Mutual aid for survival and resistance with Dean Spade

11 snips

Feb 25, 2025

Dean Spade, an organizer and author renowned for his work on mutual aid and trans liberation, shares powerful insights on collective action. He distinguishes mutual aid from charity, emphasizing its focus on systemic change rather than individual blame. Spade highlights historical instances like the Montgomery bus boycott and critiques government disaster response as inadequate. He stresses the importance of building relationships, embracing imperfection, and fostering joy in organizing, ultimately framing mutual aid as essential for survival and resilience in challenging times.

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INSIGHT

Mutual Aid Is Material Support Plus Politics

Mutual aid pairs material support with a shared analysis that systems, not people, create crises.
It also invites collective action to dismantle those systems rather than just alleviate symptoms.

INSIGHT

How Charity Undermines Liberation

Charity legitimizes and sustains extraction by blaming people in crisis and rationing help.
Mutual aid rejects deserving/undeserving categories and seeks to destroy systems creating need.

INSIGHT

Relationships Are Our Strategic Resource

Movements are built from relationships, not money or guns; social bonds are our main strategic resource.
Treat building trust, sharing, and generative conflict as central to survival and victory.

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Last week, we were blown away by the 2,200 people who registered for our new Mutual Aid 101 Series.

We were fortunate to have Dean Spade, organizer, teacher, and the author of "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)" and "Love in a Fucked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together" lead the first session.

Dean dropped some serious knowledge for nearly 90 minutes straight. All the while, the chat was on fire while a new learing community was being formed.

The series continues tomorrow, on Wednesday February 26th with Julian Rose from the New Economy Coalition and Endstate ATL and previous guest on The Response, Stephanie Rearick from Human's United for Mutual Aid Networks. They'll be focussing on how to build and sustain mutual aid projects while not burning out.

The first phase of this series runs through the end of March with several more trainings scheduled throughout the rest of the year.

There's also the Mutual Aid 101 Community Canvas, where we're posting recordings, resources, and session updates.

There are links to everything I just mentioned in the show notes.

Through out this season of The Response, we'll be sharing a mix of original interviews, dispatches from the front lines of disasters, and excerpts from Mutual Aid 101 (like this one).

Today, we'll be playing the full recording from Dean's training. We've posted the video, slides, and transcript to Canvas, so you can create an account there to follow along.

Resources:

Episode credits:

Hosted and executive produced by Tom Llewellyn
Produced and edited by Paige Kelly
Theme Music by Cultivate Beats

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