thinking about how mutual aid has been transformed into meaning "aid," and further has come to mean charity
people said that charities create unfair hierarchies that decide who aid is given to and when, but I think others took that to mean "charity is a bad word"

mutual aid isn't transactional, that's not what I'm saying, but how are your needs being met?
mutual aid now includes sending someone a lump of money, without actually having our building a mutual relationship. there's gotta be a better term for that

there's also "mutual aid" groups incorporated as non-profits, which seems like actually re-creating the very charity industrial complex we hate, but with one of ours at the top

and again nothing against non-mutual aid, meeting other people's needs is important but we shouldn't use the phrase "mutual aid" as much as it cutely fits into portland's "MA/DA" continuum