Posted by nullthread on Oct 07, 2021
Sit tight, this one’s a long one!
These months has been filled with a lot of planning on multiple fronts. Projects are either just starting, incomplete, or are sensitive in nature. I’ve been very excited and proud of all my comrades in these growing abolitionist spaces!
Human Infrastructure & Mutual Aid at the Neighborhood Scale
We’ve continued to develop Greenwood Mutual Aid in North Seattle. Since last October, we’ve provided survival supplies and warm home-cooked meals to three encampments in the neighborhood, enjoyed a summer cookout, brought out a weekly portable shower, improved our decision-making and organizing skills, and taught ourselves new things in communal discussion.
Accessible Healthcare
Our cache of harm reduction supplies have now extended to include bubbles, hammers, fentanyl test strips & snorting kits thanks to another affinity group. They know who they are! I also received this more ~official-looking~ harm reduction kit list from a dear friend - beefing up our more spartan cleans pack.
Harm reduction is necessary in a country with a high-barrier healthcare system that doesn’t respond compassionately to trauma and self-medication. People don’t just start doing heroin out of nowhere.
My first brush with the concept of harm reduction was in Vancouver, B.C. from a nurse I was staying with through Couchsurfing. I got to talk to her one morning about her work at the free clinic by the needle exchange in Chinatown. I remember that tiny portable washing machines connected to her tiny bathroom sink. Covered in human fluids everyday, she prioritized coming home, taking it all off, and washing her scrubs. Despite the chaos, she knew her work was critical for public health. She had a very minimalist style and made me coffee in such a delightful manner. I learned a lot from her generosity, and since then always offer my couch for anyone that needs to crash.
We also now have a few medics for mobile healthcare. It’s very hard to get anyone living outside to go to the hospital. Not only do they get treated like shit, hold medical trauma, and don’t have any money, ID, or insurance to pay for it, but it also means they have to leave all their belongings vulnerable to theft or destruction.
Group Norms
Over a hundred people in the leftist community attended Dean Spade’s mutual aid reading and discussion at Left Bank Books a few weeks ago. Since my vaccination, I’ve increased my contact with other people only under three circumstances: within my household, my work, and “church” - which is what I personally started calling "distro" or "outreach" days after a neighbor tried to jokingly dissuade their friends from attending. (We quickly let them know that no, we’re not with a religious institution, and we’re more of a rag-tag team of angry anarchists!) It was nice to be around a broader community safely in front of the bookstore and market in late summer twilight.
We’re working on improving our “living” handbook and our onboarding & decision-making processes next! I’m also working on a small study guide for those interested in reading Dean’s book, but are unable to purchase it or lack the time to read it.
Thankful for everyone that contributes labor, ideas, rides, money and donations to this project! You can find us at @GWMutualAid on twitter, or email us at [email protected] ✨
Ti-ra-de-ro
Recently, one of our neighbors started running a monthly public art market out of their backyard! We signed up for some tabling this Saturday afternoon at the Rhubarb Garden Market - which means I got to think of new zines, buttons & stickers to sell! Re-energized creatively by this exciting proximity, I stayed up all night thinking about branding. When I opened this account on Comradery, I got strangely uncomfortable about using my name - I realized it’s mainly because I create so many different things that I wanted some feeling of separation.
The word came to me pretty naturally. It’s one of those words often said in my household. Not only is it fun to say, but it was what my mother would call my bedroom. Un tiradero. A mess!
Community Campaigns
I’m contributing to the start of a community campaign that will directly address the lack of municipal & state resources for the poorest & sickest people in the city. I have joined a few working groups including research, mutual aid and comms. I’m excited! I will talk more about it once it’s ready to be “open to the public”!
For the past few years, I’ve been learning political theory and strategy from my peers rather than “expert” figureheads with titles obtained through association or a poli-sci degree. They often teach you to accept “working the system”. What city hall looked like, how an ordinance gets formed and passed, what lobbying groups and nonprofits sound like, and how to give a compelling testimony - all useful knowledge that ultimately felt like muffled pleas in action. I needed to learn how to organize. I needed to learn that decentralized but overlapping organizing spaces are a necessary redundancy in our collective struggle towards liberation. Like a web, like water, like fungal root networks.
It’s true that every campaign needs to make available tiny tasks to introduce a new person into the fold. Most people you will talk to about an issue will often agree that something is wrong, but have no idea what to do about it. We’re never taught to advocate for ourselves, or in my case, how our government actually works. But there’s only so many email blasts you can send until your well of support dries up. Watching interest wax and wane kills hope, but it’s only human. We grow tired, especially when our efforts are unsupported and we have to dedicate so much time to work for basic survival needs.
I hope to continue this radical tradition of collective learning, of honoring everyone's lived experiences, relationships & skills, as every single one is needed in our path towards collective liberation.