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Treaty Six Outreach, mutual aid and the anarcho-curious
68 Plays3 years ago
Robert Miller and Tabitha from Treaty Six Outreach join us to talk about the grassroots, street outreach, mutual aid work their group does, the Edmonton Police kicking homeless people out into -30 degree weather and whether human beings are fundamentally decent or not.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Recommendation
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to The Progress Report on the Harbinger Media Network. We're one of just many excellent left-wing podcasts on Harbinger, and a new episode on the network that I want to recommend is the latest from Oats for Breakfast. On their latest pod, Canada's number one socialist comedian, Charlie Demares, returns to the show to discuss his new book, Primary Obsessions, a mental health themed murder mystery.
Challenging Corporate Media
00:00:20
Speaker
At Harbinger, we're challenging right-wing corporate media dominance with original content with a political point of view you won't find in the mainstream media. Get access to exclusive shows and other supporter-only content at harbingermedianetwork.com. Now, onto the show.
00:00:53
Speaker
friends and enemies. Welcome to the progress report.
Recording Location and Treaty Acknowledgement
00:00:55
Speaker
I am your host Duncan Kinney, and we're recording today here in a misquitchy with Skygun, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. And we're recording this in Treaty six territory. And where we are recording this, the territory that we're recording, this is important.
Introducing Treaty 6 Outreach
00:01:10
Speaker
Uh, and speaking of Treaty six, we're very pleased to have two representatives from the grassroots street outreach organization, Treaty six outreach on the pod, uh, Robert
00:01:22
Speaker
and Tabitha, welcome. Howdy. Thank you for having us.
Origins and Mission of Treaty 6 Outreach
00:01:29
Speaker
So I gave a very brief kind of description of what Treaty 6 outreach is, you know, street outreach, mutual aid, grassroots, but why don't you give a bit more of a better description of what the organization that you're a part of is and how long it's been around and how it started up.
00:01:49
Speaker
Tab on the field, that one? Will do. I was going to let you take that one. Sorry, guys. Treaty 6 outreach started about a year ago. Right now, the kind of outreach that we're doing is a bit more stationary. We're at Beaver Hills House Park from 11 to 4 downtown on 105th and Jasper, and we are also at the Gazebo Park just off White every week from 1 to 4. Originally, we started out as
00:02:19
Speaker
street outreach and we would drive around looking for folks who needed food or water. And it was very emergency response based in the beginning. And then from there, when Camp Pekwewin came to town, we ended up volunteering there and kind of moved our outreach fully to the camp for the duration. And then now we're kind of
00:02:41
Speaker
getting back into the community and finding out where the needs are from there. And right now we're focused on harm reduction, obviously things like food and water, warm clothing, and just spending time with our community and trying to stay connected to the folks that we're trying to offer care to.
00:03:03
Speaker
So when you're, say you're offering care, give an example. What are you giving to folks at these locations that you're at? You know, once a week at Beaver Hills house park on the north side and, and at the Wilbert McIntyre park, the gazebo on the south side, what, what, when people come up to you, what are they asking for? What are you giving them?
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah, so what a usual day sort of looks like is that we have coffee and food that we give out to people trying to make sure that people are fed, but also a lot of warm clothes. And that's sort of the bulk of what we do. But there's also a lot of more specialized stuff that we do. So we try and provide harm reduction supplies so that
00:03:40
Speaker
People have, you know, clean tools for drug use. We also provide like medical, like first aid kits for people. We provide cleaning kits, hygiene kits, as well as sort of other things that people are in need of. So that can be camping supplies for people who are sleeping rough.
00:03:58
Speaker
It's also been cell phones and ways that they can stay in contact with each other, stay in contact with us in some cases, as well as just like have more dignified lives living on the streets of Edmonton, because that's something that's often denied to them.
Community Care and Mutual Aid
00:04:13
Speaker
And then also a lot of just community care, talking to people, checking in, making sure that when people do get housing that they still have some supports and can get some of the stuff that they need. Because even once people are off the streets, they can still be in very precarious positions.
00:04:31
Speaker
So Tabitha, you kind of briefly touched on the origin story, but there's got to be more there, right? It's just a few friends got together at the start of the pandemic to help people out, but the organization turns one pretty soon here, I imagine. What was the kind of deeper story there? Well, the group of friends that kind of started Treaty 6 Outreach, a lot of us had been involved in the community for a long time before that, had been involved in
00:04:59
Speaker
you know, doing mutual aid in smaller ways. And we also had friends who work for nonprofits and who have more experience doing that kind of work, who we had talked to, and we wanted to find a way to help. And we also wanted to do it in a way that wasn't restricted by, you know, nonprofit industrial complex and wasn't restricted by things like
00:05:20
Speaker
you know, systemic racism and the other stuff people experience when accessing services. So I think the big thing for us was community minded, offering support in ways that people weren't getting. And after that, we realized it was so much more need than we ever realized.
Camp Pekewin Experience
00:05:40
Speaker
And we started needing more and trying to figure out
00:05:44
Speaker
how we could get a bigger team together. And I think through Camp Peck away when that was really what got our brutes on the ground in a much larger way, because at camp, obviously we were centralized, we had a lot more support, there were more volunteers, and we also had a large amount of community who we got to see every day, which I think has been really important in strengthening the relationships with the community that we have now is we've known people, we got to see them for a hundred days,
00:06:13
Speaker
So when they need something, they trust us. We have a relationship with them. And like Robbie was saying about that community care aspect, that's a big part of what's missing too for people is just having a chance to sit down and talk to somebody. So a really big part of our outreach turned into chatting with people, having a cigarette with people, getting to know them and what the specific barriers they have are so we can offer care a little bit better. And it really took off after camp, I think,
00:06:43
Speaker
Robbie can attest to that too, that we really had to figure things out really quickly together and it gave us a lot of skills to provide a lot larger amount of care to the community. Yeah.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, and being embedded, especially at camp, was really eye opening as well for just what are people actually missing? What are the gaps? Because Treaty 6 outreach started because the pandemic opened up so many massive holes in the social safety net.
00:07:14
Speaker
and support networks of a lot of these of a lot of people whether they were unhoused or not. But just like seeing that there were these massive gaps that had always been there that were never filled even before the pandemic has been really eye-opening because some of them are very simple and easy to fix. Let's just give people a little bit of dignity.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's incredibly important. Why don't we go back to Camp Pickaway Wind for a second and let's provide some context for what it was and why it started and how long it went. So yeah, so like what was Camp Pickaway Wind and like how was that camp such an important part of like Treaty 6 Outreach's origin story? What was camp? Oh yeah, that is such a huge question.
00:08:09
Speaker
But yeah, so Camp Bekewewen had sort of, the major source of it was sort of rooted in this desire by a lot of Indigenous folk for a, just like a better life for Indigenous people living in the city, especially those who are unhoused, because like this is Indigenous land, the camp
00:08:35
Speaker
The camp was deeply rooted in trying to support Indigenous people who were unhoused, especially, but as well as the general unhoused community. And that was every part of camp from even its location. The River Valley used to be a site of trade and burial and ceremony, and it got turned into an abandoned parking lot.
00:08:55
Speaker
And just the indignity of that was something that camp also was related to. And so that was sort of like the nucleus of camp was how do we help unhoused people. And then everything that came after that was just trying to figure out how that's
00:09:13
Speaker
how to do that. So camp went from fairly small. We didn't know on that first day whether or not it would even like survive three days. And then it became a three month long project involving hundreds of people providing support for Edmonton's unhoused with like, I think peak occupancy was like 300 people sleeping there.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, camp was a massive undertaking. And it really demonstrated, again, like the lack of support that these people have. It gave us a lot of connections in the community to be able to advocate for them. One of the things that was very important that camp did as well was just providing a bit of stability for people.
00:09:56
Speaker
I remember a lot of cases where people would come up to us and thank us because all that they needed to get off the streets was a few weeks staying in the same spot so that their housing workers could find them. And so that was a big part. Camp was really just about highlighting just how unsupported these people are and how much their needs are not being met. And then trying to meet those needs in a very
00:10:26
Speaker
sort of do it as we go kind of way. But yeah, it was all rooted in that sort of attempt to do a little bit of land back, make sure that indigenous people were housed on their own territories, and then supporting the unhoused people here as best we could. I don't know if that's like a good description of camp, but that's like the rundown of what happened at Camp Pekewelyn.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I, uh, if you drove through Edmonton's River Valley, you likely saw it. I mean, I definitely, you know, poked my head and dropped some things off a few times, did a couple of shifts in the kitchen. Um, obviously it wasn't as involved as, as y'all, but it was, um, I think something that was pretty wild to see it actually like take off and to actually have 300 people in one place at one time.
00:11:18
Speaker
Um, you know, getting fed and getting services and, you know, again, having some sense of stability, uh, just, just an absolutely, uh, incredible, uh, project. Um, and so what, uh, can't pick away when closed. Uh, I can't remember when exactly, but when it got cold, essentially.
Post-Camp Evolution and Pandemic Response
00:11:41
Speaker
And, uh, Don Iveson vowed to end homelessness, I believe.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah. How many weeks has it been since he ended it now? It's over. There's no more homelessness. Yeah. Um, and I think, uh, they opened up the Edmonton convention center as a bit of a like catch all for housing, not really housing and services and food and stuff. I think their returns on that, uh, are mixed. I think we'll get into that later, but, but when it closed, then the treaty six outreach started doing what you're doing now, essentially. Right.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yep. It took us like what, two or three weeks to sort of get stuff back together after camp, but yeah. And this, yeah, it's an interesting time. I mean, the pandemic has seen an explosion in kind of mutual aid and people coming together to take care of each other and things like groceries and supplies for people who are sick or who have to isolate.
00:12:44
Speaker
And it's also thrown a lot of people out into the street and that has really kind of made it clear, you know, just how insecure housing is and like how brutal and ruthless landlords can be. And it's, it's, it's encouraging to see an organization like yours doing its thing. You think it's fair to say that we've seen kind of an explosion in mutual aid since the pandemic started?
00:13:12
Speaker
I would agree with that, especially, uh, I think more recently I've, like when I'm going to get supplies or I'm running into people, uh, on the street, I'm seeing people already there already checking in before I get there. And that's new in, in my experience doing street outreach the past year, you know, at the beginning, it was a lot of like, I would literally find someone lying on the street and people stepping over them and ignoring them. And now it gets to the point where I go to see if someone's okay. And someone's already pulled over.
00:13:40
Speaker
and is giving them some gloves and five bucks. So I definitely feel like people, there's a bigger understanding of the ways we can help each other, like one-on-one. I think that's definitely something that people are starting to learn as time goes on.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah. Like there's this, all this bad fiction out there and bad movies, bad television shows about how we kind of immediately devolve into kind of neighbor eating zombies. If the power goes out for a day or if there's no food in the grocery store, if a bad thing happens, if there's a flood, but like anyone who's ever actually been in a crisis or an emergency knows that like humans are actually quite good at coming together and taking care of each other and figuring these, these, these things out. And, um,
00:14:29
Speaker
And it's really interesting to see it actually in practice and see what works like yours or actually how they're actually doing it. Of course, a recent example of how not to take care of your fellow human beings happened recently in Edmonton.
Incident with Edmonton Police
00:14:48
Speaker
I'm sure most people are aware of it at this point, but if you're hearing about it now, I'll give you the brief rundown. On Monday of this week, February 15th, Edmonton Police were involved in some absolutely disgusting behavior. Bear Clan Patrol, which is an indigenous-led organization, do you say it's fair to say it's somewhat similar to what Treaty 6 outreach does?
00:15:15
Speaker
Not super familiar, but I think in practice, what they go out and do, yes, though the philosophies between the two are, can be quite different, but it's neither here nor there. Yeah, they also provide help to the unhoused here, yeah. Yeah, so Bear Clan Patrol was out in central LRT station at 8 p.m. on a Monday, on that holiday Monday. They were offering soup and bannock and fruit, as well as masks and hand sanitizer and other supplies to about a dozen houseless folks who were there.
00:15:45
Speaker
availing themselves of these services. And apparently this is something that they do on a regular basis. This is the time and place that they do their thing. And then the Edmonton police show up. And we have audio from this that I think is important to listen to, but to set the scene as this audio is about to begin, the cops have essentially approached these, uh, these, these bear climb patrol folks. They're like in reflective vests. They have a little wagon with supplies in it.
00:16:09
Speaker
Um, just before this audio starts, there's a cop that's like telling a guy who was literally eating food that he needs to put his mask back on. Like he has his mask around his ear hanging off his face, eating. He's like, you have to get out of here because you're, you're not, you don't have your mask on. Um, but let's just listen to the audio and react to it. So here it is. Yeah, I'll help your hand.
00:16:32
Speaker
And then we'll take the food outside, which is fine. All right. The best of the masks on inside. Yeah, absolutely. You can definitely help as many people as you want. Wonderful. We'll make sure that we have the masks for everybody on. As well, we give out masks, you know, so it's not. Yeah, of course. But they are. Well, you know what? If they're hungry,
00:17:00
Speaker
you know yeah you guys really suck but we've got your badge numbers right okay it doesn't matter you can have our badge numbers yeah i know but you know what we
00:17:19
Speaker
You know what? We're under extreme weather. Aren't we under extreme weather? Yeah, there's lots of shelters. The city provides for those. Okay, then off you go. Okay guys, we have to take the elevators up with our carts, so come on this way.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, well, cards. You guys want to carry it up? All right. I'm on Jasper. Wow.
00:18:11
Speaker
So it is minus, feels like minus 33 out and EPS has just kicked everybody that was taking shelter and food and clothing from the bear clan. And EPS has just come and kicked everybody out of the warmth and sent them eating outside. Wow, they can't even stand here.
00:18:37
Speaker
People got to get through here. You guys got to go. We got a lawyer in here. We're not lawyering. Where you are? Is there a standing still? Like, she's gone. We're out of here. This gentleman said he was carrying everything over. He is.
00:19:09
Speaker
Oh my god, EPS, can't we do better than this EPS? Really? People just want to eat!
00:19:18
Speaker
People just want to eat EPS. That's it. I agree. They should be able to. Oh my God. We have been feeding them all through the cold snap here every Wednesday and every Sunday. They know that when they come here that they will get fed.
00:19:44
Speaker
And yes, shelters are at capacity. There is no place for these human beings to go and eat. But do you guys care? No, because you guys can go home to a nice warm spot, right? And eat all you want.
00:20:01
Speaker
And so yeah, that, that is the audio from that experience. And the video is even more powerful. Um, you know, I think she makes an incredible point about how someone, how anyone could do that to another person. I suppose my question to you too is, is, is has tree six outreach had, um, experiences similar to this with the Edmonton police. Yep.
00:20:27
Speaker
Fuck Edmonton Police straight up. I agree with that. I think one of the things that was quite obvious at camp was, yeah, just how much this is a symptom of Edmonton Police's just complete lack of accountability for their officers.
Critique of Police Actions and Accountability
00:20:50
Speaker
So for those who also may not be following too closely, like Edmonton Police put out a statement saying, yada, yada, yada, you know,
00:20:57
Speaker
a bunch of bullshit. But earlier, before this incident had taken place, there'd been other incidents with the water protectors, or I think the water warriors, who had witnessed an encampment being cleared by Edmonton police in minus 30. And this was despite the fact that the city had put out a statement saying that they were stopping that enforcement.
00:21:19
Speaker
And so what these all belies that like Edmonton police can talk and they talk a lot about how they're like taking care of people and they're sensitive and they're like a, you know, friendly police force. But the fact is, is that it doesn't matter. Like all of that is bullshit because their officers are never held accountable for any of their actions, no matter what kind of wrongdoing, no matter how much they're obviously breaking their own rules.
00:21:46
Speaker
Edmonton Police never punishes officers. And so you get shit like this. That, you know, despite the fact that Bear Client Patrol works with Edmonton Police, despite the fact that, you know, they have a good relationship from everything that I've seen, individual officers are perfectly empowered to just be complete fucking asshats. And the complete lack of accountability on the part of Edmonton Police makes that possible.
00:22:12
Speaker
And not just asshats. I mean, I think it's important to just reify that like kicking people out into minus 30 weather who don't have homes is incredibly violent and brutal behavior and that it is
00:22:27
Speaker
that it is incredibly violent to do such a thing, to use your power as a police officer, to kick people out who were getting like food and supplies, uh, who don't have a home out into a brutal cold snap. Like that is, again, I don't know what being a cop does to you that like, you can just do that and walk, walk away and then go to sleep at night. But like, yeah. Yeah.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah. I wanted to actually like invite Tab to talk about sort of like T60 and police, because that's part of what we do. Yeah. My phone is like just full of videos of police mistreating and house community members. And every single week I get more stories about mistreatment. I think from the moment I started doing street outreach until now, every time
00:23:25
Speaker
I go out, I end up hearing a story about police brutalizing community members, dropping them off across town without shoes, tearing up their tents. I've actually never heard any positive stories about police doing anything for unhoused community members, which is expected, and that's so disappointing, obviously.
Calls for Police Reform
00:23:55
Speaker
And like compassion training won't cut it. You know what I mean? Like, I think one of the bear clan patrol members that was on the tape was like, you know, did an interview with CBC and was asking for something like that. And I think, I think, you know, that's just never going to be enough. I mean, deep down, I believe, you know, people are decent people and that anyone who listens to that audio of cops kicking homeless people out of a LRT station into minus 30 weather is going to be horrified.
00:24:22
Speaker
And the actual solution there is, you know, the stuff that was talked about over the summer, you know, defunding the police and, and reallocating those resources to organizations and institutions that aren't brutal and violent towards unhoused folks. And, and I don't really see any way, like, I just don't see the police as an institution that can be reformed in that case.
00:24:49
Speaker
There's a great example out of Denver. Their city council didn't defund the police but did find the money to sort of fund a police alternative so that no calls about people who are unhoused or having a mental health crisis would be answered by police. They'd be answered by just like an unarmed support team.
00:25:09
Speaker
And it's had some really great results. Hundreds of calls have been answered, no violence, no one died, which if they'd been responded to by cops, almost certainly would have happened. But it was also just the degree of simple stuff that can be done. They were talking about one person who was having
00:25:31
Speaker
severe crisis and it was entirely because their shoes were too small like they'd been wearing these shoes because they were all they had and their feet had started to like you know become deeply damaged by these poorly fitted shoes so they just went out and bought the guy new shoes that was all they had to do and they had the power to do it and it's just like that is what we could be doing here like instead of having cops going down into LRT stations kicking people out into minus 30 weather and
00:26:00
Speaker
the city could fund any of these meet, like eight efforts. Wouldn't that be great. Um, and just provide support to people. I've lost track
Personal Accounts of Police Mistreatment
00:26:12
Speaker
of the question. Cause as soon as we start talking about cops, I just get into these like cycles of, of, uh, rage and upset. But like, like Robbie was saying about, you know, the problem with the shoes or sending crisis teams, like most of the people that we encounter when doing outreach.
00:26:27
Speaker
And many of them have warrants or have been in trouble with the police multiple times over things that could be fixed by a mental health worker, a warm place to sleep, some clothing, something to eat. I can't remember where I saw it. I'm sure it was like some mutual aid Instagram, but it was something along the lines of a cigarette and a snack will go a long way. And I think at camp, anyone who volunteered there learned that most of the time, if you can give someone your ear and something to eat and a cigarette and just a bit of space,
00:26:57
Speaker
solve so many issues, which makes it all the more frustrating that we're sending, well, not we, but cops, guns blazing or whatever are the ones we're dealing with this. It's really upsetting and happening so frequently. And I can't imagine what's happening when there aren't groups like Bear Clan or T6O or Water Warriors out there to see.
00:27:24
Speaker
And so we've mentioned mutual aid a bunch of times on the podcast so far, but I think it's worthwhile to just kind of like talk about what that means.
Understanding Mutual Aid
00:27:34
Speaker
Like, what does mutual aid mean for you and the work that you do? And how is mutual aid different from, say, charity?
00:27:43
Speaker
So for me, if you want to go and read a book about mutual aid, there is Mutual Aid by Kropotkin. I have not read it, but I've heard good things about it. There's a lot of deep philosophy around mutual aid, but I think a lot of it is very simple. It's just that in the society we live in under heteropatriarchal imperialist capitalism,
00:28:06
Speaker
We are told constantly that it's like we are struggling for survival, but that is not necessary. That is not something we have to do. We can live in a world where we help each other, where we don't expect something back, where we can just provide things that people need because they need them and someone has them.
00:28:27
Speaker
And so that is a big part of mutual aid as like a big picture concept. And in the little ways, it's just giving people the things that they need and not judging them for it, not putting barriers in the way, not means testing it, other nonsense like that.
00:28:46
Speaker
But it also means being directly accountable, like to answer the second part of that question. How do we differ from charity work is that if you work for a charity and lots of our volunteers do. This isn't just to like.
00:29:01
Speaker
bad mouth them, but just to provide some sort of context is that if you work for those agencies, you are accountable to your boss and your boss is accountable to the board and the board is accountable to their funding agencies. And that's how a nonprofit is set up. And a lot of the stories of things that get dismissed or mistreatment that happens in the nonprofit sector of unhoused people oftentimes stems from that lack of accountability to the people they are serving.
00:29:29
Speaker
And mutual aid differs from that in the sense that at T60 we have no board, we have no bosses, we are just a collective of people, and we are directly accountable to the unhoused community that we serve. When they ask us for things, we check in with ourselves to make sure that we're comfortable, we try and find a way to do it, and then we do it.
00:29:51
Speaker
We don't worry about whether or not our funding agency might pull the plug on us. We don't have to worry about sort of all of that stuff. It's just, let's get things to the people that need them. And that's mutual aid in a nutshell. And just to add on a little bit to what Robbie said, I think for me, just because a lot of my experience with mutual aid was
00:30:15
Speaker
through, I would do the work and learn as I went, because for me, a lot of this is still quite new. Learning that mutual aid can be very, not small, I don't want to say what a small or a big thing to do is, but that individual people can perform mutual aid in their day-to-day in very easy ways. And that was something that took me a little bit of time to figure out too, is that by having hand warmers and gloves and change in my backpack,
00:30:43
Speaker
If I see someone, I can help them out in that moment and try to encourage people who maybe aren't parts of collectives that those small actions of keeping an eye out for the people in their communities is also mutual aid. And it doesn't have to be a part of a group. It doesn't have to have a name. It's just you taking what you have and giving it to someone else and with no expectation, right? There's a lot of community members who gift me things all the time. I'll see them. They'll give me a cigarette. I've had someone pass me a joint.
00:31:12
Speaker
Or even at camp, we would have community members who would donate money back when they had it. And at the beginning, I was like, oh, no, no, no. But then I realized, no, no, I have to. Because it's mutual aid. We're helping each other. And if I put myself in a position where I'm the person who has more and I'm benevolent or whatever, that's when that charity mindset comes in. And I think especially if you're white folks doing mutual aid to predominantly Indigenous communities,
00:31:41
Speaker
It's really important that we navigate the way, you know, those relationships are and that it's something that's reciprocal rather than just, you know, the way you find it in a nonprofit where someone gives you a sandwich and doesn't talk to you again, making sure that there's a give and take there has been really important to me too.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah, that reminds me, actually, of one of my favorite memories from camp was that I am not a smoker. I have never smoked cigarettes. I'll add that as a clarification, I guess. And so I was on duty just handing out cigarettes, making sure that people were feeling good. And they would chastise me for my not knowing how to open a pack of cigarettes. And then they taught me how.
00:32:30
Speaker
and or they would make fun of me for not knowing the street names of the various like things that I was handing out and teaching me all of this stuff that as a square from like a white color background I had never learned. And so yeah there was mutual aid isn't always necessarily physical stuff it's also just teaching and being amongst people who have different experiences and different lives and fostering relationships where you can actually like learn from them.
00:32:58
Speaker
And that was great. It was one of my favorite moments of camp was learning how to open a cigarette pack.
00:33:06
Speaker
I think we're fundamentally wired to do this kind
Human Nature and Systemic Cruelty
00:33:11
Speaker
of work. We are a cooperative species. We come together in times of crisis, as I mentioned earlier. I don't think you have to read Kropotkin to understand that or even necessarily volunteer with Treaty 6 outreach. You definitely don't. None of us have read it.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, truth, yes, I have not read the podcast even a little bit, but I mean, I think there is this tension.
00:33:40
Speaker
within us, right, is that we are simultaneously this incredibly friendly cooperative species, and then also we can be incredibly cruel. I mean, we just saw what those cops did to the bear clan, right? And so I suppose the question that I think it's a big one, but I mean, do you, I said this earlier, I wonder, do you agree with me? Do you think that people are fundamentally decent?
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, we actually chatted about this before the pod because it is a big question. We both have different answers to it. I agree with you. I think that human beings... I draw a lot of this from... I'm a big nerd. I do read books and so sorry for name dropping philosophers again. You definitely don't need to. It's just who I am. But I'm a big fan of Murray Bookchin.
00:34:32
Speaker
and his takes from social ecology and sort of the way that we create organic societies are without hierarchy that you know we and that is the root of cruelty is that we started to live in societies that were based on the concentration and holding on to power because that's where most of our problems come from and
00:34:53
Speaker
If we stop doing that, if we challenge hierarchy, if we try and create a world where people are more equal, then people will be decent. The reason why people do bad things is mostly because of either the exercise of power or the lack of power and dignity in their own lives.
00:35:12
Speaker
So yeah, I mostly agree with people being decent. I think the major challenges we face are that we live in indecent and inhuman systems. And a lot of the time, people do cruelty because it is their job to do cruelty.
00:35:27
Speaker
I'm talking about police specifically, but not exclusively there. Like you mentioned before, compassion training doesn't help. We can't reform the police because their job is to do that. Their job is to protect public property from the nuisance of people littering because they're living there. Their job is to enforce hierarchy. Their job is to make people vulnerable and marginalized.
00:35:56
Speaker
which makes it especially galling when they use that kind of language in their statements. It's like, no, you are the ones marginalizing these people. It's your fault because you are upholding the system of law and order and genocidal capitalism. So yeah, that's my take is, yes, people are fundamentally decent. We live in indecent systems. Fuck those systems. We should overthrow them.
00:36:22
Speaker
I know Tim has a different answer. I'm glad you went first, Robbie, because mine's just a little more nihilistic these days. I agree very much with what you said, and I was telling Robbie earlier, I want to believe that people have this inherent goodness, but my experience over this past year is not super reflective of that, but I think I need to take into account the fact that
00:36:47
Speaker
people's proximity to power structures, people's proximity to whiteness and how white supremacy serves them, I think is a really big defining factor on how people react in crisis. And I've personally found, you know, people who are part of power structures, who have a lot of power, who have a lot of privilege, tend to react a little bit differently to crisis than people
00:37:11
Speaker
who are marginalized, who have experiences with this kind of stuff. And if you look at organizing groups, even with T6O, there's a lot of queer femmes. There's a lot of people from marginalized identities who are putting themselves out there first. And I find that reflects itself quite often. But I do think most people want to help.
00:37:34
Speaker
But I think like Robbie said, those power structures and dismantling them is really necessary for people to see what doing good actually is, if that makes sense. Yeah.
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this question, this are people fundamentally decent question. I mean, over the pandemic, this book has come out from this like Rutger Bregman guy, this like a historian turned writer. And he had this very famous example he uses to kind of make this case, right? Which is that like the real Lord of the Flies like happened, right? Like six boys got trapped on an island somewhere in Polynesia.
00:38:15
Speaker
And they didn't let the fire go out immediately and start murdering each other as they do in the terrible book that we're all forced to read as a youth. I don't know if y'all were forced to read that in school, but I certainly was. I was not. No, yeah. I definitely had to read Lord of the Flies in God knows junior high, probably elementary school.
00:38:38
Speaker
And it's a very dim view of the society that Lord of the Flies has. And it's a shame that that's the one that we're transmitting to young people. And yeah, I mean, I don't have any big questions. I'm not this big thinker on this idea. But that example, I mean, we'll have it in the show notes. This Bregman guy is problematic for a few other reasons. His analysis doesn't quite hold up. But I mean,
00:39:07
Speaker
His analysis doesn't hold up when he gets kind of, when he starts making his conclusions. But essentially what we're talking about without talking about is, you know, anarchism, right? And I definitely wouldn't call myself an anarchist. I'm definitely like anarcho curious or anarcho adjacent.
00:39:30
Speaker
It's an analysis of the world that suffers from one, just like terrible PR and two, one that is like largely correct, right? Like what you talked about, Robert, like the systems that we have built are these fundamentally brutal and violent ones that cause all sorts of problems for people, especially marginalized folks.
Exploring Anarchism in Practice
00:39:53
Speaker
And so I don't know, like, are you reluctant to kind of like, I mean, I don't really want to have the conversation about anarchism, but it's like, how do you square that circle of like, um, talking about anarchism, I guess. Oh, we just, I'm actually really glad you brought it up. Um, because yeah, 100%, like.
00:40:18
Speaker
Three to six outreach is a lot of anarchists. Um, I don't think there's like an official philosophy, but that would also be very odd of us. It'd be very unanarchist to have, yeah, like, uh, everyone to sing from the same shang chi in regards to ideology or whatever. Right. Yeah.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's as the joke goes. But yeah, I think it is a very serious political question. Do we need to have structures of hierarchy in order to live? And the answer is usually no. And when we start to drill into why are things as bad as they are, it's usually because someone is hoarding power and that makes life miserable for everybody else.
00:41:00
Speaker
I think T6O has really tried to bring in a lot of like non-hierarchical organizing. So like Tabitha and I are representatives. There are no, like I mentioned earlier, there are no bosses. There's no one in charge. We are a collective and we try to do what we can to make sure that our decisions are reached democratically, that people are involved. And yeah, all of that stems from anarchist principles of organizing, mostly because they're just like good and decent ways of doing things.
00:41:30
Speaker
Like it's nice not to have a boss. That's good. I agree. Uh, most of the people that, yeah, I'm just like sitting here waiting. Um, all of the people who taught me everything I know about mutual aid were anarchists who are, who don't necessarily, you know, name themselves as anarchists. Like you said, Duncan, the PR is a whole thing. Um, but I think, you know, with T6O autonomy is one of the most important things.
00:42:00
Speaker
you know, to us as an organizing group and in something that we try to make sure community is able to have as well. So I think that definitely stems from that, but I had something else to say, but I can't remember what it is. So I'm just gonna leave it at that. Anarchism is cool and good. Yeah. And I think one of the interesting things as well is that like, if you are anarcho-curious and you want to learn more,
00:42:30
Speaker
Um, there's lots of good resources online. Um, I might provide a few links that have helped me to sort of like go from anarcho curious leftist to like completely unabashedly saying, yes, anarchism is cool and good. Um, but also a lot of it is just like, you know, it in your heart sometimes that it's like, when you really interrogate like, why are things as bad as they are?
00:42:57
Speaker
And they're oftentimes because of hierarchical structures. You don't need a cop to tell you how to be a good person. And if you agree with that statement, you're very close to all of the secrets that anarchism has for you.
00:43:13
Speaker
And here's my own kind of internal tension with it, which is that one, I think, I largely agree. I think the anarchist kind of analysis of how society works is largely correct. But the kind of counter argument is that anarchists and anarchism is pretty bad at building institutions that last, that follow through on its principles, right? Yeah. And that's one of the consequences of
00:43:44
Speaker
just a lack of media coverage because the media doesn't like to cover the successes that anarchists have had. If you want to look for good indigenous anarchist activity, the Zapatistas in Mexico have been thriving for decades.
00:44:03
Speaker
You can look to Syria with what's happening in Royaava as well, where it's like there are existing anarchist projects that are fascinating and uplifting and energizing. But like, of course, you're not going to read about them in the media because they don't like giving interviews.
00:44:23
Speaker
I'm just thinking back to conversations I've had with friends of mine who are anarchists where a lot of times it's a lot less about identifying as an anarchist or what we're doing as anarchists and just taking some of the things we've learned through, you know, zines or books or shared information and applying that to our individual ways of being. I know with Treaty 6 outreach,
00:44:48
Speaker
Uh, it's not like we're all like, yeah, we're all anarchists or we're all this or that, you know, we're all anti-colonial, we're all anti-police, we're all pro community. Um, but I find for myself personally, like I don't self identify as an anarchist, but I, there's a lot I take from anarchism into the way that I live my life and the way that I do outreach. Um, but I think like Robbie said, there's a lot of successes that aren't.
00:45:13
Speaker
necessarily things that people know about. There's that one single minded anarchists are like this and they want this, this one thing. And it's disgusting. But, um, I think that thank you for the laugh. Uh, but I think for me, it's more about like taking from those teachings, what works, what works with our community. And also, um, like Robbie was saying about indigenous anarchists. There's a lot of unhoused anarchists in this city.
00:45:41
Speaker
And that to me is more, you know, that's more of what I want to learn from then reading a book or a zine that a, that a white guy wrote about how to be an anarchist. I'm learning from people who are you know, setting up tents on city property and saying, fuck the police. That's a very different thing to me. So I'm trying to like really hone in on.
00:46:03
Speaker
people who don't identify as anarchists, but indigenous folks who are doing that kind of work and trying to find that autonomy for themselves and then supporting them in that.
00:46:16
Speaker
Awesome. Yes, folks, anarchism is not what you see mentioned in Hollywood movies. Let's just leave it at that. And so I think that's a great place to end it.
Supporting Treaty 6 Outreach and Other Organizations
00:46:28
Speaker
Robbie and Tabitha, what can people do to help your organization? What's the kind of current need for donations? Where and how can people donate?
00:46:39
Speaker
You can follow us on Instagram at Treaty6outreach. Most of our sort of direct needs are posted there. As a general thing, we are always in need of more sort of like boots, always needed, gloves always needed, especially like larger men's sizes of boots, like 11s and 12s. We're also always looking for cell phones. They don't need to have like SIM cards or anything, but just like clean functional phones that have been wiped.
00:47:07
Speaker
that makes a huge difference for people being able to get in contact with their housing workers and support workers and even just get in touch with each other and their families and stuff like that. Super important. And then, yeah, you can also donate cash if you don't have stuff to give. That's always been a great way for us to go out and do supply runs and buy things that people need.
00:47:35
Speaker
And yeah, all of that information can be found on our Instagram at Treaty6outreach.
00:47:40
Speaker
I just wanted to mention a few other orgs that people can donate to as well, that maybe don't get as many donations as more popular spots like Bissell and Boyle. If you're in the West End, Jasper Place Wellness is a great organization to donate to. iHuman and Ultra Athkoni Youth Society are also great ones. And as for people who want to help out, I do think doing things like just carrying some hand warmers and some gloves
00:48:08
Speaker
in your car, in your bag. If someone looks like they're in crisis, check on them. And I also just want to mention call 211 and hit three and that will get you to the 24-7 crisis response team and they can come pick someone up, get them to somewhere warm.
00:48:23
Speaker
So that's always a good thing to do if you see some of me. Thanks so much for coming on the pod and having this interesting chat, not just about your organization, but also about anarchism and mutual aid.
Supporting the Podcast and Providing Feedback
00:48:36
Speaker
And folks, if you like this conversation, if you like this podcast, the best thing you can do to support it is to share it, share it with your friends, your family, your coworkers, anyone you think would be interested in this podcast, send them a link, you know, put it on a tape and mail it to them. I don't care how you do it.
00:48:52
Speaker
But get the message into their ears. Word of mouth advertising is incredibly important to building the audience of this pod.
00:48:58
Speaker
And if you really, really like this and you want to keep supporting us, the best thing you can do is to give us money. And there's a really easy way to do that. You go to progressreport.ca slash patrons, you put in your credit card and you give us five, $10 a month. It's very helpful. We have more than 400 people who now do this. It really keeps Jim and I in groceries and a roof above our heads. And we like doing what we do. And we think we offer something that you can't get anywhere else.
00:49:25
Speaker
Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I need to hear, things you think I screwed up on, I am very easy to reach. You can reach me by email at duncank at progressaborda.ca. And I am also constantly on Twitter at Duncan Kinney. Thanks so much to Cosmic Family Communist for the amazing theme. Thanks again to Robbie and Tabitha for coming on the pod. Thank you for listening and goodbye.