Community-Led Education, Resistance, and Care
Image: Pixabay
Earlier this year, in April, I made a conscious choice not to isolate by myself. I knew that doing so would have an overwhelming impact on my mental health. However, this time around feels far more intense, due to the lack of sunlight and colder weather. Self-isolating during the winter months brings forth more challenges, requiring us to pay extra attention to our minds and bodies. A month ago, I moved back into my parents’ house for the second time during the pandemic. However, beyond my family, I’ve always held space for community and they for me, especially during this year.
The need for collective action is more evident now than ever before despite the looming neoliberal myth of individualism fuelled by competition and capitalism. The expectation to carry on with responsibilities as governments refuse to prioritize the most marginalized amidst a global pandemic reminds us of the importance of community care. As such, I want to shift focus onto a few ways to build community care over the holidays and into the new year.
When you think about what self-care is for you, also ask yourself who you define as community.
“The need for collective action is more evident now than ever before despite the looming neoliberal myth of individualism fuelled by competition and capitalism. ”
Here are some ways to engage in community care:
1. Mutual Aid Projects
Dean Spade, a trans activist, writer and associate professor at Seattle University School of Law, writes in his latest book, Mutual Aid, that:
“In this context of social isolation and forced dependency on hostile systems, mutual aid—where we choose to help each other out, share things, and put time and resources into caring for the most vulnerable—is a radical act.”
Mutual aid projects have always been around. It is how we have taken care of each other until capitalism and colonialism disconnected us from one another in violent ways. Several mutual aid projects have been started to share resources and help those who continue to be disproportionately impacted by the global pandemic, specifically racialized poor working-class people. It is crucial, however, to state the difference between Mutual Aid projects and charities. The former is a horizontal initiative cognizant of the root causes of the issues that impact communities and work towards collective mobilizing against these issues. Whereas the latter often provide top-down band-aid solutions to discourage folks from shifting power in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, many mutual aid projects have been co-opted, especially throughout this pandemic, and are treated more like charity organizations. Please see this syllabus, by Dean Spade, that thoroughly explains the history and significance of mutual aid projects.
Redistribute your paycheques to the initiatives and businesses below:
1492 Land Back Lane Legal Fund
2. Keep Learning
Earlier this year, we saw an increased effort to educate ourselves about the ways in which racism—anti-Black racism in particular—is embedding within our institutions and societies. Political education is often watered down by our schools as a result of the colonial educational system. As such, many community led projects, organizations, and organizers take on the labour, usually unpaid, to raise consciousness around systems of oppression. You can find a plethora of syllabi and book lists online. However, I’ve always found the best way I learn is by getting involved with community initiatives and organizations. Circular methods of learning, often through critical conversations, have always been a space of unlearning, relearning and healing.
Organizations to follow, learn from and to get involved with:
Toronto Prisoner Rights Project
The Criminalization and Punishment Education Project- CPEP (Ottawa)
3. Reminder: Check-in With Your Loved Ones
Although it may be tough not to physically be with some of your loved ones over the holidays, if folks are able to, connecting online with virtual games, dance parties, and guided meditate and yoga are all options to consider this holiday season. On building communities of care, activist and author, adrienne maree brown says:
“Be in community with healers in our lives. Healers, we must make sure our gifts are available and accessible to those growing and changing our communities. Be in family with each other—offer the love and care we can, receive the love and care we need. Share your car or meals with a healer in exchange for reiki sessions. Facilitate a healing group in exchange for massages. Clean a healer’s home as barter for a ritual to move through grief. Pay healing forward—buy sessions for friends. Let our lives be a practice ground where we’re learning to generate the abundance of love and care we, as a species, are longing for.”
Community care is self-care and as we continue to navigate the difficult realities of a global pandemic, we need to remind ourselves to hold each other with warmth and kindness.
As you think about what self-care is for you, also ask yourself who you define as community. As we enter the last weeks of what was the most demanding year of our lives so far, take some time to rest, reflect and recommit to political resistance and community care.
