Read on Twitter
As mutual aid becomes a buzzword divorced from Black queer/trans disabled revolutionary approaches that have really developed it as a framework, myself and other Anarkatas are more and more vigilant about political education and every radical should be doing the same.
For those curious to know more, my crew @AbolitionF_ists developed a virtual hub called the ‘Anarkade’ that is like a digital introduction to various aspects of Anarkata tradition, politics, and practice. It features vids, gifs, articles, music, and more: https://anarkataworkshop.wixsite.com/anarkataaself-direct
“A key component of Anarkata praxis involves organizing for our survival through the use of mutual aid. We understand mutual aid as an African method of collective support for our communities that Black people have practiced since precolonial times...
...It involves the distribution of money, food, water, services, skills, medical care, shelter, and other necessities to those who require them.
In the vein of STAR House or even the Black Panther Party survival programs we believe that the immediate material needs of our communities must be the foundation of any Black organizing work.
Our revolutionary potential and ability to fight oppression is dependent on the health and safety of our communities. We support the mutual aid of all Black people, especially disabled people, trans women, and gender non-conforming Black people.
Anarkatas prioritize the mutual aid of poor and working class Black people and of homeless Black people.
Anarkatas see Black mutual aid as directly undermining the state’s social welfare programs which have always severely underserved Black people, kept us in poverty, and fostered material dependence on the very State which exploits us.
Anarkata insists that we must support our own communities and provide our own needs independent of the state.“ https://anarkataastatement.wordpress.com/anarkata-praxis/
This is a thread of the Spanish translation of the words I just shared. My collective is hoping to develop a full Spanish translation of the Anarkata Statement, as well as new videos featuring both subtitles and ASL interpreters before the year is over. https://twitter.com/RantzFanon/status/1240459931997921281
The Anarkata vision of mutual aid is not of something that simply is a crisis intervention mechanism pending State or corporate salvation as these liberals frame it. Neither is it used as an entry point into making a certain party line ‘resonant with the masses.’
One of my SQuADsiblings says ‘we hold people to a narrative and a practice, not a party.’ Our vision of mutual aid is akin to the survival programs of STAR as it says in the Statement, or the BPP. You should read more abt STAR’s legacy here: https://www.vogue.com/article/tourmaline-trans-day-of-action-op-ed
This image also depicts some of the Pantherist programs, ranging from health to housing to food to education. It’s important to emphasize that WOMEN carried the party’s legacy, which is discussed in this article:
https://madamenoire.com/1130957/untold-women-of-the-black-panther-party/
https://madamenoire.com/1130957/untold-women-of-the-black-panther-party/
These are direct influences bc the spaces out of which ‘Anarkata’ was clarified were composed of mostly disabled and queer Black anarchic radicals, operating under the name at some point (and still now for some of us) “Anarcha-Pantherist.” Black queer/transfeminism is our frame
As such, centering the most marginal is primary in mutual aid practice. Alot of these new initiatives skew toward white people. But my collective says that “intersectionality is a roadmap to areas of need.” You know this if you actually READ Crenshaw
In the AID feedback loop, which is like a prism to guide our praxis—incl. MA—anarchy (anti-hierarchy) is how we’re reviewing our oppression, intersectionality (centering the vulnerable through Black feminism) is our basis, and decolonization (Black liberation) is our goal.
Related to this is why disability justice and environmental justice is central to us. Prioritizing MA for disabled QTGNC folk has long been our praxis. My black radical ecology writings against ecofascist thoughts are rooted in the intersection of EJ + disability justice.
This is a Black Radical Ecology thread, which includes texts that are featured on the ‘Green’ section of the Anarkade website. Get informed. Break down colonial humanism and use it to push against biological reductionisms and other eugenic trash! https://twitter.com/RantzFanon/status/1220192602592567297
Black radical ecology and climate militancy is key. When it comes to MA, you should ground it in materially intervening in environmental injustice and supporting disabled kin, especially in this crisis of COVID19. Grow food, secure medicines, and learn to treat/store water
I have comrades tryna get, make, distribute masks and gloves and other protective gear rn because of how we approach MA praxis in the Anarkata Turn. SQuAD tries our best to support initiatives like ForTheGworls, @/TheOkraProject, @/BlkTransTravel because of how we see MA praxis.
All of those are Black trans projects focused on housing, food, travel, safety. The founders are beloved community members, friends, family. They don’t announce themselves as Anarkata, and don’t have to. Thas another distinction about Anarkatas, we don’t require ideology for MA
Other revolutionary tendencies make ‘MA’ about recruitment purposes or requiring a whole set of ulterior mandates like poverty porn. We think that’s weird, oppressive, and problematic. For us, MA rely centers on care work and community building, which revolutionaries help stir up
I talked more about how I understand MA as an Anarkata:
“...when we work with people to address the consequences of oppression concretely, we make it easier for
“...when we work with people to address the consequences of oppression concretely, we make it easier for
the vulnerable to survive and we open up potential for us to prove to ourselves and the people that we can resolve the structural causes of oppression concretely as well — not just in theory, but in practice.
We can demonstrate that anarchy is not something far off, but that it can begin now. This helps to both radicalize and conscientize, which basically mean that
people become more confident and understanding of skills we have or can learn to use in meeting our needs and freeing ourselves, and it means we become more aware of why autonomy from the Man and white power is necessary,
why it’s valid, and to become more conscientious about the reasons why revolutionary movements that fight for liberation are happening in this particular historical moment and this geographical region among this group of people.
A revolutionary has to be devoted to helping this process of radicalization and conscientization happen, tirelessly assuring it comes to fruition, fighting to affirm and defend and hold ourselves accountable to the growth of our revolutionary activity.
It is the concrete work, actual mutual aid... which set the stage for any of this to occur, because when it comes to Black people the seeds for anarchy are already in our culture and spirit because we are a communalistic people.
So all people need is just the opportunity to enact it more fully outside the trappings of capitalist, colonial, cisheteropatriarchal binds.” https://content.redvoice.news/kickbacks-ancestors-and-wildcats-the-anarkata-turn/
My collective and some of our friends and comrades talk about situating MA practice in care work and community building—as opposed to party recruitment—in a Kritical Kickback we had with @/PalanteNYC. My comrade relates this to methodologies of Quilombism https://soundcloud.com/user-615642006/palante-and-the-afrofuturist-abolitionists-of-the-americas-soy-anarkata
If I were to sum up this thread then, I would say: mutual aid is not just a ‘crisis intervention’ paradigm pending State/corporate intervention like these liberals frame it. It should center disabled and queer/trans Black folk. It should be encompassing + survival program style.
It should be rooted especially in this moment in environmental justice and disability justice thinking, histories, theorizing. We should use true Black feminist intersectional analysis to guide us in developing our networks and programs. It should have political education in it.
