creates direct action against power systems

Before getting into the ideologies of mutual aid, I will first describe the foundations of this practice. First and foremost, mutual aid is the reciprocal sharing of resources between members of a community; it is the action taken by the people when the system does not meet the community’s needs to instead meet each other’s. Since the defining motive for mutual aid is noticing the deficits in our government rather than “naming the deficits of those served,” (Deans, Roswell, Wurr 8) it already begins to fix one of the issues found in drop-in volunteering and charity: the power gap differences. Mutual aid is based on the idea that everyone has something they need and everyone has something to contribute; this stops the dynamic of the low-resourced “served” being dependent on those with resources. Working alongside my middle schoolers with the knowledge that we were competing despite economic differences is an example of this; I contributed my past knowledge and skills. Not only did they teach me how to become a better leader for younger students like me but they also represented our community with their performance in the competition, a silent form of protest against the structures that did not want us in these spaces.

Mutual aid prompts you to look deeper. It goes against the traditional model that “the community is not considered a place of learning equivalent to the campus” (Mitchell and Donahue) by forcing you to realize why the deficits are there to begin with. The more anyone learns about the deficits of the government, privileged or not, the more you learn that it is not only a lack of aid but intentional, active oppression. You cannot recognize complacency without recognizing where the complacency is occurring: in communities that are systemically placed at the bottom of the structure. In schools such as Manual Arts or, my very own high school, Foshay Learning Center, we know why their student populations are almost 100% people of color and placed in high-poverty communities. It is due to America’s racist and classist history, one where the government intended to integrate academic institutions, such as bussing black students to white schools, but “changes were slow to come”(Grant) and their efforts were soon cut altogether after a few short years. This left us in poorly-funded, poorly-trained staff, and less-effective schools meant to trap us into a cycle of poverty. This complacency is still in effect today as students from 826LA, my middle schoolers, and I are exposed to “concentrated poverty that drives racial achievement gaps to widen.” (Reardon)

Upon recognizing not only the deficits but the harm caused by power systems, mutual aid networks push community members to enable themselves and each other through communal cooperation and organizing. To elaborate, a commitment to mutual aid is a commitment to dismantling our dependency on an insufficient and oppressive system. This commitment is what empowers our neighbors and is a way to work outside of the power structure. Though the model of mutual aid is not the march that gets media attention nor is it the year-long sit-in that stirs up a conversation, it is the backbone of it. Protestors cannot walk and yell chants forever and those at the sit-in need food and water; mutual aid steps in to provide what is needed and we work in solidarity. Someone may need to go to work from 9 to 5 but simply providing a water bottle to someone on the front lines makes social movements possible. Of course, mutual aid doesn’t have to be at this scale. Aiding students like me in writing their college applications, such as the work we do in 826LA, simply because I have the skills is an act of mutual aid. The main principle is that we are working to achieve an equal and just society with the resources available to us now in hopes of a better world in the future.

With this background in mind, it is no surprise that mutual aid is a holy grail in leftist circles as it is dependent on consciousness and empowerment. In leftist ideologies, the overall goal to achieve a “better world” is a society where there is little to no hierarchy as it is hierarchical systems that lead to oppression. Direct action is the main method for pursuing this future. By direct action, I mean demanding change, such as striking and boycotts, rather than negotiating, like begging a politician to change the system that they benefit from. Mutual aid is a form of direct action as the cooperation changes the political conditions of a neighborhood. Mutual aid mobilizes the people for the greater good and communal benefit, directly going against a hierarchy that wants to create inequitable access to resources, going hand-and-hand with leftist goals and commitments.

With a sense of empowerment and an understanding of direct action, mutual aid becomes a weapon against power structures. It is direct action, a demand for change, meant to publicly protest against the systems that continue to oppress; it is a community response that refuses to play into an unjust system. Working with my middle schoolers to advance in the engineering field, a white-elite-dominated field, was not meant to happen according to the system. Getting 826LA students in universities where legacy students with generational wealth dominate also could not be predicted by those in power. But it is because of sharing our resources, working outside of oppressive government action, and mutual empowerment that we are able to create meaningful, powerful change.

Bibliography

Wurr, Adrian J., Dean, Thomas, Roswell, Barbara. “Writing and Community Engagement.” Blackboardcdn.Com, https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet02-xythos.content.blackboardcdn.com/5fd94affdac6c/26787246?X-Blackboard-S3-Bucket=learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos&X-Blackboard-Expiration=1677877200000&X-Blackboard-Signature=7rWby1tYsYg43LabT6g0U4boe3gCg9FtAz0fU50pbpo=&X-Blackboard-Client-Id=100775&X-Blackboard-S3-Region=us-east-1&response-cache-control=private,. Accessed 1 Mar. 2023.

Mitchell, Tania D., and David M. Donahue. “37 Ideal and Real in Service Learning Transforming the Ideal Based on the Real.” Blackboardcdn.Com, https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet02-xythos.content.blackboardcdn.com/5fd94affdac6c/6939327?X-Blackboard-S3-Bucket=learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos&X-Blackboard-Expiration=1677877200000&X-Blackboard-Signature=gSkkWoVhBYXHPXau/c3fp1/TkpDEzT9bRYe0k9LUmiM=&X-Blackboard-Client-Id=100775&X-Blackboard-S3-Region=us-east-1&response-cache-control=private,. Accessed 1 Mar. 2023.

Grant, T. K. (2022, January 28). The road to school desegregation. National Geographic. https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-road-to-school-desegregation

Reardon, Sean F. “School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps.” The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: RSF, vol. 2, no. 5, 2016, pp. 34–57, doi:10.7758/rsf.2016.2.5.03.