Transcript
Speaker: Hello. You're listening to The Beautiful Idea, a podcast from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We're bringing you interviews and stories from the front lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.
Speaker: Follow us on Mastodon and at thebeautifulidea.show. Thanks for listening.
Speaker: Thanks for joining the Beautiful Idea. It's great to meet you both. Do you want to introduce yourselves really quick for our listeners? Yeah. Hi, I'm Pebble. I'm Typo.
Speaker: We run Lake Truth Distro together in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Great. Yeah. So today's interview, we're going to be talking about mutual aid and its role in anti-ice resistance in Minneapolis and hopefully beyond.
Speaker: So you all run this distro. Can you say again the name of it and where people could maybe find I know you guys have a public facing profile, right? So maybe just let people know where they might hear about that or learn more?
Speaker: Yeah. The name of our org is Lake Street Distro, and you can find us on Instagram at Lake Street Distro, all lowercase, snow no special characters or anything.
Speaker: Great. So what is Lake Street Distro? Yeah, so I feel like telling the story of how we started is kind of helpful to understand what we're doing now.
Speaker: But the two of us were connected with a bunch of organizers in the city, and we were helping one of our friends with the food distro that they had started.
Speaker: And it kind of fell into our hands in a strange way. And the two of us started running it and figuring out how we could make it a long-term thing.
Speaker: So we... have fresh produce and clothing and harm reduction and a shower in a garage space, basically, that people can come and everything is free and they can shop and get what they need.
Speaker: And we have the ability to connect them to other resources just through our own personal connections. And this past year 2020, in The November, December time, we started noticing that a lot of our regulars weren't coming in to our normal hours.
Speaker: And so we decided to start reaching out to them to see if we could bring food to them at their homes where they were sheltering in place. And that turned into a larger thing where we now deliver packed bags of fresh produce and also shelf-stable goods along with diapers.
Speaker: wipes, toys for kids. Am I missing anything? Hygiene kits, menstrual products. Yeah. To about a hundred families ourselves, it's gone down a little bit in the past few weeks.
Speaker: And Typo will have all of the the actual numbers because they're the numbers guy. But yeah, we were delivering to people in their homes, folks who aren't going outside because of the ICE occupation in Minneapolis.
Speaker: We also have shifted to also school programs, as well as helping a another food shelf up on the like northern suburb side help with their own delivery program. So in total, 100 families, direct delivery, as well as about 70 90 families. in-person families for free grocery store.
Speaker: On top of that, about 200 families through school programming where they pick up and grab supplies from us for their own distribution, as well as another location on top of that. So for about 490 families in total.
Speaker: Wow. And how many people is that, if you have a sense? Yeah. So the only number that I have people-wise is for our direct deliveries, and that's 413 just through that 100 direct delivery group. Okay.
Speaker: Wow. That's amazing. And when did you all get started? We started about two years ago. our friend that or started the distro, they were just in the space and North Country Food Alliance approached them were like, you want to want to just do this while you're here already? and He didn't have any experience with like food at all. And Pebble and I do. is we started in as just like, how do we get make sure the food's all good? The food's all fresh. Let's just double check all this packaging. And then about six months in, he left the space just because of some interpersonal stuff going on. and
Speaker: He tried to find another organization to take it over and it wasn't going to work. So he's like, it's just not going to happen. We're going let it fizzle out. And Pebble and I were like,
Speaker: unwilling we did yeah we refused to let it fizzle out it we saw something very special in that space and like with the two years ago the community that we had built was much smaller than now but i'm really glad that we kept going because we have a very very strong presence and community in the area that we're doing this in yeah Cool.
Speaker: So i am I am a little bit curious. I know I'm going a little bit off script here, but I am a little bit curious about you guys and your backgrounds. You said that you had some familiarity with this already. And I'm curious, like what led you to get involved in mutual aid work and in food work specifically? What appealed to you about it?
Speaker: I ask because... part of why the Beautiful Idea has been doing this series on Minneapolis and on anti-ice resistance is to basically make different ideas and and concepts and projects that are being done in one area, like more accessible or replicable in other areas. And so I think it's helpful for people to understand you know, who are the people getting involved in this and if they can see part of themselves in it. i think it's always interesting to to learn more about what motivates people and what what radicalizes them or what shapes them.
Speaker: Yeah. I'll start. i'm not I'm not originally from here. am a ah transplant from Wisconsin, which... Typo gives me a lot of shit for, but it is what it is. i came here to go to school and i got a degree in agriculture and food business management.
Speaker: Opening a restaurant and growing food for that restaurant was always my goal. And through going to school at a large land grant institution and basically getting a degree in Capitalism and big ag, i think, is one of the main things that radicalized me because I felt like everything that I was learning was wrong and didn't work and didn't make sense that it was being taught at such a high scale.
Speaker: How I got involved in the mutual aid scene was, and I've been working in restaurants this entire time, and i was just bringing excess from the place that I was working at at the time to the Nenukasi encampment.
Speaker: And I met some people, and then I met some other people, and now I know the people that I know now, and now we do the things that we do, is the long and short of that, I guess.
Speaker: Really quick for for people who don't know, what's the Menukasi encampment? Yeah, it was a very long-standing, indigenous, very well-organized healing homeless encampment in South Minneapolis that was organized very well. They had a lot of connections to a lot of different organizations, and they inevitably got evicted from like all four locations that they tried to stay Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. But it is still ah like a group of people still working on that goal of purchasing land and being able to live on it autonomously and outside and connected to the way that they desire to live.
Speaker: Well, thank you. Yeah. For me, I kind of skipped that part a little bit. I kind of did a trial by fire. 2020, I was a senior in high school and I'd just gotten my EMT license and I saw everything on fire.
Speaker: i was living in St. Paul at the time. And so the St. Paul, the St. Paul actions were very close to where I was living. And so I went out, I think, night two and I started medicating and just like crush injuries from like buildings collapsing and people's hands getting cut on glass and stuff like that.
Speaker: And so through that, I got connected to... A medic organization that I worked with for almost three years, I did a lot of encampment medic support.
Speaker: Then after that, moving more into the encampment aid, I worked on a project working towards building tiny homes for unhoused people. And that's ended up how i got connected with the food shelf. And throughout all this, I'm also working at restaurants.
Speaker: We're big food people like outside of our mutual aid. And so for that, it kind of became a way for my like passion for food and feeding people to connect with what I found like most important in life, which is being there for each other and being in community.
Speaker: So it felt like a really good meeting point of those things. That's really cool. Thanks sharing. Given giving me that background and both of you, i think, ah you know, understanding a little bit more around how, well, okay, sorry, let me back up a little bit.
Speaker: I feel like we could go in different directions here. We could start to have a conversation around, I guess, more like the theoretical implications of mutual aid, or we could have a conversation around like the specific the specifics of how your project operates.
Speaker: I'm curious about both of them. Wondering if you all have input or which of those directions is feeling more compelling right now.
Speaker: Either way is Okay. Let me just jump into something then. Okay. So it's really cool to have that that background on both of you and to understand how this is part of a much longer arc of your own like process of radicalization and what is most important to you.
Speaker: I'm wondering if you all could speak to the role of mutual aid work I guess in anti-ice resistance specifically, but then also more broadly in revolution, whatever revolution means to you all.
Speaker: I think something that a theme that has come up in the last few months when people are, you know, thinking and looking to Minneapolis and the the occupation of Minneapolis and how people have resisted it is how the anti-ice struggle lends itself to a broader struggle against capital, generally against the police, against borders. And and i think there are some kind of complications that get brought up sometimes when when the fight is sort of reduced to simply a call against ICE.
Speaker: And so I'm wondering if you all have thoughts on that, on like the role of mutual aid in revolution more broadly and how, yeah, how that's shown up um in your work in Minneapolis just in the last few months and what you think the potential is there.
Speaker: I think something that makes the Twin Cities very special in this sense is that we have such a long history of collective action and mutual aid, but that does come at the expense of the long history of state-led violence in the state.
Speaker: So I think in 2020, the same space that we're using now was used as a food distribution center. not the same organization they've closed for years prior.
Speaker: But part of, i think, mutual aid's role in resistance is creating those frameworks that when things happen like an ICE occupation and when someone is publicly murdered in the street like George Floyd in 2020. We have these pre-standing systems that we can turn to and help each other in this time of need.
Speaker: And the more that we can get community used not having to rely on the grocery store and have to rely on this big agricultural system, the more that we can edge people closer and closer every day to realizing that they don't need the state or over overall to rely on.
Speaker: And so I think it's think it's a vital connecting point with connecting the more often book-leaning, oftentimes, or at least in the Twin Cities, majority white leftist class to the more everyday community member is creating these third spaces where you are able to get the free grocery stores. And then you're able to have these conversations about what does being free or what does free mean to you? And what does free access mean to you to get the generalized community, not necessarily on the same page, because I think they have those ideas already, more used to having that conversation out
Speaker: So I think mutual aid plays a really big part in that. And with, I don't think we would have been able to just start doing a mass delivery system if we hadn't already built that framework of all of our community knows we're here already. So they know where they're going to donate dried goods.
Speaker: All of our community knows that we're here already. So they're going to come help us clean up more. So we have more time to focus on or actually the actual delivery system. I think When these large, large state-led violence campaigns come to the public eye, a lot of people want to help. And so having a mutual aid space really gives the generalized community that isn't as tapped into this massive leftist conglomerate has a place to center in and get those resources to do what they want to do inherently for their community.
Speaker: Yeah. And we've also noticed quite a few people sticking around, which is awesome. A lot of folks who got tapped in because they saw what they were seeing and they hadn't been before, but they're sticking around and they're going to continue to fight the good fight.
Speaker: i hope. It seems like they will. Yeah. Yeah, I think mutual aid is also a really great theater for, especially something that's more internal, is a really great theater for people to fail at mutual aid.
Speaker: To make those little bumbling mistakes where they don't exactly know how to communicate with people the most efficiently or to meet their needs properly. or to have a fully trauma-informed conversation all the time, it creates a really good stage for people to witness that and learn by example and open them up to all the possibilities that lie underneath.
Speaker: her yeah I also think a lot about um things are getting worse and they are going to continue to crumble down this path of like fascism that's becoming more like openly normalized and stated. day to day and we are creating a space where we can build up from what we even have now to continue to support each other through all of these systems and we have people who are working on like understanding how to build infrastructure we have people who are working on learning how to grow food
Speaker: We have people who are trying to build homes. Like there's all of these things that can come together and like we can build a new society basically from the knowledge and experience of everyone that we have gotten to know.
Speaker: and really from all walks of life, we know a lot of veterans ah and I don't know if we would, if we didn't do this. Yeah. It's just an interesting,
Speaker: group of people that can come together. Yeah, I was going to ask you next about the different people that are involved in this. And something that we that we talked about a little bit before i started recording was about the difference between people who have been doing this because it's maybe part of like a deeper politic that they hold or like principles that they hold and like It's like a long-term kind of life commitment that they have maybe. And then people who are like responding to a crisis and maybe like in a process of radicalization currently who show up and want to help, but maybe don't have like the context that other other people do. And so I was curious if you all could talk, speak a little bit to that and how how you navigate maybe the tensions that got brought up there or what you see happening with new people coming in
Speaker: if there are any significant differences there and how it's being handled. And then similarly, you just mentioned that, you know, a lot of veterans and I'm curious if you want to say a little bit more about that and the significance of working with people who have been part of like the machine of state violence and like how, how that impacts or influences the work at all. Very curious.
Speaker: Yeah. So we have, We have a slightly separate volunteer system. So we have the four volunteers and then we have the fresh volunteers just for security purposes. And so people have shown up and they do the exact same thing as the person next to them.
Speaker: And so I feel like that helps people feel a sense of pride in that they are not immediately trusted to like drive.
Speaker: But they are immediately interested to like, you can be in this space, you can pack spinach and the person who's next to you who's been organizing for 10 years is going to be doing the same exact thing next to you.
Speaker: And I think the more that we can introduce spaces where the more quote unquote veteran organizers and fresher people just coming into the movement can just sit in the same space and do the same project, those conversations will naturally happen.
Speaker: And i think also with the vilification of the harder left, I think the more we can open up spaces for those conversations, the more people are more open to and not being so scary.
Speaker: to be radicalized, that radicalization isn't necessarily a bad thing. And so I think opening up those spaces are really important. We have been working with Veterans for Peace lately.
Speaker: They help us with the security for the building, which is really great. They'll watch the door. They'll make sure that the cars coming through and stopping at the back or stopping for your pickup are actually our drivers and we're not opening the garage door for someone random.
Speaker: It's been really, really helpful to have people who I trust watch those things so that I can focus on everything else I need to do in a day.
Speaker: i think something that's really important is because the the imperial machine that is the militarization complex makes you feel like you have to have a job and everything you need to do is the most important thing ever in the entire world. Like it's all consuming.
Speaker: think the more that we can take veterans who aren't okay with that system and give them a job where they can help community and reroute those ingrained feelings, I think the more effective we can be in organizing as a whole, because if we're going against the state,
Speaker: We should know what the state's tactics are, and no one's going to know that more than a previous agent of the state. Yeah, and I think also with especially with how recruitment targets BIPOC people and disenfranchised people as a whole, and think we're doing ourselves as a community a disservice if we write them off completely instead of allowing them a space for rehabilitation.
Speaker: and disconnecting from that imperial core, especially as that's how we are seen from, like, organizers in France of, like, people resisting the imperial core from the inside and keeping that in mind as we interact with them. don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker: Totally. That's a really interesting parallel to draw, yeah of, like, how, ah like, radicals in the U.S. are seen by people outside of the U.S., as like, yeah, people in the very heart of of the war machine or of like this like imperial power.
Speaker: Is there anything you wanted to add to that, Pebble, or points that you all wanted to make around? I think something that had come up was around like introducing people to like security norms or like kind of having these I think you did speak to that a little bit, right, around like devilifying the left. But if there's anything else you want to add, or maybe even just like a small anecdote from like a recent exchange you might have observed, I think it would be really interesting to hear.
Speaker: Yeah. I think one thing that we've talked about a lot within the two of us is how we feel like we're freaks for our security because we have a lot of protocols when it comes to the driving aspect and taking bags from our location that we use to homes has been a very scary thing to do, especially after...
Speaker: um A recent incident in St. Paul where the St. Paul police and ICE together pulled over somebody who did have groceries in their car.
Speaker: And and they they were threatened with, they would dump all the food into the street if they saw him doing this again. And it would be a shame if this was impeding a federal investigatig investigation. investigation and threatened with arrest and so the concern about delivery safety got really intense after that yeah so our our systems were very thought out but also not something that i personally had ever done before in the way that we were doing it but yeah a necessary a necessary thing and i don't know how much it's a like we can talk about
Speaker: like what we actually do. I think something we can share is we, so for context, I think we can share this.
Speaker: We write things in, yeah yeah, we write things in washable ink on our papers. And so the idea is if someone were to like see ice tailing them or they're about to get pulled over to like destroy it with water in a way.
Speaker: And we have had a lot of embarrassment talking about that. Whenever we share that with other organizers, we're like, and we're freaks because we tested these different markers and pens on our washability. And all of our driver routes look like they were written by a third grader because they're in different colored washable marker.
Speaker: But it works. those those washable markers, they they disappear really quickly compared to all of the other ink And I think the more surprising thing for me was almost all the other organizers I've talked to about this are like, oh, that's so cool.
Speaker: oh you've you sat around and you tested paper and this glass of water in your office. That's so cool. And we thought we were being crazy. We are crazy. But I think that's...
Speaker: Also, even in our own like vilification of like the left and our security forces and like how much of freaks that we're being, the more that we can take pride in our security and showing up for each other.
Speaker: i think that's that's a great and amazing thing. Especially even, Pebble was listening earlier, of someone else who was on your podcast eats their paper. We're like, yeah, yeah, okay, we feel better. We're normal. We're on the same wavelength. Yeah.
Speaker: Because eating was the first idea that we came up with. We actually did have a long conversation about what was better eating, burning, or putting in water. And we we really thought about this a lot. so Wow, we thought the beautiful idea could like you know foster these really important reflections and debates. That's great. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And I remember you mentioned this, I think, before we started, but just kind of the weight that comes with being one of the people who's like holding on to information.
Speaker: it is heavy, you know, having access to a list that could be dangerous if in the wrong hands. And it's just, yeah, it adds to that, that weight.
Speaker: Yeah, i Sorry, were you going to add more there? No, I'm kind of at a loss for... i don't have a good way to, like, put this. was... I was going to say the thing with delivery is that delivery is not the safest option to get food to people. Like the Zion community centers is like a ship program. So they they don't have the list of people.
Speaker: so it's a bit more detached in that way. think ultimately what we've decided on and figured out is there's going to be organizations that do delivery anyways. We can't stop that from happening.
Speaker: What we can offer is the safest delivery program that we can make possible. Can you explain, just for people who don't understand, you said they have a ship program? Yeah, so that's... Yeah, what is Yeah, what's what's like an unsafe way to do deliveries versus um a safer way to do... deliver What are like the kind of key...
Speaker: risk factors to be aware of when you're creating a system for- Yeah. So there's there's SHIP program at the ZCC is they have bags that they pack in the building and people that do not directly volunteer for ZCC come to the building, pick up those bags and then make their own delivery route.
Speaker: So the organization making the food packs doesn't ever have that secure information. of the recipients. So the other way to do delivery systems would be the direct director delivery system, which is what we operate.
Speaker: And so that's communicating with families directly, having your drivers, your drivers are part of your organization and they go to that place directly. And that has a lot of push and pull, like Sorry, was just want to clarify, you said um that like the ZCC, for example, they have this system where they have, i just want to make sure I'm understanding this right.
Speaker: They'll have, they'll create these food packets and then, or grocery deliver like packages that are of food ready to be delivered. And then they have these people who don't necessarily know, like the internal operations of the organization that come through as volunteers.
Speaker: pick up the packages and then we'll drop them off at like a designated address that's like on the package or how does that work like what is the information that they don't have Yeah. So the ZCC, it's an external program. So the ZCC packs the bags, then an external volunteer disconnected from that organization.
Speaker: So it could be someone's neighbor. It could be like their social worker. It could be their lawyer. They come to the ZCC, pick up those bags, and then they deliver it directly to whoever they're delivering it to. But the ZCC doesn't hold any of that information. And a person that they already know...
Speaker: and a person that they already know where they live. Got you. The ZCC doesn't facilitate any of those relationships. I see. So the ZCC is not, yeah, facilitating drop-off. It's just people have their their own trusted contacts come and get the food for them.
Speaker: Okay, gotcha. And we do a direct delivery system. So we interact with the patrons digitally directly.
Speaker: And our direct drivers, like part of our organization, go to drop off. So it's much more of a collective or connected line, which does heighten the risk in that.
Speaker: I think something, two reasons why I felt like that was necessary was one there are other organizations like DHH that are doing delivery systems anyways, and they're not doing it securely.
Speaker: And so just as from a harm reduction standpoint, if this is going to be happening anyways, how can we make it the most secure for our group of people?
Speaker: And so at the very least, our group people. 100 families doesn't have to worry about that security risk on the same level as patrons of this or their organization.
Speaker: And I think a second point with that is from working in restaurants, I've met so many undocumented people and people on visa and people who i know are not not in the safest place with everything going on and obviously I know them so I'm gonna get them food and like they're taken care of they're fine but I don't know that everyone has that person And so putting it just up to the hands of fate of like, oh, and one of their neighbors will find this program and then they'll come to us. And I just have to assume that that's possible.
Speaker: Being able to put the agency directly in them to sign up, I think was important for me to make sure we covered as many bases as we could within our capacity.
Speaker: And it creates this really interesting relationship of, because of our security, not knowing a person and who they are, which is something that we normally take a lot of time, like meeting people and listening to their stories and becoming very close in that way. and so it's been very interesting having a long-term direct relationship with people without knowing who they are.
Speaker: And something that's beautiful is that there are some people who are going back to work and starting to come outside more. And we've had a few people who who've like come to our physical location after being on this delivery list for months and meeting them in person for the first time.
Speaker: And it's this very beautiful, emotional situation that is hard to even express. Yeah. It's like a gut-wrenching joy.
Speaker: Gut-wrenching joy. That's a very good word for it. Every single time we drop off food and we receive a text from somebody and i like scramble through it with my limited Spanish abilities and it's just yeah it's gut-wrenching.
Speaker: And I hope that one day soon ah we can meet everybody and it'll just be a new group of people who can join this community that we've fostered. Yeah. So you said that you do you do get to know someone's backstory a little bit, but you never actually meet them in person.
Speaker: So how does that How does that process work? And um I guess maybe now we can talk a little bit about the nitty gritty of like actually how it's how it's set up. If you guys feel comfortable sharing how that system works.
Speaker: So it took a lot of discussion and decision making of what risks we were really willing to take. But we did end posting a crypt pad, which is an end-to-end encrypted form, a link to it on our and our public Instagram account.
Speaker: And we had people sign up through there and they gave us the information that we requested, including their address. And then we copied all of that down onto paper and deleted the form.
Speaker: And then from there, everything was paper and has continued to be paper. Besides, we do send out a weekly form as well that is collecting the information of what specifically they need that week, but they don't have to enter in a lot of their private information into that again because we already have it.
Speaker: Yeah, they just have to enter in, or it's the request for the week, and they put in their phone number so that we can match it on the paper list. So just manually matching the digital phone number from the form to the paper one and just flipping through who the papers, which is fun. We also, for the like nitty gritty security, we don't use, um we don't use any sort of direction system.
Speaker: So our drivers, there's one driver and then there's one navigator. So they have a downloaded map or a paper map. They use the street name and then the number at the beginning of the address to scroll through and they have a generalized direction they're heading in. So they scroll through to find the point that they're heading towards and then they give turn by turn directions to the driver. Yeah.
Speaker: it was It was relatively difficult at first for a lot of people, especially in St. Paul, because their street system doesn't make sense. Minneapolis is a grid for the most part with some like weird one-ways, but it's relatively makes sense. And also now that people have been doing it for months, they pretty much know where they're going.
Speaker: And we've all gained this absolutely important skill of like directional awareness and navigation. through doing this. Yeah. Oh, um also every single week.
Speaker: At first we used this traveling salesman problem mapping system. It's called algorithm algorithm. Yes. And we connected with some people doing data work and in the cities and they have been working on a internal system so that everything's calculated internally. There's also address rounding so that you're never putting in the exact address. There's a bunch of... We've never entered anyone's address into any type of like search engine whatsoever, which was really important to us.
Speaker: Yeah. But once we algorithmically found out the most efficient routes, we then wrote all of these addresses in the order of what makes sense to drop things off at.
Speaker: And then every week I copy those down into using the markers. And then at the end of the route, the drivers destroy the paper.
Speaker: So you guys are not, you never input addresses into like an electronic database of any sort. you do maybe write them out by hand in marker. And the addresses that you guys use, are those actual addresses? ah Because I've heard in other places, people will sometimes have systems where instead of putting the person's address, they'll put like an address nearby or a location where they do plan to drop off the food. And then that person will come and pick it up from that point that's like closer to their house or something.
Speaker: Is that how it's working or you're like actually doing drop offs? We go direct to door. We were noticing also that a lot of people weren't even like willing to come out onto their front stoop. So yeah, we've been giving it direct to door.
Speaker: I think one of the things with the surge in Minneapolis is that there is no, or especially in January, there is no walking to the corner of the street.
Speaker: They, like in January and February, they were everywhere all at once. And so very understandably, i don't think that was a viable option for some people.
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Speaker: I think you've sort of spoken to this already, but something that came up earlier was like the difference between like underground mutual aid and above ground mutual aid groups.
Speaker: I'm wondering if you all wanted to speak to that at all or like how that difference has come up in the work that you're doing now. And I guess sort of related to that, I guess I'm thinking about you you said that the you all provide fresh produce, clothes, a place for people to shower harm reduction materials or or that that was what was being provided in the space that you were doing mutual aid stuff before you started doing the home deliveries.
Speaker: One, I'm curious if that like still exists. And two, I'm thinking about like other services or like help that people might need. Service feels like such a weird word to use here. But like, so you were just, you were just talking about how people are but like at certain points were like literally not able to leave their house at all. And that makes me think about the question of like all of these other needs that get brought up in the process of like not being able to leave your house. Like You can't make rent. You have like health appointments that you probably need to get to all kinds of things. and you all had said that the mutual aid space that you were operating before the surge provided fresh produce for people, clothes, a place to shower, harm reduction materials.
Speaker: And I'm curious about how you've been able to or not connect people to other services or support that they might need. And that is what is making me think about this difference between above ground and underground mutual aid. And maybe that's a separate question, but I'm curious, like what kinds of relationships you have with other mutual aid groups and how you navigate that to maybe connect people with other resources they might need that you're not able to provide and how like the above ground versus underground tension maybe gets navigated there.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot of different types of mutual aid going on in the city, obviously. i think for some of the families, at least from the notes that I've seen, were one of the main mutual aid connections that they have.
Speaker: And so being able to be that connector is really important. We've had someone who's asked for rent support before, so I looked up their neighborhood and I left them a sticky note inside of their delivery bag of places that they can like apply to for that specific neighborhood.
Speaker: We have their address and i know generally how much they're asking for and that sort of information. We have had, far as I know, only two medical calls where people were worried about some sort of medical issue and I was able to reroute them to a organization doing in-home calls.
Speaker: I don't know how publicly want their name to be shared. And so I think being a connector point for that is really important. I think there's also a lot of connections in building what we're able to give that I don't think is ever really seen on the outside. Like we've worked with Bethlehem Lutheran is the diaper distribution people for the entire metro right now. That's like their massive thing is diaper distribution. And so they'll We'll get diapers in from them.
Speaker: And we get all these canned good donations from a network of different coffee shops that we've set up food shelves in across the Twin Cities because people are more likely to donate if the coffee shop is right next to their apartment.
Speaker: And so there's a lot of external connections that go into creating the distro. And then on top of that, using the amount of resources that we have as organizers to put those little sticky notes in their bag to be able to contact other people.
Speaker: Yeah. And I'd say that we kind of toe the line between above ground and underground because we do have a public facing profile that says what we're doing, but a lot of the information about where we are located or who we're is working on this project is not publicly available. And so we are kind of in this gray area of having to navigate that. And even the decision to make an Instagram was like a very long conversation ah a year ago before any of this was even happening. Just the the fear that came along with putting attention on ourselves because we were able to garner so many patrons just through word of mouth and having a street presence.
Speaker: But the thing about this surge has been that we haven't had a street presence and we've kind of been sheltering ourselves inside of our building because we don't want it to be obvious from the street what we're doing which has made it kind of come full circle and us having that public forum has been kind of a necessary evil because we wouldn't have been able to connect with all of the people that we have if we hadn't had that
Speaker: out there. And another anecdote that ah you were talking about putting post-it notes in people's bags. I do put notes in people's bags all the time, but somebody recently requested flower seeds and I found some bags of seeds from last year in my apartment and I just threw those in somebody's bag.
Speaker: And that was really cool to me that somebody got some like marigold seeds because they asked for it. And yeah, we're we're doing what we can to give people everything that they ask for, but we can't do everything. But that was, I i i enjoyed being able to to put those in that bag.
Speaker: okay That's really sweet. I wanted to also ask about the ability of people who are impacted by the surge.
Speaker: to organize themselves internally. I think that was something that came up. That's really cool story. I wanted to also ask you about um the people who are impacted and their sort of agency and autonomy and ability to organize themselves internally in this in this context. I think you all had said that you had some stories about people doing that under these circumstances. I'm curious if you have stuff to share there as well.
Speaker: Yeah, one of our like long-time volunteers who'd been coming to help out since last summer, i believe, who we all love very dearly, but had to shelter in place and was able to organize the of the units in her apartment building to receive food from us on a weekly basis. And we we bring all of the bags in cars and we load them up through the back. and she's created systems of knowing everybody in her building and knowing what they like and don't like. And if they have kids and
Speaker: she has collected a group of volunteers from her own building to help her put the bags in front of everybody's door. And then they have a little collection box in the corner of the hallway for stuff that is shelf-stable that people didn't want that they can then put in there and then they can grab through that and see what they do want.
Speaker: And it's been... a very beautiful way to be like a radical organizer who's just kind of doing it because it makes sense and she's not thinking about it as far as I'm aware in like a political way it just like is what she's doing yeah Yeah, i think I think that speaks to there's a sense of community care in a lot of Black and Latina communities that like you take care of one another and having that longstanding feeling. And i think, especially as are we talked about before, bridging that gap between
Speaker: the like more theoretical leftist class and the day-to-day and tapping into that. I think it's really heartwarming to see her do that. it makes me cry a lot.
Speaker: And yeah, it's 20, 21 apartments. She organized and sorts food for 21 families and 21 apartments. And I know that like when things hopefully open up a bit more, she'll be right back at it at the distro as well.
Speaker: Just like nothing ever changed. And being able to take the most terrible situation and continue to show for your neighbors in whichever way was possible for you is really inspiring.
Speaker: And watching her do that is really inspiring for me to keep doing what I can do. Yeah, that's really beautiful. i think that also kind of gets to a question that I that I that I want to touch on around sort of mutual aid as revolutionary or mutual aid as like sustaining. And i feel like I heard recently somebody was like, oh, you you you can do Mutual aid, I mean, okay, there's a few different things. Sometimes people call like charity mutual aid.
Speaker: And I feel like I've heard some people talk about like the importance of like distinguishing those things. And like if it is charity, just calling it charity, but not calling something that's charity mutual aid and being clear about when something is mutual aid and like what what makes something ah like a a mutual or like reciprocal experience. And so that's one thing.
Speaker: And the other thing is, i think I recently heard someone say like, you can you can do mutual aid in a way that's like, not really revolutionary or doesn't necessarily like pose a real threat to like state power, but you can't have a revolution without mutual aid.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I'm curious about you all's thoughts on on those points. And then I think also related to that, since we're, you know, coming up on an hour here, another point that we talked about before we started recording was what is sometimes like was this sort of like division that I hear people using in language around revolution sometimes that it's it's almost like a gendered division that people use where they refer to mutual aid work and like life-sustaining work, generative, creative work as more like feminine work and more like destructive or like confrontational or like warrior type work.
Speaker: involved in revolution as the more masculine side of work. And like often people sort of glorify, you know, the insurrectionary, like out in the streets, like directly fighting the cops kind of work as like the real revolution. And then like,
Speaker: mutual aid work or like reproductive work is seen as secondary. And I, you know, i think some people would consider that just like, a like misogynistic in, in certain ways.
Speaker: But I'm curious, like what you all think about that gender division. And I think something that I'm hearing a lot in Minneapolis and in elsewhere is like the importance of both of those types of work like finding a synergy with one another. And yeah, so I think I'm i'm asking you kind of these two different things. I know that was really long kind of question, but I'm curious about about your thoughts there.
Speaker: Yeah, I think one of the big things splitting mutual aid from charity to me is... the difference between helping a community and living in community with one another.
Speaker: So like my jacket is fixed because someone at the the distro decided to fix my jacket in and exchange for something that they picked up for free there and We were not eating or sleeping enough in January. And so members of other mutual aid organizations were, or they brought us food.
Speaker: And in exchange, we helped them with some of the organizational stuff they needed help with. And being able to not only just see these people as outside, but see yourself as a part of the community, i think is what really separates that difference to me.
Speaker: And I would argue that that is what makes mutual aid revolutionary. If we are challenging the state by creating new systems of trade and barter and like a gift economy, then we are challenging the systems in place just by reciprocity.
Speaker: And to your point of you can't have revolution without mutual aid, i i think back to 2021 Brooklyn Center, think the first time I saw him like food resources as mutual aid was outside of encampment work, was Daunte Wright was killed, there was massive protests in Brooklyn Center, and in the middle of the night, in the middle of the tear gas and the fire and everything, people were handing out burritos so that people could stay out longer, and the medics were well-fed so they could keep on treating injuries from the rubber bullets.
Speaker: And i think it does play into the gendered roles of mutual aid is seen as less dangerous and less scary and therefore a weaker thing to do less interesting thing to do When in reality, think something that we talked about is we don't get, ah like there's no the risk of us getting arrested in January isn't that high.
Speaker: That's not the concern. It's getting arrested six months from now. And so Really putting in perspective the risk that mutual aid takers take every single day to be there for their community and to be connected to one another, i think, is part of that almost infantilization of mutual aid and the assumption that there's no there's no risk and it's just women's work and you're just doing...
Speaker: your little thing off to the side that I think the more that we can think of mutual aid as a form of direct action, the less we can, or the more that we can begin to value it as what it really is. Yeah.
Speaker: And also, i mean, for things to burn, they have to be rebuilt. And if we're beginning to create these mutual aid communities right now, like we said, like We had been doing this before January happened. And so we could do what we've been doing.
Speaker: And we will continue to do this before whatever happens next happens. And so we will have the groundwork. to be able to build upon that.
Speaker: And I don't think that that's weak work. and if we And if we want revolution to spark, we need to be in community with one another, not only as leftists, but as a generalized public.
Speaker: And so again, mutual aid creates a really great theater for people to get used to having those conversations and knowing who to ask. I've had a lot of conversations with our regulars who are still coming in person to the grocery store and they don't know who to talk to about ICE. They don't know who to talk to about the big protests. They don't know who to talk to about Renee Good and Alex Pretty being shot.
Speaker: And so we'll have those conversations and they'll open up about their questions about what does this mean if we're taking a big step against the government? what What happens if they come down on us even harder?
Speaker: So I think it creates a really, really important theater for just working as a catalyst of revolutionary thought in the generalized public. Yeah, kind of a similar thing about like getting to know our regulars is, I mean,
Speaker: I have this belief of food as medicine and that we're being poisoned through the food system that we are currently purchasing through. And we have built this relationship to where people who used to come to us and be like upset or, you know, not fulfilled that we didn't have enough sweets that day are now getting like excited about food.
Speaker: the growing season that's about to start and how we're going to have more fresh vegetables and like we're just fostering this like health like this healthy excited about vegetables community which is just this powerful thing Yeah, I remember at the beginning of like last spring, they'd be like, these stupid fucking vegetables. Why am I eating kale? Do you think I'm really going to eat kale? And now I have the same people where I could have grabbed more, but I grabbed a couple boxes of kale from another food drive that was offering it to us.
Speaker: And i had people celebrating for like the fresh chard and kale that we had for them. It's like, this is not the energy that we had this time last year. Yeah. Yeah. yeah ah That's awesome.
Speaker: All right. Well, I do want to start wrapping things up, but i I'm going to ask you all some of my final questions, which is you know, what what has surprised you most about this work?
Speaker: um What has been one of the biggest challenges? And any any final messages that you want to share with other people listening in from around the country?
Speaker: I think the most surprising thing for me is maybe just because I am kind of a nihilistic fucker, is just the amount of love in community that exists.
Speaker: And I'm not much of like a hippy-dippy type. So that's not like, I'm not someone who's like, the power of love overcomes all. That's not generally my vibe. But this last fall, I had a really, really hard time. Just a lot of personal stuff going on.
Speaker: And the amount of like love and support throughout the occupation as like our regulars have seen us being stressed the fuck out and me with everything that was going on in the fall the amount of love and support and like holding each other up that I've witnessed and felt from people who just see me for a couple hours every Thursday is really life-changing and I think it's I've always been a leftist who believes in the theory of revolution and not in the inevitability or maybe not always the practicality.
Speaker: But I think the amount of love and support shown the community in the last couple months has really helped me start to shift on that. Yeah, I think one of the more surprising things for me was how like the amount of reach that that we've been able to attain because i mean, we're grinding on like a weekly basis and like just, just working. And we've been putting so much time into this collectively, all of us.
Speaker: And then every single time, someone like mentions a number about how many people we've been able to get food to, that's just shocking.
Speaker: It's mind blowing, but our work is paying off. And being able to be proud of ourselves, I think is another thing. I've always struggled with that and and they have too. And yeah just feeling pride in what we're doing.
Speaker: like genuine pride has been a surprising factor in this. I think something that also the way that people have stepped up, like people who have volunteered with us like once or twice now, like do restaurant table orders for me so I don't have to, and I can do other things in the morning, which is very important to me. And so the amount of people who were able to step up and be there and Really like commit, not just like short-term, but like truly commit to the cause.
Speaker: was really inspiring to see like on a dime and are still here, even as things drop off a little bit more with volunteer effort. Something that I would say to others is start now.
Speaker: Again, we are really, really lucky that we've had the system going this. over a year and a half before January. And I would really advise of like, be connected with your community now.
Speaker: Start building food systems now and don't don't let it scare you because it's worth it. And it's hard.
Speaker: It's like, I'm not going to be like, food organizing is a really easy task. It's not. There's so many different moving factors to it, but it's it's worth it. Yeah. One of the ah biggest challenges I think that we've both faced, obviously we've been facing different levels of challenge through this whole experience, but is taking care of ourselves.
Speaker: Spending so much time away from my home and not cleaning anything, including my body, was something that was really, really difficult, especially in January.
Speaker: But we had friends who would come in and like clean our do our laundry, wash our dishes. So yeah, that again just speaks to like knowing your community allows you to continue to foster the things that you are trying to foster. And to what you said, let's all learn to grow some food, steward the land. And yeah, really, I mean, it's said so much, I feel like that it's become kind of just like a normalized saying, but getting to know your neighbors is just like the most powerful thing. And it's what's going to get us through.
Speaker: the one thing I was going to add for context, I'm a person of color. realized this is audio. And so Pebble was like different levels of challenges. And I was like, yeah, I should clarify that.
Speaker: But yeah, no, my my safety has been in less question through this entire time. So, but something I would say to other organizers of color is i was really afraid in January and I'm still afraid. i'm Let's be real.
Speaker: But like going down to protest at Whipple, like by the doors, not a smart option for me personally. And so something that in January kept me going was i had two options for myself. And I know this is also speaking to a level privilege. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but the option was either sit inside with my mom and my grandma with like a shotgun at the door and just never leave home until I get an okay and just get everyone in mutual aid to deliver food to me and I will never leave the home or to do this.
Speaker: And I think within your own safety you can constraints, i think choosing this has been the most powerful and like life saving thing for me within this period of time.
Speaker: Wow. Thank you. um This is like, this has been such an amazing conversation. Is there anything else that you all want to add before we close? I think that was, that was brilliant. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. and we We were listening to some of the episodes in preparation for this and I'm going to be a new regular listener. is i went on a mini road trip a few days ago and I did just listen to your podcast for a good like four hours spurt of driving. so Thank you for this.
Speaker: but this it really it's nice to hear because we just kind of make something and put it out in the ether and you don't know if anybody listens to it or if it makes any sort of thoughts shift for people but yeah really appreciate that and um yeah thank you both so much for sharing so much and i think this is be really helpful and inspiring for lots of people so cool stay tuned yeah yeah ah
Speaker: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Beautiful Idea, news and analysis from the front lines of anarchist and autonomous struggles everywhere. Catch you next time.
