Episode 7: Uprising: A Guide From Portland: Resistance Through Mutual Aid

Thousands of Portlanders decided their city had failed them. So they decided to take care of each other.

Host: Robert Evans

Executive Producer: Sophie Lichterman

Writers: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans

Narration: Bea Lake, Donovan Smith, Elaine Kinchen, Garrison Davis, Robert Evans

Editor: Chris Szczech

Music: Crooked Ways by Propaganda

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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get your podcasts. I'm gonna need sports on it. You
don't get out of here. Everybody each other here, I'm awful,
get out of here. The first thing that comes to
mind is just like the power of mutual aid UM,

(01:55):
the smaller events really build the community ties together UM
and just it enables people to like lean on each
other for safety and for any resources and pretty much
anything that somebody needs. UM. These smaller like well being
based kind of events, like it keeps everybody together, and

(02:19):
I think, I mean, there's so much power. Like mutual
aid really is the way of the future. So this
is basically just a precursor to like what I feel
like will be a world like a void of police
and and like constant state violence is will have these
networks and mutual aid communities that UM will basically make

(02:41):
that obsolete. So that's really huge for us. That's Jedi,
a local organizer and musician as the protests in Portland
and around the nation moved into their third month, Governor
Kate Brown announced that the FEDS were pulling out of
the city. With the announcement, the crowds of thousands that
had come out and forced to protest the federal presence shrunk.
By the second week of August, ongoing protests drew only

(03:03):
a few hundred people into the streets each night. For
the people that wanted to defund and abolish the Portland Police,
the federal draw down meant that it was time to
get back to the real fight. Months of being gassed
and beaten together had given this community of protesters a
powerful sense of shared purpose. At the same time, the
drop off in numbers raised the specter of burnout for
activists and pointed to a long road ahead. Systems of

(03:26):
mutual aid began to spring up, both out of need
and out of a desire by many to finally start
building the world they wanted to live in. To narrate
the next part of this here's Donovan Smith, a local
Portland journalist and one of the authors of this series.
After more than two months in the streets, protesters in

(03:47):
Portland were exhausted and traumatized but ready to return to
the real fight of defunding the police. But the enormous
protests of early June were now months passed, and after
the wild circus of violence that was fed occupation, people
were tired and there were questions about how to direct
the attention of the city back from Trump to the
violence of Portland Police Bureau. Jacob Burrow's of Direct Action

(04:11):
Alliance talks about organizing exhaustion. Well, to be honest with you,
it doesn't really like everyone. Everyone falls off. Everyone gets
tired and falls off, and it's it's the solidarity that
comes into play at that point. So I mean, I'll
take month off where I just can't anymore, where I'm
I'm just exhausted to the bone, where I literally have

(04:31):
nothing left to give. And during those times is when
my comrade come in and do what they need to do.
And then when they're tired, that's when I come in
and do what I need to do. And that's how
we kind of keep it perpetually going. Is that you've
got to be there for folks. When you see someone
who's you know you people, that's the problem, it's it's fatiguing.

(04:56):
It caused there's a huge toll. Organizing takes a huge
to along people. Even just organizing one event, it takes
three days of my life away from my kids, from
my responsibilities at home, from what I need to do,
and it's it's exhausting. And that's that's just the organizing part.
You know, you still have to consider the emotional toll
that it takes to go out and do this and

(05:16):
put yourself on the line. You have to take into
account the threats that you get from the right, You
have to take into account the threats that you get
from the government. So there's all of these things and
no one is just a superperson that can go and
power through it. And that's that's a big thing. A
big misconception I think is people think that the faith
is you know, there's some people who who their face

(05:38):
has become prominent or their name has become prominent, and
people think that it's all them, and it's not. There's
there's a huge, huge effort behind everything of support of
mutual aid that keeps everything going. So the reason it's
been able to go for ten years isn't because there's
people who have been able to keep going for ten
years straight. It's because every time someone falls back and

(06:01):
can't do it and need to break someone else were
we are lucky enough to be in a community. And
that's how it keeps ongoing, is that every time, every
time there's a hole in the line, we have comrades
who are willing to step back in and fill it up.
And that's how that's how we've been able to kind
of keep this momentum going, is because there's always someone
who's willing to step up when someone has when another

(06:24):
person has kind of reached their limit. And that's that's
how you keep it going is by building those connections,
those trust bonds, and those those solidarity connections and mutual
aid connections where we're all helping each other out. We
all have to be there for each other. And using
social media and telegram, the community stepped out to fill

(06:44):
holes in the line. Nightly actions began to be organized
autonomously anonymous calls. The action will post locations mostly of
different police precincts for the Portland Ice facility, and people
would show up to the protests. If the police were
going to continue to brutalize people, then protesters planned on
wearing them down and exhausting their budget. Every night of

(07:07):
the week, people assembled at some park around the city
and would march to a different precincts, yelling, chanting, and
standing in the street for hours until the police would charge,
clearing them out with gas, batons and brute force. While
these actions were referred to as d a's or direct actions,
the nights often consisted of protesters hurling more insults than

(07:29):
anything else, adding in an occasional dumpster fire to mix
it up. Despite the nightly actions beginning to follow up
predictable pattern that usually ended with police role rushing people
down unlit neighborhood streets for the crimes of yelling in
the road. PPB press releases portrayed each evening as an
intense battle with dangerous radicals. These claims were not borne

(07:52):
out by the arrest that they made. The charges leveled
at protesters arrested were almost all I p O are
in farence with the police officer. The charge that they
could file if you did not move fast enough when
they bull rushed I PO was one of the charges
that d A. Mike Schmidt had announced on August eighth
that his office would decline to prosecute thereafter nearly all

(08:16):
protester charges were dropped, possibly to compensate for the loss
of legal cloud, Portland police ramped up on the brutality.
Acts of minor vandalism will be answered by baton charges,
and any protesters are unable to outrun the bull rush
would be knocked to the ground, body slammed or beaten,
and then often left lying on the pavement with no

(08:38):
attempt made to arrest. Police made it very clear that
their intent was to punish protesters whether or not they
had legal recourse. It was an exhausting period, however, and
start contrast to the brutality of the nighttime actions, by August,
protesters were spending the days building on the mutual aid
networks that had already existed in port and expanding them

(09:01):
in new ways to support the community. But what is
mutual aid? To answer that, I'm going to turn this
over to activists on the ground who are implementing it.
PDX treat Medics formed during the summer, and we'll talk
more about their work later. But here's their definition of
mutual aide. It's bringing some amount of equity where there
is none, you know, in this very small sense of

(09:23):
like the street mix if someone can't afford repairs, um
usually they would have to go into debt to get
that repaired at an auto shop where um, usually they
would be up sold several thousand dollars in repairs they
don't need. So where we step in, we are saving
them that bill and then being able to make sure
they're able to keep other needs meant and through that

(09:47):
action is a small amount of equity where there would
be none. I was just gonna say, kind of piggybacking
off cyperusus point. Um I I kind of see, you know,
what we're doing as a you know, I think it's it.
It's kind of it's trying to challenge the current system,

(10:09):
you know, and in this system is a system that
has so many, so many flaws, and I think that
mutual aid is kind of trying to uh address some
of those flaws or try to mitigate some of those
flaws in the sense that you know, kind of living this.

(10:30):
We live under capitalism, you know, we live under in
a system that tolerates you know, homelessness. Um uh, you
know we live under yeah, I mean a system that
oppresses so many minorities and stuff like that. Um So
I think that just what mutual aid is and you know, specifically,

(10:54):
maybe our role is kind of at least the way
I see it, is challenging that system of capitals and
challenging you know, being like, hey, like you know, you
don't you know, We're going to try to just help people,
not based on you know, gaining anything out of it.
We're just helping people because that's what we're supposed to

(11:15):
do as humans. I think that's something that we really
need to keep in the center of reminds me to
thinking about mitchill aid is that the people who lose
the most in our current system have the tend to
have the least ability to change anything UM. And that
is one of the core print like motivating factors behind

(11:38):
mutually UM. Where it is people who are really like
living truly paycheck to paycheck, or don't even have any
stable income and are living in a car and it's
like slowly, slowly breakaking down and there's just nothing to
do about it. Um. These are the kind of situations
in which that little bit of extra help can really

(12:00):
mean that that person can continue to have a life,
and that life can continue to be good, and that
life can continue to be Sometimes it's worth fighting for,
and that way those people can continue to fight for
their own lives. Um. If community support doesn't really happen,
and mutually it is really just a fancy word for
community support. If that doesn't actually happen, those people aren't

(12:22):
going to be able to fight because they're trying to survive.
And we need to be able to get a little
bit beyond survival in order to really organize and fight
and resist on the scale that is necessary for dealing
with the problem that we're facing. Something that I've talked
about a bunch in this ort in this group is
that I actually sometimes don't think that organizations can provide

(12:43):
mutual aid um. That instead people have to provide mutualate
and that because that principle isn't about like usually it
is about seeing activity and women like acting within com um,
whereas charity is all about like creating this other I

(13:04):
think you're providing, and there's like a lot of citying
and a lot of like apologizing that happens in that
relationship mutually. Some mutual A groups existed in Portland prior
to the George Floyd uprising. As COVID swept the country
in spring, New mutualay organizations popped up all over the city,

(13:26):
and some groups that were already active look for new
ways to help. Rose Hips a Medic collective has been
around for eleven years. They began making hand sanitizer and
distributing it around the city at the beginning of the pandemic.
As protests intensified, they worked to reverse engineer chemical wives
to help with tear gas and pepper spray. Medics loaded

(13:49):
with carts filled with water, energy, drinks, and I cleaning
kids were a common sight every night. James, a rose
Hip Street Medic describes the early days of the uprisings. Yeah,
I remember the first time that I went to a
protest um after the pandemic. Uh suprising began to happen

(14:09):
at the same time, I think the Peninsula Park and
like we just brought a bunch of hand sanitizer and
we're like, I don't know, let's walk around and hands
hand sanitizer out to people. And we also have these masks,
so let's hand these things out and like all of
our supply was was gone within like half an hour,
and there was a large a whole park full of

(14:30):
people at that time, and so you know, initially it
was just handing things out to people before the marching
began UM. And then once the protests really picked up
steam and started to be responded to with more repression,
we started to ask ourselves, like, what else can we distribute? Basically,

(14:53):
and one thing that treatments usually do, or or the
streament is really trained to do, is to flush out
people's eyes if they need a pepper spray or tear gas.
But that necessarily creates aerosolized particles from people's eyeballs because
you're squirting water into people's eyes high velocity. And so

(15:13):
we're like, this doesn't feel like a safe activity anymore.
Can we hand out preportioned bottles of our preferred eye
wash solution? Yes, we have all these bottles lying around,
and so like, let's do that. And then someone asked,
you know these these chemical weapons removing wipes, Like what's

(15:34):
in these? Can we make our own? And then some
very smart people who are not me like figured out
the recipe and created a whole manufacturing apparatus to produce
and distribute huge numbers of chemical weapons wipes UM every
day and so and then, because the demand kept increasing,
particularly as the violence and increased, UM and people use

(15:58):
the products, and then we're like, we really need these,
these are great and people, you know, they saw us
around maybe who we were. We started to put our
name on things, just that it was clear that like
it's us building up this trust community and not some
other rendom group. UM. Then people started so just sort
of like the demand created the whole chain of events.

(16:19):
And because people already knew us from distributing hand sanitizer,
we had a lot of goodwill with UM. I would
say community groups who wouldn't ordinarily think to themselves radical
leftist street protesters are our people, UM, but like churches
and whatnot who do a lot of work with people
living on side, we're like, okay, you seem to be

(16:42):
more or less on the same page with us. So
that's how those distribution networks happened. Other groups that were
already on the ground were the PDX General Defense Committee
and Defense Fund PDX, who raised bail money and helped
make sure that protesters made it home and support waited
outside the central precinct every night with food, hot drinks,

(17:05):
and support. The Witches had already been present before the summer,
handing out water bottles and supplies somebody Else's PDX had
begun as a coalition of mutual aid groups. However, when
COVID hit, the work connecting communities and mutual aid expanded.
So yeah, at the beginning of before COVID hit, UH

(17:27):
Symbiosis was mostly focused on UM. At the time, our
our project merk or Municipalist Eco Resiliency project, where we
were working on kind of UM connect again and with
that dual power lens, trying to UM consolidate uh like

(17:49):
food access and production infrastructure for the community UM as
well as like doing some housing rights work UM. When
COVID hit, we're really small organization UM and immediately just
kind of like called this sixty sixty organ wide coalition

(18:09):
call to be like, hey, Radical Left, this is a
big fucking deal. What do we want to do about it?
How can we support each other in doing that? And
through that work we were able to kind of UM
more succinctly find what gaps in the radical Left infrastructure
there was, so that we could work on filling that need.
Part of that was UM creating UH hubs around town.

(18:34):
UH there there was a few already existing and stuff.
So that's where we created share or the Symbiosis Hub
and Resource Exchange program where we were able to be
some of the first UH first on the ground responders
to making sure that our communities have the PPE they
needed when we were being told that we that we

(18:56):
shouldn't have PPE because we should save it for other people.
So we we were distributing PPE. We'd organized the Solidarity Stitchers,
which we're both producing their own masks and kind of
teaching each other how to sew and learning basic organizing
skills and how to interact with one another in this
directly democratic way. But we're also activating the community by

(19:20):
creating these groups UH the Solidarity Stitchers group online that
allowed us to then increase our production to being able
to basically hand make masks that nobody could find anywhere,
UH numbering in the thousands, UM and and getting and partnering.
We also created the Solidarity UH Fund UM the Cebiosis

(19:44):
Solidarity Fund, which basically was not only UM giving individuals
in the Portland area who were experiencing economic hardship and
response to the COVID pandemic UM directly. We were giving
them funds like people who needed medical expenses covered, people
who needed transportation needs, covered people, et cetera, but as

(20:06):
well as well as grassroots organizations that needed money to
continue their vital programming. For example, UH Courtland Action Medics
and UH Slash the rose Hip Medic Collective. UH we
were able to make sure to get them multiple thousands
of dollars to continue the hand sanitizer project that they
were doing. From there, we were able to slowly grow

(20:29):
through our our mutual aid program through share and solidarity stitchers,
this solidarity fund into UM also UH expanding within ourselves
sort of this education and outreach work that we were
doing to further further within our organization and out in
in the general public, educate about communalism, mutual aid, what

(20:51):
it means to be an accomplice, things about the the
radical left movement that have been forgotten or never learned.
This grew to encompass connections with the Warrant Springs Reservation,
distributing supplies PPE and clean water with fires igniting the
spirit when the water main for the reservation broke when

(21:13):
the protests began, Symbios's moved to make sure that PPE
and resources were available there as well. We were printing
zines and showing up at protests. UM. At the protests,
we were also the first group on the ground essentially
to provide ppe, recognizing that, yes, this uprising is going
to happen regardless of the risk, because the need is

(21:35):
that great. But we're gonna do that and see a
culture of taking care of each other. Um. So yeah,
in distributing zines and uh and educational material of other
sorts and stuff and getting people plugged into organizing other
much way formed in the early days of the protests,
fueled by the desire to help out however possible. Early on,

(21:57):
snack Mom was realized that they were not interested in
run from the police, but they can make sure that
the people in the streets had food and supplies. Uh.
I'm snack Mama number one. I go by shiba um
where I guess we're mutual aid. Yeah. Yeah, we hand
out snacks and waters and things that nature. Anything you

(22:18):
know anybody would need, uh poto things like that, stash
medical supplies, any like extra like masks or gas masks
or protective gear that we can possibly get our hands on. UM,
lots of stuff. I mean, there's been a lot of
random stuff that we put out there is whatever the

(22:39):
needs are. But mainly just snacks and drinks. UM, And
I'm snack mama too. I've already been docks, so I'm
not even worried about my name. I go by Amanda,
And yeah, that's pretty much what will we do? Mutual aid? Yeah,
how did you get started? Like? When when did you
first start coming to the out to the protests? Like

(22:59):
how did you get started coming out to the protests? Um?
What was thet for you to come out? Well? UM,
when the whole George Floyd video was released and I've
seen that it was, it was mortified. I cried because
it was it was definitely just hard to watch UM
again again and again and again and again. And this

(23:21):
was just kind of the last draw for everyone, you know,
I feel like UM. And then there were protests going
on down town. UM, so we went and checked him
out and then after that we started going out pretty
much every night after that and just checking him out. UM.
I don't exactly remember when it was, but we have
started up with UM. The next partner of mine now

(23:44):
he started. I remember it was the beginning of June.
I drugged them with me. We wouldn't check it out,
you know. UM. So then after that we had started
cooking where we were cooking downtown. UM. We did that
for like maybe a month, two or two. UM. We're
what we're called Don't Starve PDX Yeah, don't Start p UM. Yeah.

(24:08):
So that was us UM and then August fifteen, there
was a domestic dispute between me and my partner UM
who was part of Don't Start who was part of
Don't Start x UM. And then after that, I mean
the the original snack van he was supposed to get
that UM. And then after the domestic dispute, UM, the

(24:31):
owner of the van pulled out from underneath him was like,
you know, I can't support this. UM. Then he offered
me the van, and then me and her UM had
this van and we're like, okay, what can we do
with this? UM. So then that's when we started doing
snack Mamas. It took us a minute to come up
with the name, but eventually we did. But at that

(24:53):
point people already knew who we were. UM. So then
we you know, came out with snack Mamas and that's
what we've been doing ever since. Yeah. I remember seeing
you out when you were doing the Don't Starve UM.
What really was just like to feed people. Um, I
think I think we just want to support the movement.

(25:14):
And I mean, honestly, we're a couple of chunky girls.
You know, we weren't. We were no like match for
these you know officers that are like fit, you know,
trying to chase us. We're like trying to find like
bushes or like holes, diet and or you know what
I mean. We're just like, man, this is like this
is too much for us because I cannot run. For yeah,

(25:35):
the first time I know that wasn't for me. Um,
I'm standing there and all of a sudden, I see
this metal objects moving towards me, and it's on fire
and it's spinning, and I'm like oh, and I like,
you know, instantly start freaking out and I'm like okay,
so you know, I take off and I start running,
and I'm like, okay, this isn't for me. You know,
I can't outrun objects. I can't outrun the cops, you know,

(25:56):
so to fad. So we didn't have any gas mask
or anything or like we're like stuffing our faces with stuff,
trying to breathe still and try and like protect ourselves.
And yeah, yes, it's harsh times but we wanted to
support like in whatever way we could. I think that's
kind of where we started like doing that. This is

(26:25):
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(26:47):
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(29:02):
that wanted to protests but didn't feel comfortable going out alone,
comrad Collective connected protesters to each other, sparking the connections
that help sustain the movements. As a kind of a
tough one that summarized UM, I guess the best way
to say it is that UM community has kind of
been a limiting factor for a lot of people in protests,

(29:25):
and right around the time of UH fourth of July
and right after that, Shark Youth started kind of becoming
a kind of a meeting point for folks through social media,
through Telegram, and from there there's been several UM definit iterations,

(29:46):
Disabled Common Collective, Care Collective, UM soon to be Queer
Comedy Collective as well, all kind of forming from that.
I don't know, locusts of just like community, just like
folks trying to find the necessary connections to get their
ideas off the ground. Yeah. I mean for me personally,

(30:07):
I just sort of started sitting in a park with
a sign just asking people if they needed buddies. I
was going to be there anyway. It figured like it
was something easy to do, and I started a Twitter
and one thing just sort of snowballed into another. Now
here we are Disabled Comrade Collective have form to meet
the needs of people with disabilities or who have alternative

(30:30):
needs to be able to participate in protests. Yeah. How
um so, how Disabled Comrade Collective started was kind of like, um,
so I'm I'm disabled and chronically ill, so like I
can't be on the ground all the time. It's like
here and there, and then when I am it takes
a lot out of me. Um and so uh Sylvan
who is like like the main person of um like

(30:52):
handling Disabled Comrade Collective, Uh, they also are disabled and
chronically ill and so um they just kind of like
we were just complaining on Twitter, like they were like, man,
like there needs to be like a group for like
disabled and ill people like to have different needs and
like neuro divergent and then like, um, it just everyone

(31:14):
was like yeah, and then it just kind of uh
went onto Sylvan and they're like, I guess I'm doing
this thing. So that's how that started. The e Walks
also formed early in the protests, but through the course
of the summer they found that their mission change e
Walks is a humanitarian aid coalition made up of crisis
and medical workers. We're fighting integrated medical and mental health

(31:38):
care that's trauma informed and harm reductive in nature. This
service model was really adapted from another organization that we
worked with um as organizers called Whitebird Medicine UM and
they've been the attention of national news recently for their
Hoods program. However, looking at the situations in Portland and

(32:00):
the socio political inequities that are being enforced every single day,
it became increasingly clear that Britlin's model was going to
need to look a little bit different. So we beefed
up our teams and we got a hole off the
ground side and now we've sort of moved morphed into
like a whole bunch of different things we do uh

(32:21):
protest work. Still, we're committed in UM supporting the community
for as long as that needs to happen. One thing
that became increasingly clear as public reliance on the police
force has begun to reflect the police forces ability to
protect people who served them. UM E Walks has really

(32:42):
taken a look at what the city needs most, and
our shift was born out of seeing a complete lack
of actually reachable mental health services within our city. UM
costs are prohibited access to those actual things within standalone
buildings does not work for many patients and it also
leaves our house list community severely lacking as always in

(33:05):
services and outreach UM As we began looking at adapting
our model and taking a look at what this community needed,
one of the things that struck us most was that
there is a complete lack of about tornative resources to
police involvement. And while EOX is not there yet, we
would like to envision a future where we have a
place in helping form a service that can do just

(33:27):
such a thing. Meeting in the front of the Federal Courthouse.
During the Fed War, Optical Block began doing eye exams,
helping people get prescriptions and glasses, organizing around the Mutual
eight tents of Riot Ribs. As riot ribs imploded at
the end of July, the number of Mutual Aid quote
blocks organizing services to protesters and marginalized communities exploded. These

(33:50):
groups organized around identifying and helping with one community need
at a time. Protesters set up a wide ranging network
of alternative organized to help each other outside of the
frameworks of the city or capitalism. In many cases, the
blocks were explicit that in an abolitionist framework, the goal
was to meet needs without the charity and violence that

(34:14):
often accompanied the state and more traditional types of existence.
Instead organized as a community to give people's needs met.
As activist Mariah explains, there was a block for everything
like pet block. Yeah, oh gosh, I mean, I can't
say I have a favorite. They're all amazing, Like they
honestly like shocked me every day because I'm just like,

(34:36):
oh do we I even asked them, like, yo, do
we have a caramplastic block, Like, yeah, I don't say
I have a favorite. I am just amazed by people
being able to come together and do that. I've seen
job block, I've seen I've seen stuff I couldn't even
think of, and I'm like, that's just amazing. I I
think it's amazing for like, yeah, this little community. I'm like,
I'm wish people like would know more about this. I

(34:58):
want to say, no more about this, get more involved
because I'm like the communities is doing it, and like, yeah,
we protect us and it's amazing. As August continued, community
events and mutual affairs became common. Mending Block could repair
your clothes and made box of buzz for anonymity at
night actions. Beauty Block could give you a manicure, but

(35:19):
also made bath bombs and care packages for jail support.
Community art therapy happened weekly as people try to process
the stress and brutality. Tech Block assisted people with computers
and devices. While we don't have time to cover every
group that arose during that time, we can have some
of the activists describe how and why they formed. Jedi

(35:41):
explains Plant Block. So, plant Block literally came out of
mutual aid, Like it formed out of like Mac already
being in contact with a bunch of community members already
having his own garden kind of things set up and
then just pull every everybody together and creating vigils with

(36:01):
flowers or provide people with just like vegetable bags and
stuff like that. So like nowadays, if you go to
any kind of like well this was certainly true. I
mean we're not having as many because it's so cold
and wet now. But like a lot of the the
community events that we would hold UM, half of those

(36:22):
like vendors that would be at these community events literally
were formed within this movement. They didn't exist prior to
George Floyd. So seeing how you know, the tragic death
of of of him and many others fallen before him,
have kind of, in a way like been a catalyst

(36:44):
for strengthening mutual aid in our city UM, And anybody
who's been on the ground, been going to these events
have has seen it with their own eyes. So many
different mutual aid groups have formed because of it's just
coming to other so often, and the more that we
come together, the more we realize we don't need to
rely on the state UM to feed and clothe and

(37:08):
keep us safe. During the Fed War, cars were damaged
by right munitions and had their filters clagged with powdered
tear gas. Portland Please developed a habit of repeatedly attacking
protester vehicles protecting marches by stabbing out their tires. Those
snack Mamas had their vans impounded and trash for handing
out food and water in response. PT Street Mechanics formed

(37:32):
to help people repair their cars and provide vehicle assistance
for protesters, but quickly in large their focus to help
with other transportation needs. Here they explain how they formed
the protin Street Mechanics started UM kind of shot like
on Twitter, primarily because there were calls for people's cars

(37:56):
getting to repairs after having them being damaged out in protests. UM.
It very quickly expanded well beyond that, because car repair
isn't something that you can do at protests UM, and
that was one of our first things, is like, I know,
we're actually just doing community car care UM by moving

(38:17):
away from the protests and actually allows us to UM
focus on other things UM and actually focus on the
marginalized communities that are tend to be very active in
protests but are also the reasons why we are protesting UM.
And that was a big thing for us in our
initial framing was not necessarily just helping protesters kind of

(38:42):
manage their day to day needs UM, but also helping
to support the communities that are have historically been marginalized
and have historically been oppressed UM, so that these protests
don't need to happen. We should not have to go
and protest UM. And big part of it is building
the world that we want to see UM, So we

(39:04):
kind of quickly moved into that perspective. I think a
lot of ways we end up providing a lot of
support for other blocks. So a lot of the people
that we help and the people reach out to us
are people who are using their vehicles for MUTUALID and UM.
Those people absolutely get UM like care from us. They
get support in terms of making sure that their vehicles

(39:26):
are reliable and safe UM so that they can provide
their own kind of like practices because a lot of
a lot of other mutual aid systems or like organizations
are about like just giving stuff away UM and providing
those those goods UM the service providing component UM kind
of like breaks with that a little bit. So like

(39:46):
we we haven't really been able to UM kind of
meet up and go to a lot of like the
or like some of the fares or some of the
kind of like mutual aid meetups because we there's no
spot to work on cars UM. So when we've run
into some problems with that, UM were like people being
fine with people distributing food, but then we're like, oh,

(40:07):
can we do an all change in your parking lot?
It's like, now, we can't do that. Um, So we
end up having to to get really creative in terms
of where we do our work and how we um
actually like just like logistically organized with other people. When P. T.

(40:30):
Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the ground in eighteen
sixty five, what rose from its ashes would change the world?
Welcome to Grim and Mild Presents, an ongoing journey into
the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. For our inaugural season,
we'll be giving you a backstage tour of the always
complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact that is the American

(40:52):
Side Show. So come along as we visit the shadowy
corners of the stage and learn about the people who
were at the center of it all in a place
where spectacle was king. We will soon discover there's always
more to the story than meets the eye, So step
right up and get in line. Listen to Grim and
Mile Presents now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(41:14):
or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more over at
Grim and Mild dot com. Slash Presents Conquer your new
year's resolution to be more productive with the Before Breakfast podcast.
In each bite sized daily episode, time management and productivity
expert Laura Vanderkam teaches you how to make the most

(41:34):
of your time, both at work and at home. These
are the practical suggestions you need to get more done
with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our body
strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental
equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to Before Breakfast wherever you
get your podcasts. I call the Union Hall as his

(41:56):
male life and death. I think these peeples of planning
to kill Dr King. On April four, Dr Martin Luther
King was shot and killed in Memphis. A petty criminal
named James Earl Ray was arrested. He pled guilty to
the crime and spent the rest of his life in prison.
Case closed right James L. Ray was upon for the

(42:18):
official story. The authorities would parade all we found a
gun that James el Ray bought in Birmingham that killed
Dr King, Except it wasn't the gun that killed Dr. King.
One of the problems that came out when I got
the Ray case was that some of the evidence, as
far as I was concerned, did not match the circumstances.

(42:41):
This is the MLK Tapes. The first episodes are available
now listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up next is Elane,
my colleague in the streets and my partner in writing

(43:02):
this podcast. The cycle of nightly protests and daily community
building and mutual aid would continue unabated, and on September five,
Portland had its hundredth night of continuous protest. The event
was marked by a care fair featuring many of the
mutual aid groups that had formed recently. Plant Walk had vegetables,
sprouts and seeds that they were giving away, and care
Bok offered massages to protesters and Tea Symbiosis tabled books

(43:25):
and zines, and people ate donated food and listened to
speakers and music by local musicians. At one point, the
car Caravan, a reoccurring car protest frequented by people whose
social distancing needs made other types of visible protest harder,
came past, honking horns and waving signs declaring that black
lives mattered. Mac was on the ground that day. You know,
I think a lot of folks once once things went

(43:47):
off in Minneapolis, and once we knew they were, once
we had our first big riot here in Portland, we
knew something was going to happen, Like we knew that
there were going to be some protests and stuff last
a little while. I don't think anyone at the start
of it really called a hundred plus j continuous protest.
When did you realize this is not a normal not

(44:10):
just not a normal Portland protest, This isn't like a
normal Portland summer of protests, and it would continue to
not be a normal summer of protests. That night, Portland
police pushed protesters blocks away from the East Portland Precinct,
gassing families in their homes, and at the beginning of September,
Oregon began one of its worst fire seasons on record.
As one of the last marches commemorating the hundred At

(44:33):
the day of protest, while and through the St. John's
neighborhood of North Portland, Mariah remembers how the sky slowly
dimmed as smoke began rolling into the city from fires
burning from the south and east. I won't, I won't
for the day it started rolling into town. I was
actually at the big march in St. John's because we
all started coming back and we were just like coughing

(44:54):
and and everything, and I was like, what the is
going on? I looked in there and I was like, Okay,
it's smoked from the fire about but where And then obviously,
you know, twenty four hours later we started becoming hell.
But how much it just showed, like the community transition
to mutual aid and aiding like fire survivors and victims.
Uh me as well. I also did, like I don't know,
I raised like five thousand dollars and went and went

(45:17):
shopping and dropped him off like they got a place
near Lloyd Center, UM and then out in Milwaukee. But
it was so amazing to see the community be able
to come together and help people. Dry conditions and hot
winds sent fire sweeping force states. Oregon was enveloped in
the worst fires the state had seen in decades. Smoke
from multiple blazes blanketed the region, making breathing impossible and

(45:40):
devastating huge swaths of the state. As thousands evacuated and
whole towns were consumed by fire with no evidence. Far
right media exploded with rumors that Antifa and BLM were
starting fires despite public officials trying to counteract the rumors.
It was too little, too late. The fearmongering rhetoric had
scared individuals and right wing militias to stay in fire
are areas, hindering evacuees, and to set up armed checkpoints

(46:03):
and fire zones to harass anyone they thought didn't look right.
Reporter Alyssa Tsar went out to the fire zone to
talk with evacuees and report on the fire response. Um,
just seeing you know, the community come together and kind
of a great example of we protect us, you know,
manifesting right before our eyes. Um. Fuck, there were people
that were like rollying together trailers to go help people

(46:26):
evacuate their barn animals and take them to somewhere safe.
So yeah, I mean that's what we went there for. Um.
And it's it's so funny because I believe the day
before I went to Malala um or the day before that,
so one or two days before, I had tweeted something

(46:48):
and I was totally joking, but it was also very serious.
It was along the lines of like, you know, right
wingers on Twitter are saying, you know, Antifa started the wildfires. Meanwhile,
every fucking leftist on Twitter at the time was like, hey, um,
what's the most efficient way to bring a fire extinguisher
to a protest? You know, because at the time there

(47:10):
was also a fire risk and the protests were happening,
and this is something people were super concerned about. Um,
and you know, we were making jokes about these circulating rumors.
I really did not think in a matter of two
days they would manifest into a full blown, like actionable
conspiracy theory. Alissa soon found out how serious those conspiracy

(47:33):
theories were being taken. At the time, the witches had
showed up and they had brought a bunch of it's
like swagons filled with supplies. Um. We were on our
way to I think it was at the time the airport, um,

(47:54):
because that's where the firefighters had told us that they
were gonna have the firefighters beast stationed as well as
be taking supplies. So on our way there there was
have you ever seen those uh, those signs where it's
like uh green, yellow, red, and it's like a fire
danger sign and the arrow points wherever. So the arrow

(48:16):
was like all the way in the red and it
was like leave now. So granted, we stopped to take
a picture of that because it's there's just this like
you know, field of like tall grass on the side
of the road. Leave Now. It was just a very
picturesque moment, something really eerie about it. The road is

(48:39):
like completely empty, but every now and then you can
see like a line of cars trying to evacuate. But anyways,
we we pulled over. Um. Wow, I haven't thought about
this in so long, but yeah, we've We've pulled over
to take this picture and Justin and Sergio are kind

(49:00):
is still standing next to the car. Um and this
is public property. Um, it's on the side of the road.
It's not anyone's like yard or anything. And they're still
by the car, and I'm like in front of the
sign and there's some like tall grass. I'm kind of
crouched down taking a picture of it, and I'm like
focused on the picture and hear someone talking. At first,

(49:22):
I thought maybe it was like Justin in Sergio, but
I look up and there's three dudes with with rifles, um,
you know, pointing their rifles at us. And it it
took a bit for me to register what was going
on because I was really confused. Um, and I got

(49:43):
up and they started interrogating me, and I'm answering, but
I'm still like really confused because I'm like, Okay, they're
not cops, but why are they so offended and so
aggressive and style? Like I I was legit, just like
I could not figure out what was going on. And

(50:05):
then they kept asking questions, you know, like where are
you from? Why are you in our the city? Or
are you taking a picture of this? UM started talking
about like because we all had our press credentials on,
we were all in plain clothing, and you know, slowly,
like based off the questions they were asking, it slowly

(50:26):
started to kind of click for me. But even when
it clicked, I think that just kind of made me
more confused, because like we were literally all tweeting about
this jokingly last night, but somehow and fuck literally two
to three days this rumor manifested into a fucking conspiracy

(50:47):
where people are holding people at gunpoint, militias are holding
people up at gunpoint. It's it's just wild to me.
They finally got to a point they started saying that,
you know, there were people that were coming into their
city that are starting fires so that they can loot um,
you know, and they kept saying the word loot, and

(51:09):
then um, they started talking about protesters from Portland and
it was just like you know, it was it was
all like it was coming to me before, but it
was coming to me in a way where it's like okay, maybe,
but there's no way. But then they started asking those questions.
I was like, oh, okay, they they really do believe

(51:32):
that I'm an Antifa starting the fires right now, like
okay fuck? Um yeah, using words like like looting. And
then they started talking about protesting, um, god fuck. And
then it took a little bit before Justin and Sergio
even saw and uh, it was Justin who came down

(51:54):
first and started to like talking and see what's going on.
Oh funk. I just remember too, when Sergio finally like
realized what was going on. He came up to us
and he's like, are you writing us man? Yeah? Yeah
not and not physically nobody touched us, but just like

(52:15):
a body language and the way that they were being,
the way that they were positioned, and like slowly like
you know, edging forward when they would be speaking. Um,
we were I think when when Sergio got involved, him
and Justin we're just trying to be like listen, we're
just trying to take pictures, like we're not gonna bother you,
like like whatever. And also like we we also tried

(52:38):
to explain to them like we're not here to like
make this political or dehumanize anyone or whatever, like We're
here with like sympathy and you know, like we're again,
this is like a humanitarian issue. This is just like
what the fuck. Yeah, you know, are not here to

(53:00):
be like yeah, like you know, burn those whatever, Like no,
none of that. Um. So they really wanted us to
just like pack it up and go back to Portland, um,
you know, and they were kind of insinuating that they
would have their eyes on us. They took a picture
of all of our faces. They took a picture of
the license plate. Um. So yeah, it was kind of creepy.

(53:25):
But I will tell you for sure, none of us
really realized what happened until like a few hours later,
because we were fine. We were all fine, and I
was tweeting about it. I'm like, ll guess what happened,
And then like an hour or two later, we're just
like fuck, like we got held up at gunpoint, um

(53:48):
the city. Like by the time we got to where
we stopped Uh, that area was all burnt down already,
so had something happened, there's a good chance no one
would have found out about it. As we came to
learn later, the cops are all very pro these right
wing militias over there, So um, the seriousness of it

(54:10):
definitely didn't kick in until a lot later. But what
we're protesters actually doing during this time, well, many of
the people being labeled as rioters and having rumors of
arson spread about them were out in the community trying
to help as many victims of the fires as possible.
Alyssa continues. Um. You know, Portland's like mutual aid groups
from Portland. We're driving all the way down to Eugene

(54:33):
to drop off some supplies and back, like you know,
countless times, back and forth. UM. So that was that
was really great, just seeing you know, what we're capable of. UM.
And I think at first, you know, we talked about
the protests kind of slowing down for the fires, um.
And I think a lot of it at first was

(54:54):
because it was unhealthy to go outside. But I think
a huge part of it too, is like wanting to prioritize,
like there's people that need help right now, and like
if we don't get on this like you know, this
is this is part of what we're here for. This
is this is part of anarchy, you know. UM. And yeah,
just seeing people really like commit was really incredible. I mean,

(55:18):
did you make it on to Malt. Morgan from Team
Raccoon had been coordinating filter exchanges and sourcing gas mass
for children and rapidly change their focus as the area
was smothered by smoke. Yeah. Yeah, I was really fortunate
to get to kind of collaborate with UM a lot
of mutual aid groups for Malt the Mutual Aid Lloyd

(55:41):
Theater and also MAMA, the Milwaukee area Mutual Aid. UM.
We decided to move Malt to Mama because it was
damp out because of all the smoke cover and we
were getting lots of donations of cloth goods like blankets
and mattresses even and and um clothing in all kinds

(56:04):
of things that we didn't want to mildew UM. But yeah,
I I was on the ground giving out respirators a
lot at MALT. I have a really fond memory of
giving a respirator to an eight year old and a
spider man's sure and the eight year old was on
a scooter just scooting around pretending to be a robot

(56:26):
spider man now that they had their respirator on, and
that was fun. We had fun that day. Um. But
um yeah, I I was kind of just giving respirators
out like candy during wildfire disaster relief. So I'm not
totally sure how many went out just for that, but

(56:46):
it was quite a bit. Um. Basically, we were trying
to make sure that everybody who was going on supply
runs to the actual camps themselves was getting a box
of respirators to give out in case there were any
people that were really struggling, any asthmatics, any people that
um have respiratory ailments because we had the worst air

(57:08):
quality in the entire world. Um, I gave I remember
I gave a box of like I think it was
like eighteen respirators to somebody who was like, I actually
work in an asthma clinic and I know a lot
of patients, and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, here
you go, here's a box of eighteen respirators. The e

(57:28):
Walks transformed an empty mall parking lot into a fire
relief aid station almost overnight, becoming a node for a
tremendous amount of supplies and cared to both evacuees as
well as to the houseless community that had nowhere to
go to get out of the smoke. When the fires
first started raging, there was this moment um sort of
I remember it being a Tuesday or a Wednesday, just

(57:50):
after the fires had started, where the protests calmed down
a little bit, largely because it was a safety issue
to be out in the smoke inhalation UM and even
though all of our gear is built to protect from
um C S gas, that doesn't necessarily translate to smoke
air everywhere. In taking a look at what the community

(58:12):
requests were, ewoks social media got a lot of requests
of UM, calls for medical support, calls for supply provision UM.
The other organs that are headed by EWOKS organizers began
getting requests through their social media and it became really
clear that the aid sites that were previously established were

(58:33):
overworked and ineffective and their functioning UM largely because of
the amount of people that they had coming through and
the issues that happened when you have those that many
people with differing views really meeting in the middle UM.
When the Red Cross and the Salvation Army established a
base at Clackmus Town Center or in intent was initially

(58:54):
to be further down the south with them, but when
that psyche quickly reached the pacity in the overflow went
to the organ Convention Center. We realized that there was
going to be a whole group of people that weren't
being serviced by the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army also
does not provide any sort of food or diapers UM,

(59:14):
and their clothing supplies are pretty much limited to what
you can carry. UM the malt site and MALTA is
an acronym that stands for Mutual Aid at Lloyd Theater.
UM we established in the Lloyd Movie Theater parking lot. Thankfully,

(59:35):
the manager of that parking lot did not have an
issue with it UM, but we began doing all of
the supply provision that the Salvation Army and the Oregan
Convention Center was unprepared to do. UM. We also found
that we were getting a high level of UM migrant
communities and minority communities that might otherwise feel grossly uncomfortable

(59:56):
with organizations that have appeared to have of room and
participation and cooperation in the past. When sort of roll
through started to slow down, and the Oregon Convention Center
began to stabilize UM as as paired with the breaking
of the fire line and the actual higher danger moving

(01:00:19):
a little bit further south. We moved into the clack
of this area, and our goal was finding a site
that was going to be safe for humans to come
through no matter what their resident or minority community status
was UM to receive services, but also to be close
enough to jump further down south if that was flow
was necessary. Well, when we established the Mama's Site UM,

(01:00:44):
and now that I'm thinking about it, I can't remember
what Mamma stands for it and I apologize. Mama stands
for Milwaukee Area Mutual Aid fare. We go thanks to UM.
When we established the Mama's Site, we had every intention
of continuing to move further our south. Something really amazing
happened while we were there, and putting us inside the

(01:01:05):
mutual Aid area of Milwaukee allowed best to have resources
within other organizations within the community and the mutual Aid
network to send supplies further down south. What that happened
to move our site UM, that location ended up being
really key in terms of in terms of being able

(01:01:28):
to move supplies, gain supplies and see community needs UM.
And it also highlighted the needs that we were not
able to meet within that which was the the property
damage in the economic impacts of having lost everything UM.
In that respect, it allowed us to move more supplies

(01:01:49):
to safer locations for humans because we were able to
see that that was happening and able to pre plan
for what their future coming needs would be. Some of
those supply lines are still open and we are still
funning about supplies UM that have just been passed around
groups since time. May I jump in, Yeah, So a

(01:02:09):
couple of things I'd like to add. One of the
things that was really important about malt or Mutual Aid
at Lloyd Theater we we were able to address the
needs of our houseless community that did not want to
UM go inside and stay at the convention center UM.

(01:02:32):
So one of the things that we did is resourced
pretty much every respirator UM that was still in existence
in the Portland me people in an area. UM I
had volunteers calling, getting in the quarries UM, making purchases
and delivering the respirators and filters to the houseless folks

(01:02:58):
at UM A C three PO and other camps where
people where people were UM just left to their own devices.
I hear that the city or county was trying to
find respirators on eBay, but of course we had better
connections UM, and then we were able to, you know,

(01:03:23):
make sure that that our houseless community had their needs
met UM before we moved to MAMA and UM. I
think the really important part about MAMA was that it
allowed people who were not safe at the Clackamas Town
Center location to access mutual aid UM, the immigrant and

(01:03:50):
refugee community UM, l g B t Q community UM.
There's there was a real disconnect in terms of providing
safer spaces for UM people UM at that Clackamus County,
Clackamus towns, at the Clackamus Town Center site. UM. I

(01:04:15):
think that's all I really wanted to add. The fires
took a community that was based around brutality and trauma
and helped remind people that not only do we take
care of us, but that mutual aid and support were
also the basis for larger change. After forming bonds and
clouds of tear gas, there was something poetic and protesters
turning their focus outwards to support others in a region

(01:04:36):
where the air had been rendered unbreathable. After the fires,
more mutual aid and support would be directed outside of
the immediate protester community and towards those displaced by fire,
the chronically houseless, and those facing eviction. While these centers
of collective care and support were forming among protesters, another
group had been preparing to mobilize in Portland. In our
next episode, we'll talk about how the Proud Boys and

(01:04:59):
far right extre mists were capitalizing on the same paranoia
that had made Malicious form checkpoints and start preparing for
a violent return to the city to round us out.
Though Here are some final thoughts on mutual aid from
activist Krimberu lay the Ewoks, Courtney from Wall of Moms
in the Street Mechanic Block. One of the things you
like to say is, uh, defund the police and invest

(01:05:22):
in community. And you know one of the things, like
my mom was on earlier and she's like and that's
your monitor and they're out, lady, need one thing just
like you can do the other thing, like stop fighting
the battle, and it's like help the people that need help.
And we want to use society where the police aren't

(01:05:45):
needed for every goddamn thing. The police aren't needed to
harass the house with people in various locations. The police
aren't used to respond to various mental health situations of
all high end all over the city. The police are
you know, basically you don't have the presence they do
and the potentially they do to escalate that. We got

(01:06:06):
the situation. Um, you know, so what we can do
instead of I guess taking away the power directly and
you know actually burning down p p A is just
take their jobs in the sense of like takeaway all
their responsibilities and believe them, what's nothing to do, ah,

(01:06:28):
because that's the bolt at the end of the day, right,
is to have everyone in the community taken care of.
Like that's all we want. Um. You know, it's like
I said, the through line to like Black Lives Matter
and topaptism, uh like Boston police, It's like we all
just want like community taking care of them. All these
people who see that needs to becomes through whatever different

(01:06:49):
specific ones as we need. Um. So yeah, it's it's
more of a I hope it continues to do this, right,
I think it will. It's coming more of people are
organizing actions that is directly benefiting their community. The one
thing that really stands out is that Portland's infrastructure is

(01:07:12):
what makes it possible for us to continue to stay
out here and do this work, UM, and to continue
to persist even as UM those that hold on to
white supremacist structures really clean to the dying, gasping breadths
of it. UM. If you are in another city and
you are looking to form your own mutual aid support network,

(01:07:33):
firstly and foremostly this is going to be a massive
collaboration effort. It's going to feel like you want to
do everything because everything needs to be done, and so
the most important steps that you can take is recognizing
your lane and recognizing how to stay in your lane,
and recognizing how to let your lane meet other people's late. UM.
I think that just like the sense of like communities

(01:07:57):
and people taking care of each other. UM. We're in
a pandemic and a lot of people just don't even
have jobs or are working right now, and the house
of community is only like getting larger, and the police
are attacking the house of community as well. So UM

(01:08:18):
just seeing people rally around to take care of our community,
while UM the government and UM the police that we
actually pay with our tax dollars. I'm not doing shipped
to help people right now at this moment um. Seeing
us gather around and really take care of each other,
even though like we don't personally know each other, we're

(01:08:41):
still you know, everyone is still a family and doing
everything they can to provide um the necessities to live
to each other. So I think that that's like something
that's been really amazing is all of the mutual aid
that's come out of this. Uh what's been going on
here in Portland is really beautiful. Um, people are able

(01:09:04):
to make relent, people are starting to get jobs through
other people's connections. People are able to eat. Uh, you know,
people are like providing shelter and you know, things to
live to the house of community after like they've been
taken and flashed by the police. So I think that
that's just something that's outside of all of the protests,

(01:09:27):
is really amazing to see uh this on this community
come together. And I actually took my children down to
jail support to drop off some things this past weekend
in Vancouver, and it was just a really great opportunity
to show them how we as a community need to

(01:09:47):
take care of each other and how much love is
around all of this. It's hard for my kids to
kind of understand what's going on and see like why
I'm like put them to bed and then you know,
leave them with their dad to like go out every night. Um,
and then sure and they see certain things like on
the news and stuff, so they have like I tried

(01:10:09):
to explain to them what's really going on, But it
was really important for me to take them this weekend
to show them that like we do how like we
always say like we got us, like we really do,
and um explain to them that if anyone's going to
take care of our community, like, it's going to be
us at the end of the day. So I just

(01:10:29):
I'm like trying to eradicate feels are not at a
young age and just teach them, um, at a young
age that you know that in the end, we are
the ones that take care of each other. That I
think about a lot in terms of where things are going,
is just about like all the skills that everybody's learning,
um from whatever they're doing. There's so many different mutually

(01:10:53):
like groups and blocks popping up and trying to like
create material action um. But there's also a kind of
things that are being learned on the street, and they're
kind of being things being learned in terms of organizing
protests and direct actions and media campaigns and all of
these other kinds of things. And I think that, um,
as the protests continue and as the kind of resistance

(01:11:15):
to the powers that be continues, UM, I'm really hopeful
that we all continue to grow and get better at
what we're doing, UM, so that we can really like
keep pushing forward and build the world that we want
to see. I have a couple of things. First, UM,
anybody can do it. Anybody, it doesn't matter how small,

(01:11:36):
it doesn't matter what you're doing. You can be part
of a larger scale operation in the sense of if
you have something, you can provide it, even if it's
like helping something dig something off of the internet or
you know, telling someone this is how this thing works.
Anybody can do that. And also, do not be afraid

(01:11:59):
to ask people for help if you don't understand something
or if you just need help in terms of like
resources like these things are there and the more people
that are involved, the easier it becomes. Does that make sense? Yes? Great?
And that also mutual aid can be as small as

(01:12:21):
it needs to be and as quiet as it needs
to be. Something like helping your neighbor jump a car
like that can be mutual aid. It's like you can
start a group and raise ten dollars over the course
of a few months, and you know, like give people vehicles.
That's also mutual aid. Um. You don't need to like,

(01:12:42):
you know, create weird hierarchies or kind of prioritize one
form of it over another. Um. It's really just like
like like a means for helping each other. Uh. Or
the grand pops who couldn't fathom the Obama system hate
America just to me, and she keeps the promises teens

(01:13:03):
looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja what
my people post to do? Go to schools named after
the clan founder we're around town? Is I don't see
why we're frowning Native American students forced to learn about
when o'pellah Sarah? How is that fair? Bro? Some heroes
unsung in some months, that's get monuments built for them.

(01:13:23):
But it ain't me all a little bit of monster
we crook. You know. Adoption of teens from foster care
is a topic not enough people know about and We're
here to change that. I'm April Didnuity, host of the
new podcast Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids. Each

(01:13:47):
episode brings you compelling, real life adoption stories told by
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Navigating Adoption presented by adopt us It's brought to you
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(01:14:09):
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Raffie is the voice of some of the happiest songs
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(01:14:54):
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