T. Thorne Coyle: Community Care

The best way I know to survive the darkness of fascism that we are currently going through in the US is through Mutual Aid and Community Care. My activist advice for the next 4 to 10 to however many years: stay local. Don’t try to fix the Big Problem. Look after your neighbor, the folks in your town that are struggling. Keep it simple and direct. Donate to the local food bank. Show up for common issues at City Council meetings. Talk to a neighbor that’s bewildered, overwhelmed and suffering. Listen. Share the grief and the will to keep going. Love your neighbor.

Lots of people need our help now, and will need our help going forward. Focus on helping those around you, build relationships, networks, community. It will support you when times are rough.

This “how to” guide on Mutual Aid and Community Care by T. Thorne Coyle says everything I would say on the subject, but they say it so much more forthrightly. I have reprinted half of it here; you can read the rest at their website.

Hello friends,

Well… a big election happened in the US this week and I decided I had something to say about moving forward. I worked on this essay all day yesterday, and part of this morning. I’m making this post public, because I hope it will be of use.

I’m pasting the essay below, plus attaching it, along with an updated, printable Basic Security One Sheet for those hoping to organize in your communities.

I hope you are taking care of yourself and others, as always. I so appreciate you.

best wishes and solidarity – Thorn

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Mutual Aid & Community Care

A big election happened in the US this week. Many people are devastated, reeling, angry, or fearful.

People fear that the already embattled protections trans and queer people have will be stripped away. People fear that already difficult to access healthcare will vanish. People fear that their friends, neighbors, or families will be rounded up and deported. People fear increased racism, misogyny, and violence. People fear that already tenuous environmental protections and regulations will be swept to sea or burned in the fires that decimate huge swathes of land.

People fear increased authoritarianism and fascism.

These people are not wrong.

Many people are waking up, once again, wondering how to help.

***

I’m a leftist, an anarcho-socialist to be more precise. Or an anarcho-syndicalist if you’re into political theory, which I’m not. Those of you who have read my novels—especially the Witches of Portland and Panther Chronicles series—or followed my writing for years may have known this. But a lot of people don’t, because mostly, I just live my life.

Why am I telling you this? Because…

As a leftist, I never expect the government to do much to help the people. I trust no high-level politicians. I vote under sufferance, and mostly to make what slight shifts are possible locally so the worst-off denizens of the city I live in aren’t further burdened by the punishment of poverty and lack of resources. Sometimes I attend city council meetings.

Yes, things are likely to get very, very bad. And because I’m a leftist, my actions going forward won’t be that different from my actions last week, or two years ago, or twenty. The election results didn’t devastate me emotionally, rather, I started thinking of different ways we may need to organize in the future.

I’m less radical than some of my activist comrades and friends, and more radical than my liberal or progressive friends. My days of doing direct action may—or may not—be over, because of an autoimmune disorder and aftermath of a brain injury, plus, I’m pushing sixty now. And that’s okay.

There’s a place for all of us when it comes to community care.

Do I have concerns? Of course, I do. I’m queer and nonbinary in a queer partnership. I live communally. I have Black, Jewish, Muslim, Asian, Latine, and Indigenous—and trans, queer, poor, and disabled—comrades and friends. I’m neurodivergent and have invisible disabilities.

But my concerns don’t lay me flat, rather, they point me to gaps in my thinking or organizing.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be grieving, or angry, or freaking out this week. I’m just explaining why I’m not: It’s because I see the ways in which the world has always been this way and I feel prepared for action. I’m always prepared for, and engaging in, small, community-based actions, most of which I never talk about. Many of my friends are the same.

My hope with this essay is to offer a possible way forward for people unused to consistent community organizing.

***

There’s a common phrase among activists: “We keep us safe.” Partially, this means people doing direct action band together in protection, but mostly? “We keep us safe” means we don’t rely on outside forces to foster and sustain community. We don’t outsource our care.

Decades ago, when I worked full time in a soup kitchen, we didn’t hire security guards. Instead, people like me were trained to de-escalate violence and break up fights, even those that involved weapons. We didn’t rely on the government to feed people, we just did it ourselves. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about.

Before someone goes there: I’m not here to argue that government shouldn’t provide healthcare, or regulate industry, or clean the water supply, or anything else. I wish it would. All I’m saying is: There is a lot more we can do together than we sometimes think.

***

There’s an expansion on “We keep us safe” that is sometimes used as well: “We keep each other safe, so we can be dangerous together.”

Some of us will be called upon to fight racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and outright fascism directly—in ways both large and small—at work, in school, in public washrooms, on the bus, or around the dinner table. Prepare for this in advance. Study bystander intervention skills. Train yourself to center internally, via various meditation or martial arts practices. Practice catch-phrases you can call upon under stress.

Remember: one person speaking up helps others speak up, too.

Stand up to racists. If a trans person needs to use a washroom, offer back up. Find out who is showing up to protect Drag Queen Story Hour. Take a breath and interrupt when a Black woman is being harassed on the street.

And if it comes to larger direct actions to protect immigrants or trans people, or confront police violence, or get vulnerable people to safety…? Study. Prepare. Get together with some trusted friends. Make a plan. Keep it secret.

All of this is part of community care.

There is a lot more I could say on this topic, but mostly today, I want to talk about another major form of community care: Mutual Aid. The term was coined by Kropotkin in 1902, but Indigenous societies, worker cooperatives, and other groups have lived by these principles for centuries.

Mutual Aid is about cooperation, and reciprocity. It is not charity or noblesse oblige. Mutual Aid is about mutual benefit. What helps you, helps me, and vice versa. We are all in this together.

Mutual Aid is a long-standing, leftist—but not only leftist—community building project. Mutual Aid is people sharing skills and resources.

Mutual Aid is part of how we keep us safe.

***

That’s great, you might say, but how do we begin? Below are some practical ideas. Please read them all. Some may surprise you:

Get to know your neighbors if it is safe for you to do so. Share plants. Check on elders. Offer tools or other resources. Lend your skills to community projects. Chop and share firewood. Shovel snow. Set up a free pantry on your street. See if your disabled neighbor needs errands run while you’re out. Buy some Plan B or Ella and let people know you have it. Do clinic defense. Give someone $10 toward medicine or food.

Pool money to buy a community generator so if the power goes out there is refrigeration for people’s medicines and some perishable food to share. Figure out who has working vehicles with room to evacuate those who don’t in case of a disaster. Connect those people.

 In secret: connect someone fleeing abuse with someone who has a spare room.

Find ways to reach others outside of billionaire-owned social media sites. Get together with friends to make informational fliers or ‘zines and drop them at coffee shops or post them on utility poles. Have a canning party. Teach sewing or self-defense. Share tools. Do research, or read to kids, or organize a community phone text tree…

All of this is what we call Mutual Aid.

Think about it: What might our community health look and feel like if we stopped framing things in terms of charity and began thinking in terms of justice? Mutual aid fosters greater social justice through community strength and survival.

What might our community health look and feel like if we stopped trying to get ahead just for ourselves and shared what we have?

The poorest people I know give away exponentially more, percentage-wise—in money, time, and resources—than the richest people I know. It is not that my richer friends aren’t generous, it is because poor people know directly that community survival is the only way an individual survives, too.

Read the rest of the article here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-community-115570830