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Speaker 1: don't get out of here. Everybody each other here, I'm awful,
Speaker 1: get out of here. The first thing that comes to
Speaker 1: mind is just like the power of mutual aid UM,
Speaker 1: the smaller events really build the community ties together UM
Speaker 1: and just it enables people to like lean on each
Speaker 1: other for safety and for any resources and pretty much
Speaker 1: anything that somebody needs. UM. These smaller like well being
Speaker 1: based kind of events, like it keeps everybody together, and
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, there's so much power. Like mutual
Speaker 1: aid really is the way of the future. So this
Speaker 1: is basically just a precursor to like what I feel
Speaker 1: like will be a world like a void of police
Speaker 1: and and like constant state violence is will have these
Speaker 1: networks and mutual aid communities that UM will basically make
Speaker 1: that obsolete. So that's really huge for us. That's Jedi,
Speaker 1: a local organizer and musician as the protests in Portland
Speaker 1: and around the nation moved into their third month, Governor
Speaker 1: Kate Brown announced that the FEDS were pulling out of
Speaker 1: the city. With the announcement, the crowds of thousands that
Speaker 1: had come out and forced to protest the federal presence shrunk.
Speaker 1: By the second week of August, ongoing protests drew only
Speaker 1: a few hundred people into the streets each night. For
Speaker 1: the people that wanted to defund and abolish the Portland Police,
Speaker 1: the federal draw down meant that it was time to
Speaker 1: get back to the real fight. Months of being gassed
Speaker 1: and beaten together had given this community of protesters a
Speaker 1: powerful sense of shared purpose. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: drop off in numbers raised the specter of burnout for
Speaker 1: activists and pointed to a long road ahead. Systems of
Speaker 1: mutual aid began to spring up, both out of need
Speaker 1: and out of a desire by many to finally start
Speaker 1: building the world they wanted to live in. To narrate
Speaker 1: the next part of this here's Donovan Smith, a local
Speaker 1: Portland journalist and one of the authors of this series.
Speaker 1: After more than two months in the streets, protesters in
Speaker 1: Portland were exhausted and traumatized but ready to return to
Speaker 1: the real fight of defunding the police. But the enormous
Speaker 1: protests of early June were now months passed, and after
Speaker 1: the wild circus of violence that was fed occupation, people
Speaker 1: were tired and there were questions about how to direct
Speaker 1: the attention of the city back from Trump to the
Speaker 1: violence of Portland Police Bureau. Jacob Burrow's of Direct Action
Speaker 1: Alliance talks about organizing exhaustion. Well, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really like everyone. Everyone falls off. Everyone gets
Speaker 1: tired and falls off, and it's it's the solidarity that
Speaker 1: comes into play at that point. So I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: take month off where I just can't anymore, where I'm
Speaker 1: I'm just exhausted to the bone, where I literally have
Speaker 1: nothing left to give. And during those times is when
Speaker 1: my comrade come in and do what they need to do.
Speaker 1: And then when they're tired, that's when I come in
Speaker 1: and do what I need to do. And that's how
Speaker 1: we kind of keep it perpetually going. Is that you've
Speaker 1: got to be there for folks. When you see someone
Speaker 1: who's you know you people, that's the problem, it's it's fatiguing.
Speaker 1: It caused there's a huge toll. Organizing takes a huge
Speaker 1: to along people. Even just organizing one event, it takes
Speaker 1: three days of my life away from my kids, from
Speaker 1: my responsibilities at home, from what I need to do,
Speaker 1: and it's it's exhausting. And that's that's just the organizing part.
Speaker 1: You know, you still have to consider the emotional toll
Speaker 1: that it takes to go out and do this and
Speaker 1: put yourself on the line. You have to take into
Speaker 1: account the threats that you get from the right, You
Speaker 1: have to take into account the threats that you get
Speaker 1: from the government. So there's all of these things and
Speaker 1: no one is just a superperson that can go and
Speaker 1: power through it. And that's that's a big thing. A
Speaker 1: big misconception I think is people think that the faith
Speaker 1: is you know, there's some people who who their face
Speaker 1: has become prominent or their name has become prominent, and
Speaker 1: people think that it's all them, and it's not. There's
Speaker 1: there's a huge, huge effort behind everything of support of
Speaker 1: mutual aid that keeps everything going. So the reason it's
Speaker 1: been able to go for ten years isn't because there's
Speaker 1: people who have been able to keep going for ten
Speaker 1: years straight. It's because every time someone falls back and
Speaker 1: can't do it and need to break someone else were
Speaker 1: we are lucky enough to be in a community. And
Speaker 1: that's how it keeps ongoing, is that every time, every
Speaker 1: time there's a hole in the line, we have comrades
Speaker 1: who are willing to step back in and fill it up.
Speaker 1: And that's how that's how we've been able to kind
Speaker 1: of keep this momentum going, is because there's always someone
Speaker 1: who's willing to step up when someone has when another
Speaker 1: person has kind of reached their limit. And that's that's
Speaker 1: how you keep it going is by building those connections,
Speaker 1: those trust bonds, and those those solidarity connections and mutual
Speaker 1: aid connections where we're all helping each other out. We
Speaker 1: all have to be there for each other. And using
Speaker 1: social media and telegram, the community stepped out to fill
Speaker 1: holes in the line. Nightly actions began to be organized
Speaker 1: autonomously anonymous calls. The action will post locations mostly of
Speaker 1: different police precincts for the Portland Ice facility, and people
Speaker 1: would show up to the protests. If the police were
Speaker 1: going to continue to brutalize people, then protesters planned on
Speaker 1: wearing them down and exhausting their budget. Every night of
Speaker 1: the week, people assembled at some park around the city
Speaker 1: and would march to a different precincts, yelling, chanting, and
Speaker 1: standing in the street for hours until the police would charge,
Speaker 1: clearing them out with gas, batons and brute force. While
Speaker 1: these actions were referred to as d a's or direct actions,
Speaker 1: the nights often consisted of protesters hurling more insults than
Speaker 1: anything else, adding in an occasional dumpster fire to mix
Speaker 1: it up. Despite the nightly actions beginning to follow up
Speaker 1: predictable pattern that usually ended with police role rushing people
Speaker 1: down unlit neighborhood streets for the crimes of yelling in
Speaker 1: the road. PPB press releases portrayed each evening as an
Speaker 1: intense battle with dangerous radicals. These claims were not borne
Speaker 1: out by the arrest that they made. The charges leveled
Speaker 1: at protesters arrested were almost all I p O are
Speaker 1: in farence with the police officer. The charge that they
Speaker 1: could file if you did not move fast enough when
Speaker 1: they bull rushed I PO was one of the charges
Speaker 1: that d A. Mike Schmidt had announced on August eighth
Speaker 1: that his office would decline to prosecute thereafter nearly all
Speaker 1: protester charges were dropped, possibly to compensate for the loss
Speaker 1: of legal cloud, Portland police ramped up on the brutality.
Speaker 1: Acts of minor vandalism will be answered by baton charges,
Speaker 1: and any protesters are unable to outrun the bull rush
Speaker 1: would be knocked to the ground, body slammed or beaten,
Speaker 1: and then often left lying on the pavement with no
Speaker 1: attempt made to arrest. Police made it very clear that
Speaker 1: their intent was to punish protesters whether or not they
Speaker 1: had legal recourse. It was an exhausting period, however, and
Speaker 1: start contrast to the brutality of the nighttime actions, by August,
Speaker 1: protesters were spending the days building on the mutual aid
Speaker 1: networks that had already existed in port and expanding them
Speaker 1: in new ways to support the community. But what is
Speaker 1: mutual aid? To answer that, I'm going to turn this
Speaker 1: over to activists on the ground who are implementing it.
Speaker 1: PDX treat Medics formed during the summer, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about their work later. But here's their definition of
Speaker 1: mutual aide. It's bringing some amount of equity where there
Speaker 1: is none, you know, in this very small sense of
Speaker 1: like the street mix if someone can't afford repairs, um
Speaker 1: usually they would have to go into debt to get
Speaker 1: that repaired at an auto shop where um, usually they
Speaker 1: would be up sold several thousand dollars in repairs they
Speaker 1: don't need. So where we step in, we are saving
Speaker 1: them that bill and then being able to make sure
Speaker 1: they're able to keep other needs meant and through that
Speaker 1: action is a small amount of equity where there would
Speaker 1: be none. I was just gonna say, kind of piggybacking
Speaker 1: off cyperusus point. Um I I kind of see, you know,
Speaker 1: what we're doing as a you know, I think it's it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of it's trying to challenge the current system,
Speaker 1: you know, and in this system is a system that
Speaker 1: has so many, so many flaws, and I think that
Speaker 1: mutual aid is kind of trying to uh address some
Speaker 1: of those flaws or try to mitigate some of those
Speaker 1: flaws in the sense that you know, kind of living this.
Speaker 1: We live under capitalism, you know, we live under in
Speaker 1: a system that tolerates you know, homelessness. Um uh, you
Speaker 1: know we live under yeah, I mean a system that
Speaker 1: oppresses so many minorities and stuff like that. Um So
Speaker 1: I think that just what mutual aid is and you know, specifically,
Speaker 1: maybe our role is kind of at least the way
Speaker 1: I see it, is challenging that system of capitals and
Speaker 1: challenging you know, being like, hey, like you know, you
Speaker 1: don't you know, We're going to try to just help people,
Speaker 1: not based on you know, gaining anything out of it.
Speaker 1: We're just helping people because that's what we're supposed to
Speaker 1: do as humans. I think that's something that we really
Speaker 1: need to keep in the center of reminds me to
Speaker 1: thinking about mitchill aid is that the people who lose
Speaker 1: the most in our current system have the tend to
Speaker 1: have the least ability to change anything UM. And that
Speaker 1: is one of the core print like motivating factors behind
Speaker 1: mutually UM. Where it is people who are really like
Speaker 1: living truly paycheck to paycheck, or don't even have any
Speaker 1: stable income and are living in a car and it's
Speaker 1: like slowly, slowly breakaking down and there's just nothing to
Speaker 1: do about it. Um. These are the kind of situations
Speaker 1: in which that little bit of extra help can really
Speaker 1: mean that that person can continue to have a life,
Speaker 1: and that life can continue to be good, and that
Speaker 1: life can continue to be Sometimes it's worth fighting for,
Speaker 1: and that way those people can continue to fight for
Speaker 1: their own lives. Um. If community support doesn't really happen,
Speaker 1: and mutually it is really just a fancy word for
Speaker 1: community support. If that doesn't actually happen, those people aren't
Speaker 1: going to be able to fight because they're trying to survive.
Speaker 1: And we need to be able to get a little
Speaker 1: bit beyond survival in order to really organize and fight
Speaker 1: and resist on the scale that is necessary for dealing
Speaker 1: with the problem that we're facing. Something that I've talked
Speaker 1: about a bunch in this ort in this group is
Speaker 1: that I actually sometimes don't think that organizations can provide
Speaker 1: mutual aid um. That instead people have to provide mutualate
Speaker 1: and that because that principle isn't about like usually it
Speaker 1: is about seeing activity and women like acting within com um,
Speaker 1: whereas charity is all about like creating this other I
Speaker 1: think you're providing, and there's like a lot of citying
Speaker 1: and a lot of like apologizing that happens in that
Speaker 1: relationship mutually. Some mutual A groups existed in Portland prior
Speaker 1: to the George Floyd uprising. As COVID swept the country
Speaker 1: in spring, New mutualay organizations popped up all over the city,
Speaker 1: and some groups that were already active look for new
Speaker 1: ways to help. Rose Hips a Medic collective has been
Speaker 1: around for eleven years. They began making hand sanitizer and
Speaker 1: distributing it around the city at the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: As protests intensified, they worked to reverse engineer chemical wives
Speaker 1: to help with tear gas and pepper spray. Medics loaded
Speaker 1: with carts filled with water, energy, drinks, and I cleaning
Speaker 1: kids were a common sight every night. James, a rose
Speaker 1: Hip Street Medic describes the early days of the uprisings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember the first time that I went to a
Speaker 1: protest um after the pandemic. Uh suprising began to happen
Speaker 1: at the same time, I think the Peninsula Park and
Speaker 1: like we just brought a bunch of hand sanitizer and
Speaker 1: we're like, I don't know, let's walk around and hands
Speaker 1: hand sanitizer out to people. And we also have these masks,
Speaker 1: so let's hand these things out and like all of
Speaker 1: our supply was was gone within like half an hour,
Speaker 1: and there was a large a whole park full of
Speaker 1: people at that time, and so you know, initially it
Speaker 1: was just handing things out to people before the marching
Speaker 1: began UM. And then once the protests really picked up
Speaker 1: steam and started to be responded to with more repression,
Speaker 1: we started to ask ourselves, like, what else can we distribute? Basically,
Speaker 1: and one thing that treatments usually do, or or the
Speaker 1: streament is really trained to do, is to flush out
Speaker 1: people's eyes if they need a pepper spray or tear gas.
Speaker 1: But that necessarily creates aerosolized particles from people's eyeballs because
Speaker 1: you're squirting water into people's eyes high velocity. And so
Speaker 1: we're like, this doesn't feel like a safe activity anymore.
Speaker 1: Can we hand out preportioned bottles of our preferred eye
Speaker 1: wash solution? Yes, we have all these bottles lying around,
Speaker 1: and so like, let's do that. And then someone asked,
Speaker 1: you know these these chemical weapons removing wipes, Like what's
Speaker 1: in these? Can we make our own? And then some
Speaker 1: very smart people who are not me like figured out
Speaker 1: the recipe and created a whole manufacturing apparatus to produce
Speaker 1: and distribute huge numbers of chemical weapons wipes UM every
Speaker 1: day and so and then, because the demand kept increasing,
Speaker 1: particularly as the violence and increased, UM and people use
Speaker 1: the products, and then we're like, we really need these,
Speaker 1: these are great and people, you know, they saw us
Speaker 1: around maybe who we were. We started to put our
Speaker 1: name on things, just that it was clear that like
Speaker 1: it's us building up this trust community and not some
Speaker 1: other rendom group. UM. Then people started so just sort
Speaker 1: of like the demand created the whole chain of events.
Speaker 1: And because people already knew us from distributing hand sanitizer,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of goodwill with UM. I would
Speaker 1: say community groups who wouldn't ordinarily think to themselves radical
Speaker 1: leftist street protesters are our people, UM, but like churches
Speaker 1: and whatnot who do a lot of work with people
Speaker 1: living on side, we're like, okay, you seem to be
Speaker 1: more or less on the same page with us. So
Speaker 1: that's how those distribution networks happened. Other groups that were
Speaker 1: already on the ground were the PDX General Defense Committee
Speaker 1: and Defense Fund PDX, who raised bail money and helped
Speaker 1: make sure that protesters made it home and support waited
Speaker 1: outside the central precinct every night with food, hot drinks,
Speaker 1: and support. The Witches had already been present before the summer,
Speaker 1: handing out water bottles and supplies somebody Else's PDX had
Speaker 1: begun as a coalition of mutual aid groups. However, when
Speaker 1: COVID hit, the work connecting communities and mutual aid expanded.
Speaker 1: So yeah, at the beginning of before COVID hit, UH
Speaker 1: Symbiosis was mostly focused on UM. At the time, our
Speaker 1: our project merk or Municipalist Eco Resiliency project, where we
Speaker 1: were working on kind of UM connect again and with
Speaker 1: that dual power lens, trying to UM consolidate uh like
Speaker 1: food access and production infrastructure for the community UM as
Speaker 1: well as like doing some housing rights work UM. When
Speaker 1: COVID hit, we're really small organization UM and immediately just
Speaker 1: kind of like called this sixty sixty organ wide coalition
Speaker 1: call to be like, hey, Radical Left, this is a
Speaker 1: big fucking deal. What do we want to do about it?
Speaker 1: How can we support each other in doing that? And
Speaker 1: through that work we were able to kind of UM
Speaker 1: more succinctly find what gaps in the radical Left infrastructure
Speaker 1: there was, so that we could work on filling that need.
Speaker 1: Part of that was UM creating UH hubs around town.
Speaker 1: UH there there was a few already existing and stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's where we created share or the Symbiosis Hub
Speaker 1: and Resource Exchange program where we were able to be
Speaker 1: some of the first UH first on the ground responders
Speaker 1: to making sure that our communities have the PPE they
Speaker 1: needed when we were being told that we that we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have PPE because we should save it for other people.
Speaker 1: So we we were distributing PPE. We'd organized the Solidarity Stitchers,
Speaker 1: which we're both producing their own masks and kind of
Speaker 1: teaching each other how to sew and learning basic organizing
Speaker 1: skills and how to interact with one another in this
Speaker 1: directly democratic way. But we're also activating the community by
Speaker 1: creating these groups UH the Solidarity Stitchers group online that
Speaker 1: allowed us to then increase our production to being able
Speaker 1: to basically hand make masks that nobody could find anywhere,
Speaker 1: UH numbering in the thousands, UM and and getting and partnering.
Speaker 1: We also created the Solidarity UH Fund UM the Cebiosis
Speaker 1: Solidarity Fund, which basically was not only UM giving individuals
Speaker 1: in the Portland area who were experiencing economic hardship and
Speaker 1: response to the COVID pandemic UM directly. We were giving
Speaker 1: them funds like people who needed medical expenses covered, people
Speaker 1: who needed transportation needs, covered people, et cetera, but as
Speaker 1: well as well as grassroots organizations that needed money to
Speaker 1: continue their vital programming. For example, UH Courtland Action Medics
Speaker 1: and UH Slash the rose Hip Medic Collective. UH we
Speaker 1: were able to make sure to get them multiple thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars to continue the hand sanitizer project that they
Speaker 1: were doing. From there, we were able to slowly grow
Speaker 1: through our our mutual aid program through share and solidarity stitchers,
Speaker 1: this solidarity fund into UM also UH expanding within ourselves
Speaker 1: sort of this education and outreach work that we were
Speaker 1: doing to further further within our organization and out in
Speaker 1: in the general public, educate about communalism, mutual aid, what
Speaker 1: it means to be an accomplice, things about the the
Speaker 1: radical left movement that have been forgotten or never learned.
Speaker 1: This grew to encompass connections with the Warrant Springs Reservation,
Speaker 1: distributing supplies PPE and clean water with fires igniting the
Speaker 1: spirit when the water main for the reservation broke when
Speaker 1: the protests began, Symbios's moved to make sure that PPE
Speaker 1: and resources were available there as well. We were printing
Speaker 1: zines and showing up at protests. UM. At the protests,
Speaker 1: we were also the first group on the ground essentially
Speaker 1: to provide ppe, recognizing that, yes, this uprising is going
Speaker 1: to happen regardless of the risk, because the need is
Speaker 1: that great. But we're gonna do that and see a
Speaker 1: culture of taking care of each other. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: in distributing zines and uh and educational material of other
Speaker 1: sorts and stuff and getting people plugged into organizing other
Speaker 1: much way formed in the early days of the protests,
Speaker 1: fueled by the desire to help out however possible. Early on,
Speaker 1: snack Mom was realized that they were not interested in
Speaker 1: run from the police, but they can make sure that
Speaker 1: the people in the streets had food and supplies. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm snack Mama number one. I go by shiba um
Speaker 1: where I guess we're mutual aid. Yeah. Yeah, we hand
Speaker 1: out snacks and waters and things that nature. Anything you
Speaker 1: know anybody would need, uh poto things like that, stash
Speaker 1: medical supplies, any like extra like masks or gas masks
Speaker 1: or protective gear that we can possibly get our hands on. UM,
Speaker 1: lots of stuff. I mean, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: random stuff that we put out there is whatever the
Speaker 1: needs are. But mainly just snacks and drinks. UM, And
Speaker 1: I'm snack mama too. I've already been docks, so I'm
Speaker 1: not even worried about my name. I go by Amanda,
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's pretty much what will we do? Mutual aid? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did you get started? Like? When when did you
Speaker 1: first start coming to the out to the protests? Like
Speaker 1: how did you get started coming out to the protests? Um?
Speaker 1: What was thet for you to come out? Well? UM,
Speaker 1: when the whole George Floyd video was released and I've
Speaker 1: seen that it was, it was mortified. I cried because
Speaker 1: it was it was definitely just hard to watch UM
Speaker 1: again again and again and again and again. And this
Speaker 1: was just kind of the last draw for everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like UM. And then there were protests going
Speaker 1: on down town. UM, so we went and checked him
Speaker 1: out and then after that we started going out pretty
Speaker 1: much every night after that and just checking him out. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't exactly remember when it was, but we have
Speaker 1: started up with UM. The next partner of mine now
Speaker 1: he started. I remember it was the beginning of June.
Speaker 1: I drugged them with me. We wouldn't check it out,
Speaker 1: you know. UM. So then after that we had started
Speaker 1: cooking where we were cooking downtown. UM. We did that
Speaker 1: for like maybe a month, two or two. UM. We're
Speaker 1: what we're called Don't Starve PDX Yeah, don't Start p UM. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was us UM and then August fifteen, there
Speaker 1: was a domestic dispute between me and my partner UM
Speaker 1: who was part of Don't Start who was part of
Speaker 1: Don't Start x UM. And then after that, I mean
Speaker 1: the the original snack van he was supposed to get
Speaker 1: that UM. And then after the domestic dispute, UM, the
Speaker 1: owner of the van pulled out from underneath him was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't support this. UM. Then he offered
Speaker 1: me the van, and then me and her UM had
Speaker 1: this van and we're like, okay, what can we do
Speaker 1: with this? UM. So then that's when we started doing
Speaker 1: snack Mamas. It took us a minute to come up
Speaker 1: with the name, but eventually we did. But at that
Speaker 1: point people already knew who we were. UM. So then
Speaker 1: we you know, came out with snack Mamas and that's
Speaker 1: what we've been doing ever since. Yeah. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: you out when you were doing the Don't Starve UM.
Speaker 1: What really was just like to feed people. Um, I
Speaker 1: think I think we just want to support the movement.
Speaker 1: And I mean, honestly, we're a couple of chunky girls.
Speaker 1: You know, we weren't. We were no like match for
Speaker 1: these you know officers that are like fit, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to chase us. We're like trying to find like
Speaker 1: bushes or like holes, diet and or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. We're just like, man, this is like this
Speaker 1: is too much for us because I cannot run. For yeah,
Speaker 1: the first time I know that wasn't for me. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm standing there and all of a sudden, I see
Speaker 1: this metal objects moving towards me, and it's on fire
Speaker 1: and it's spinning, and I'm like oh, and I like,
Speaker 1: you know, instantly start freaking out and I'm like okay,
Speaker 1: so you know, I take off and I start running,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, this isn't for me. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't outrun objects. I can't outrun the cops, you know,
Speaker 1: so to fad. So we didn't have any gas mask
Speaker 1: or anything or like we're like stuffing our faces with stuff,
Speaker 1: trying to breathe still and try and like protect ourselves.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yes, it's harsh times but we wanted to
Speaker 1: support like in whatever way we could. I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of where we started like doing that. This is
Speaker 1: Roxanne Gay, host of The Roxanne Gay Agenda, the Bad
Speaker 1: Frominast podcast of Your Dreams. Now, what is the Roxanne
Speaker 1: Gay Agenda, you might ask, Well, it's a podcast where
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Speaker 1: some music or a comedy set, something that I really
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Speaker 1: as well. Listen to the Luminary original podcast, The Roxanne
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Speaker 1: Raffie is the voice of some of the happiest songs
Speaker 1: of our generation. Baby So Who is the man behind
Speaker 1: Baby Bluga. Every human being wants to feel respected. When
Speaker 1: we start with young at all, good things can grow
Speaker 1: from there. I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, new Dad and host
Speaker 1: of Finding Raffie, a new podcast from my Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Fatherly Listen every Tuesday on the i Heart Radio
Speaker 1: app or wherever you get your podcasts. For other people
Speaker 1: that wanted to protests but didn't feel comfortable going out alone,
Speaker 1: comrad Collective connected protesters to each other, sparking the connections
Speaker 1: that help sustain the movements. As a kind of a
Speaker 1: tough one that summarized UM, I guess the best way
Speaker 1: to say it is that UM community has kind of
Speaker 1: been a limiting factor for a lot of people in protests,
Speaker 1: and right around the time of UH fourth of July
Speaker 1: and right after that, Shark Youth started kind of becoming
Speaker 1: a kind of a meeting point for folks through social media,
Speaker 1: through Telegram, and from there there's been several UM definit iterations,
Speaker 1: Disabled Common Collective, Care Collective, UM soon to be Queer
Speaker 1: Comedy Collective as well, all kind of forming from that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, locusts of just like community, just like
Speaker 1: folks trying to find the necessary connections to get their
Speaker 1: ideas off the ground. Yeah. I mean for me personally,
Speaker 1: I just sort of started sitting in a park with
Speaker 1: a sign just asking people if they needed buddies. I
Speaker 1: was going to be there anyway. It figured like it
Speaker 1: was something easy to do, and I started a Twitter
Speaker 1: and one thing just sort of snowballed into another. Now
Speaker 1: here we are Disabled Comrade Collective have form to meet
Speaker 1: the needs of people with disabilities or who have alternative
Speaker 1: needs to be able to participate in protests. Yeah. How
Speaker 1: um so, how Disabled Comrade Collective started was kind of like, um,
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm disabled and chronically ill, so like I
Speaker 1: can't be on the ground all the time. It's like
Speaker 1: here and there, and then when I am it takes
Speaker 1: a lot out of me. Um and so uh Sylvan
Speaker 1: who is like like the main person of um like
Speaker 1: handling Disabled Comrade Collective, Uh, they also are disabled and
Speaker 1: chronically ill and so um they just kind of like
Speaker 1: we were just complaining on Twitter, like they were like, man,
Speaker 1: like there needs to be like a group for like
Speaker 1: disabled and ill people like to have different needs and
Speaker 1: like neuro divergent and then like, um, it just everyone
Speaker 1: was like yeah, and then it just kind of uh
Speaker 1: went onto Sylvan and they're like, I guess I'm doing
Speaker 1: this thing. So that's how that started. The e Walks
Speaker 1: also formed early in the protests, but through the course
Speaker 1: of the summer they found that their mission change e
Speaker 1: Walks is a humanitarian aid coalition made up of crisis
Speaker 1: and medical workers. We're fighting integrated medical and mental health
Speaker 1: care that's trauma informed and harm reductive in nature. This
Speaker 1: service model was really adapted from another organization that we
Speaker 1: worked with um as organizers called Whitebird Medicine UM and
Speaker 1: they've been the attention of national news recently for their
Speaker 1: Hoods program. However, looking at the situations in Portland and
Speaker 1: the socio political inequities that are being enforced every single day,
Speaker 1: it became increasingly clear that Britlin's model was going to
Speaker 1: need to look a little bit different. So we beefed
Speaker 1: up our teams and we got a hole off the
Speaker 1: ground side and now we've sort of moved morphed into
Speaker 1: like a whole bunch of different things we do uh
Speaker 1: protest work. Still, we're committed in UM supporting the community
Speaker 1: for as long as that needs to happen. One thing
Speaker 1: that became increasingly clear as public reliance on the police
Speaker 1: force has begun to reflect the police forces ability to
Speaker 1: protect people who served them. UM E Walks has really
Speaker 1: taken a look at what the city needs most, and
Speaker 1: our shift was born out of seeing a complete lack
Speaker 1: of actually reachable mental health services within our city. UM
Speaker 1: costs are prohibited access to those actual things within standalone
Speaker 1: buildings does not work for many patients and it also
Speaker 1: leaves our house list community severely lacking as always in
Speaker 1: services and outreach UM As we began looking at adapting
Speaker 1: our model and taking a look at what this community needed,
Speaker 1: one of the things that struck us most was that
Speaker 1: there is a complete lack of about tornative resources to
Speaker 1: police involvement. And while EOX is not there yet, we
Speaker 1: would like to envision a future where we have a
Speaker 1: place in helping form a service that can do just
Speaker 1: such a thing. Meeting in the front of the Federal Courthouse.
Speaker 1: During the Fed War, Optical Block began doing eye exams,
Speaker 1: helping people get prescriptions and glasses, organizing around the Mutual
Speaker 1: eight tents of Riot Ribs. As riot ribs imploded at
Speaker 1: the end of July, the number of Mutual Aid quote
Speaker 1: blocks organizing services to protesters and marginalized communities exploded. These
Speaker 1: groups organized around identifying and helping with one community need
Speaker 1: at a time. Protesters set up a wide ranging network
Speaker 1: of alternative organized to help each other outside of the
Speaker 1: frameworks of the city or capitalism. In many cases, the
Speaker 1: blocks were explicit that in an abolitionist framework, the goal
Speaker 1: was to meet needs without the charity and violence that
Speaker 1: often accompanied the state and more traditional types of existence.
Speaker 1: Instead organized as a community to give people's needs met.
Speaker 1: As activist Mariah explains, there was a block for everything
Speaker 1: like pet block. Yeah, oh gosh, I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: say I have a favorite. They're all amazing, Like they
Speaker 1: honestly like shocked me every day because I'm just like,
Speaker 1: oh do we I even asked them, like, yo, do
Speaker 1: we have a caramplastic block, Like, yeah, I don't say
Speaker 1: I have a favorite. I am just amazed by people
Speaker 1: being able to come together and do that. I've seen
Speaker 1: job block, I've seen I've seen stuff I couldn't even
Speaker 1: think of, and I'm like, that's just amazing. I I
Speaker 1: think it's amazing for like, yeah, this little community. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm wish people like would know more about this. I
Speaker 1: want to say, no more about this, get more involved
Speaker 1: because I'm like the communities is doing it, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we protect us and it's amazing. As August continued, community
Speaker 1: events and mutual affairs became common. Mending Block could repair
Speaker 1: your clothes and made box of buzz for anonymity at
Speaker 1: night actions. Beauty Block could give you a manicure, but
Speaker 1: also made bath bombs and care packages for jail support.
Speaker 1: Community art therapy happened weekly as people try to process
Speaker 1: the stress and brutality. Tech Block assisted people with computers
Speaker 1: and devices. While we don't have time to cover every
Speaker 1: group that arose during that time, we can have some
Speaker 1: of the activists describe how and why they formed. Jedi
Speaker 1: explains Plant Block. So, plant Block literally came out of
Speaker 1: mutual aid, Like it formed out of like Mac already
Speaker 1: being in contact with a bunch of community members already
Speaker 1: having his own garden kind of things set up and
Speaker 1: then just pull every everybody together and creating vigils with
Speaker 1: flowers or provide people with just like vegetable bags and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So like nowadays, if you go to
Speaker 1: any kind of like well this was certainly true. I
Speaker 1: mean we're not having as many because it's so cold
Speaker 1: and wet now. But like a lot of the the
Speaker 1: community events that we would hold UM, half of those
Speaker 1: like vendors that would be at these community events literally
Speaker 1: were formed within this movement. They didn't exist prior to
Speaker 1: George Floyd. So seeing how you know, the tragic death
Speaker 1: of of of him and many others fallen before him,
Speaker 1: have kind of, in a way like been a catalyst
Speaker 1: for strengthening mutual aid in our city UM, And anybody
Speaker 1: who's been on the ground, been going to these events
Speaker 1: have has seen it with their own eyes. So many
Speaker 1: different mutual aid groups have formed because of it's just
Speaker 1: coming to other so often, and the more that we
Speaker 1: come together, the more we realize we don't need to
Speaker 1: rely on the state UM to feed and clothe and
Speaker 1: keep us safe. During the Fed War, cars were damaged
Speaker 1: by right munitions and had their filters clagged with powdered
Speaker 1: tear gas. Portland Please developed a habit of repeatedly attacking
Speaker 1: protester vehicles protecting marches by stabbing out their tires. Those
Speaker 1: snack Mamas had their vans impounded and trash for handing
Speaker 1: out food and water in response. PT Street Mechanics formed
Speaker 1: to help people repair their cars and provide vehicle assistance
Speaker 1: for protesters, but quickly in large their focus to help
Speaker 1: with other transportation needs. Here they explain how they formed
Speaker 1: the protin Street Mechanics started UM kind of shot like
Speaker 1: on Twitter, primarily because there were calls for people's cars
Speaker 1: getting to repairs after having them being damaged out in protests. UM.
Speaker 1: It very quickly expanded well beyond that, because car repair
Speaker 1: isn't something that you can do at protests UM, and
Speaker 1: that was one of our first things, is like, I know,
Speaker 1: we're actually just doing community car care UM by moving
Speaker 1: away from the protests and actually allows us to UM
Speaker 1: focus on other things UM and actually focus on the
Speaker 1: marginalized communities that are tend to be very active in
Speaker 1: protests but are also the reasons why we are protesting UM.
Speaker 1: And that was a big thing for us in our
Speaker 1: initial framing was not necessarily just helping protesters kind of
Speaker 1: manage their day to day needs UM, but also helping
Speaker 1: to support the communities that are have historically been marginalized
Speaker 1: and have historically been oppressed UM, so that these protests
Speaker 1: don't need to happen. We should not have to go
Speaker 1: and protest UM. And big part of it is building
Speaker 1: the world that we want to see UM, So we
Speaker 1: kind of quickly moved into that perspective. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of ways we end up providing a lot of
Speaker 1: support for other blocks. So a lot of the people
Speaker 1: that we help and the people reach out to us
Speaker 1: are people who are using their vehicles for MUTUALID and UM.
Speaker 1: Those people absolutely get UM like care from us. They
Speaker 1: get support in terms of making sure that their vehicles
Speaker 1: are reliable and safe UM so that they can provide
Speaker 1: their own kind of like practices because a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of other mutual aid systems or like organizations
Speaker 1: are about like just giving stuff away UM and providing
Speaker 1: those those goods UM the service providing component UM kind
Speaker 1: of like breaks with that a little bit. So like
Speaker 1: we we haven't really been able to UM kind of
Speaker 1: meet up and go to a lot of like the
Speaker 1: or like some of the fares or some of the
Speaker 1: kind of like mutual aid meetups because we there's no
Speaker 1: spot to work on cars UM. So when we've run
Speaker 1: into some problems with that, UM were like people being
Speaker 1: fine with people distributing food, but then we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: can we do an all change in your parking lot?
Speaker 1: It's like, now, we can't do that. Um, So we
Speaker 1: end up having to to get really creative in terms
Speaker 1: of where we do our work and how we um
Speaker 1: actually like just like logistically organized with other people. When P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the ground in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, what rose from its ashes would change the world?
Speaker 1: Welcome to Grim and Mild Presents, an ongoing journey into
Speaker 1: the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. For our inaugural season,
Speaker 1: we'll be giving you a backstage tour of the always
Speaker 1: complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact that is the American
Speaker 1: Side Show. So come along as we visit the shadowy
Speaker 1: corners of the stage and learn about the people who
Speaker 1: were at the center of it all in a place
Speaker 1: where spectacle was king. We will soon discover there's always
Speaker 1: more to the story than meets the eye, So step
Speaker 1: right up and get in line. Listen to Grim and
Speaker 1: Mile Presents now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more over at
Speaker 1: Grim and Mild dot com. Slash Presents Conquer your new
Speaker 1: year's resolution to be more productive with the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: In each bite sized daily episode, time management and productivity
Speaker 1: expert Laura Vanderkam teaches you how to make the most
Speaker 1: of your time, both at work and at home. These
Speaker 1: are the practical suggestions you need to get more done
Speaker 1: with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our body
Speaker 1: strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental
Speaker 1: equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to Before Breakfast wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. I call the Union Hall as his
Speaker 1: male life and death. I think these peeples of planning
Speaker 1: to kill Dr King. On April four, Dr Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King was shot and killed in Memphis. A petty criminal
Speaker 1: named James Earl Ray was arrested. He pled guilty to
Speaker 1: the crime and spent the rest of his life in prison.
Speaker 1: Case closed right James L. Ray was upon for the
Speaker 1: official story. The authorities would parade all we found a
Speaker 1: gun that James el Ray bought in Birmingham that killed
Speaker 1: Dr King, Except it wasn't the gun that killed Dr. King.
Speaker 1: One of the problems that came out when I got
Speaker 1: the Ray case was that some of the evidence, as
Speaker 1: far as I was concerned, did not match the circumstances.
Speaker 1: This is the MLK Tapes. The first episodes are available
Speaker 1: now listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up next is Elane,
Speaker 1: my colleague in the streets and my partner in writing
Speaker 1: this podcast. The cycle of nightly protests and daily community
Speaker 1: building and mutual aid would continue unabated, and on September five,
Speaker 1: Portland had its hundredth night of continuous protest. The event
Speaker 1: was marked by a care fair featuring many of the
Speaker 1: mutual aid groups that had formed recently. Plant Walk had vegetables,
Speaker 1: sprouts and seeds that they were giving away, and care
Speaker 1: Bok offered massages to protesters and Tea Symbiosis tabled books
Speaker 1: and zines, and people ate donated food and listened to
Speaker 1: speakers and music by local musicians. At one point, the
Speaker 1: car Caravan, a reoccurring car protest frequented by people whose
Speaker 1: social distancing needs made other types of visible protest harder,
Speaker 1: came past, honking horns and waving signs declaring that black
Speaker 1: lives mattered. Mac was on the ground that day. You know,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of folks once once things went
Speaker 1: off in Minneapolis, and once we knew they were, once
Speaker 1: we had our first big riot here in Portland, we
Speaker 1: knew something was going to happen, Like we knew that
Speaker 1: there were going to be some protests and stuff last
Speaker 1: a little while. I don't think anyone at the start
Speaker 1: of it really called a hundred plus j continuous protest.
Speaker 1: When did you realize this is not a normal not
Speaker 1: just not a normal Portland protest, This isn't like a
Speaker 1: normal Portland summer of protests, and it would continue to
Speaker 1: not be a normal summer of protests. That night, Portland
Speaker 1: police pushed protesters blocks away from the East Portland Precinct,
Speaker 1: gassing families in their homes, and at the beginning of September,
Speaker 1: Oregon began one of its worst fire seasons on record.
Speaker 1: As one of the last marches commemorating the hundred At
Speaker 1: the day of protest, while and through the St. John's
Speaker 1: neighborhood of North Portland, Mariah remembers how the sky slowly
Speaker 1: dimmed as smoke began rolling into the city from fires
Speaker 1: burning from the south and east. I won't, I won't
Speaker 1: for the day it started rolling into town. I was
Speaker 1: actually at the big march in St. John's because we
Speaker 1: all started coming back and we were just like coughing
Speaker 1: and and everything, and I was like, what the is
Speaker 1: going on? I looked in there and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's smoked from the fire about but where And then obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty four hours later we started becoming hell.
Speaker 1: But how much it just showed, like the community transition
Speaker 1: to mutual aid and aiding like fire survivors and victims.
Speaker 1: Uh me as well. I also did, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I raised like five thousand dollars and went and went
Speaker 1: shopping and dropped him off like they got a place
Speaker 1: near Lloyd Center, UM and then out in Milwaukee. But
Speaker 1: it was so amazing to see the community be able
Speaker 1: to come together and help people. Dry conditions and hot
Speaker 1: winds sent fire sweeping force states. Oregon was enveloped in
Speaker 1: the worst fires the state had seen in decades. Smoke
Speaker 1: from multiple blazes blanketed the region, making breathing impossible and
Speaker 1: devastating huge swaths of the state. As thousands evacuated and
Speaker 1: whole towns were consumed by fire with no evidence. Far
Speaker 1: right media exploded with rumors that Antifa and BLM were
Speaker 1: starting fires despite public officials trying to counteract the rumors.
Speaker 1: It was too little, too late. The fearmongering rhetoric had
Speaker 1: scared individuals and right wing militias to stay in fire
Speaker 1: are areas, hindering evacuees, and to set up armed checkpoints
Speaker 1: and fire zones to harass anyone they thought didn't look right.
Speaker 1: Reporter Alyssa Tsar went out to the fire zone to
Speaker 1: talk with evacuees and report on the fire response. Um,
Speaker 1: just seeing you know, the community come together and kind
Speaker 1: of a great example of we protect us, you know,
Speaker 1: manifesting right before our eyes. Um. Fuck, there were people
Speaker 1: that were like rollying together trailers to go help people
Speaker 1: evacuate their barn animals and take them to somewhere safe.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean that's what we went there for. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it's so funny because I believe the day
Speaker 1: before I went to Malala um or the day before that,
Speaker 1: so one or two days before, I had tweeted something
Speaker 1: and I was totally joking, but it was also very serious.
Speaker 1: It was along the lines of like, you know, right
Speaker 1: wingers on Twitter are saying, you know, Antifa started the wildfires. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: every fucking leftist on Twitter at the time was like, hey, um,
Speaker 1: what's the most efficient way to bring a fire extinguisher
Speaker 1: to a protest? You know, because at the time there
Speaker 1: was also a fire risk and the protests were happening,
Speaker 1: and this is something people were super concerned about. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were making jokes about these circulating rumors.
Speaker 1: I really did not think in a matter of two
Speaker 1: days they would manifest into a full blown, like actionable
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory. Alissa soon found out how serious those conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories were being taken. At the time, the witches had
Speaker 1: showed up and they had brought a bunch of it's
Speaker 1: like swagons filled with supplies. Um. We were on our
Speaker 1: way to I think it was at the time the airport, um,
Speaker 1: because that's where the firefighters had told us that they
Speaker 1: were gonna have the firefighters beast stationed as well as
Speaker 1: be taking supplies. So on our way there there was
Speaker 1: have you ever seen those uh, those signs where it's
Speaker 1: like uh green, yellow, red, and it's like a fire
Speaker 1: danger sign and the arrow points wherever. So the arrow
Speaker 1: was like all the way in the red and it
Speaker 1: was like leave now. So granted, we stopped to take
Speaker 1: a picture of that because it's there's just this like
Speaker 1: you know, field of like tall grass on the side
Speaker 1: of the road. Leave Now. It was just a very
Speaker 1: picturesque moment, something really eerie about it. The road is
Speaker 1: like completely empty, but every now and then you can
Speaker 1: see like a line of cars trying to evacuate. But anyways,
Speaker 1: we we pulled over. Um. Wow, I haven't thought about
Speaker 1: this in so long, but yeah, we've We've pulled over
Speaker 1: to take this picture and Justin and Sergio are kind
Speaker 1: is still standing next to the car. Um and this
Speaker 1: is public property. Um, it's on the side of the road.
Speaker 1: It's not anyone's like yard or anything. And they're still
Speaker 1: by the car, and I'm like in front of the
Speaker 1: sign and there's some like tall grass. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: crouched down taking a picture of it, and I'm like
Speaker 1: focused on the picture and hear someone talking. At first,
Speaker 1: I thought maybe it was like Justin in Sergio, but
Speaker 1: I look up and there's three dudes with with rifles, um,
Speaker 1: you know, pointing their rifles at us. And it it
Speaker 1: took a bit for me to register what was going
Speaker 1: on because I was really confused. Um, and I got
Speaker 1: up and they started interrogating me, and I'm answering, but
Speaker 1: I'm still like really confused because I'm like, Okay, they're
Speaker 1: not cops, but why are they so offended and so
Speaker 1: aggressive and style? Like I I was legit, just like
Speaker 1: I could not figure out what was going on. And
Speaker 1: then they kept asking questions, you know, like where are
Speaker 1: you from? Why are you in our the city? Or
Speaker 1: are you taking a picture of this? UM started talking
Speaker 1: about like because we all had our press credentials on,
Speaker 1: we were all in plain clothing, and you know, slowly,
Speaker 1: like based off the questions they were asking, it slowly
Speaker 1: started to kind of click for me. But even when
Speaker 1: it clicked, I think that just kind of made me
Speaker 1: more confused, because like we were literally all tweeting about
Speaker 1: this jokingly last night, but somehow and fuck literally two
Speaker 1: to three days this rumor manifested into a fucking conspiracy
Speaker 1: where people are holding people at gunpoint, militias are holding
Speaker 1: people up at gunpoint. It's it's just wild to me.
Speaker 1: They finally got to a point they started saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, there were people that were coming into their
Speaker 1: city that are starting fires so that they can loot um,
Speaker 1: you know, and they kept saying the word loot, and
Speaker 1: then um, they started talking about protesters from Portland and
Speaker 1: it was just like you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: all like it was coming to me before, but it
Speaker 1: was coming to me in a way where it's like okay, maybe,
Speaker 1: but there's no way. But then they started asking those questions.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, they they really do believe
Speaker 1: that I'm an Antifa starting the fires right now, like
Speaker 1: okay fuck? Um yeah, using words like like looting. And
Speaker 1: then they started talking about protesting, um, god fuck. And
Speaker 1: then it took a little bit before Justin and Sergio
Speaker 1: even saw and uh, it was Justin who came down
Speaker 1: first and started to like talking and see what's going on.
Speaker 1: Oh funk. I just remember too, when Sergio finally like
Speaker 1: realized what was going on. He came up to us
Speaker 1: and he's like, are you writing us man? Yeah? Yeah
Speaker 1: not and not physically nobody touched us, but just like
Speaker 1: a body language and the way that they were being,
Speaker 1: the way that they were positioned, and like slowly like
Speaker 1: you know, edging forward when they would be speaking. Um,
Speaker 1: we were I think when when Sergio got involved, him
Speaker 1: and Justin we're just trying to be like listen, we're
Speaker 1: just trying to take pictures, like we're not gonna bother you,
Speaker 1: like like whatever. And also like we we also tried
Speaker 1: to explain to them like we're not here to like
Speaker 1: make this political or dehumanize anyone or whatever, like We're
Speaker 1: here with like sympathy and you know, like we're again,
Speaker 1: this is like a humanitarian issue. This is just like
Speaker 1: what the fuck. Yeah, you know, are not here to
Speaker 1: be like yeah, like you know, burn those whatever, Like no,
Speaker 1: none of that. Um. So they really wanted us to
Speaker 1: just like pack it up and go back to Portland, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were kind of insinuating that they
Speaker 1: would have their eyes on us. They took a picture
Speaker 1: of all of our faces. They took a picture of
Speaker 1: the license plate. Um. So yeah, it was kind of creepy.
Speaker 1: But I will tell you for sure, none of us
Speaker 1: really realized what happened until like a few hours later,
Speaker 1: because we were fine. We were all fine, and I
Speaker 1: was tweeting about it. I'm like, ll guess what happened,
Speaker 1: And then like an hour or two later, we're just
Speaker 1: like fuck, like we got held up at gunpoint, um
Speaker 1: the city. Like by the time we got to where
Speaker 1: we stopped Uh, that area was all burnt down already,
Speaker 1: so had something happened, there's a good chance no one
Speaker 1: would have found out about it. As we came to
Speaker 1: learn later, the cops are all very pro these right
Speaker 1: wing militias over there, So um, the seriousness of it
Speaker 1: definitely didn't kick in until a lot later. But what
Speaker 1: we're protesters actually doing during this time, well, many of
Speaker 1: the people being labeled as rioters and having rumors of
Speaker 1: arson spread about them were out in the community trying
Speaker 1: to help as many victims of the fires as possible.
Speaker 1: Alyssa continues. Um. You know, Portland's like mutual aid groups
Speaker 1: from Portland. We're driving all the way down to Eugene
Speaker 1: to drop off some supplies and back, like you know,
Speaker 1: countless times, back and forth. UM. So that was that
Speaker 1: was really great, just seeing you know, what we're capable of. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think at first, you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: the protests kind of slowing down for the fires, um.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of it at first was
Speaker 1: because it was unhealthy to go outside. But I think
Speaker 1: a huge part of it too, is like wanting to prioritize,
Speaker 1: like there's people that need help right now, and like
Speaker 1: if we don't get on this like you know, this
Speaker 1: is this is part of what we're here for. This
Speaker 1: is this is part of anarchy, you know. UM. And yeah,
Speaker 1: just seeing people really like commit was really incredible. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you make it on to Malt. Morgan from Team
Speaker 1: Raccoon had been coordinating filter exchanges and sourcing gas mass
Speaker 1: for children and rapidly change their focus as the area
Speaker 1: was smothered by smoke. Yeah. Yeah, I was really fortunate
Speaker 1: to get to kind of collaborate with UM a lot
Speaker 1: of mutual aid groups for Malt the Mutual Aid Lloyd
Speaker 1: Theater and also MAMA, the Milwaukee area Mutual Aid. UM.
Speaker 1: We decided to move Malt to Mama because it was
Speaker 1: damp out because of all the smoke cover and we
Speaker 1: were getting lots of donations of cloth goods like blankets
Speaker 1: and mattresses even and and um clothing in all kinds
Speaker 1: of things that we didn't want to mildew UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I I was on the ground giving out respirators a
Speaker 1: lot at MALT. I have a really fond memory of
Speaker 1: giving a respirator to an eight year old and a
Speaker 1: spider man's sure and the eight year old was on
Speaker 1: a scooter just scooting around pretending to be a robot
Speaker 1: spider man now that they had their respirator on, and
Speaker 1: that was fun. We had fun that day. Um. But
Speaker 1: um yeah, I I was kind of just giving respirators
Speaker 1: out like candy during wildfire disaster relief. So I'm not
Speaker 1: totally sure how many went out just for that, but
Speaker 1: it was quite a bit. Um. Basically, we were trying
Speaker 1: to make sure that everybody who was going on supply
Speaker 1: runs to the actual camps themselves was getting a box
Speaker 1: of respirators to give out in case there were any
Speaker 1: people that were really struggling, any asthmatics, any people that
Speaker 1: um have respiratory ailments because we had the worst air
Speaker 1: quality in the entire world. Um, I gave I remember
Speaker 1: I gave a box of like I think it was
Speaker 1: like eighteen respirators to somebody who was like, I actually
Speaker 1: work in an asthma clinic and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of patients, and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, here
Speaker 1: you go, here's a box of eighteen respirators. The e
Speaker 1: Walks transformed an empty mall parking lot into a fire
Speaker 1: relief aid station almost overnight, becoming a node for a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of supplies and cared to both evacuees as
Speaker 1: well as to the houseless community that had nowhere to
Speaker 1: go to get out of the smoke. When the fires
Speaker 1: first started raging, there was this moment um sort of
Speaker 1: I remember it being a Tuesday or a Wednesday, just
Speaker 1: after the fires had started, where the protests calmed down
Speaker 1: a little bit, largely because it was a safety issue
Speaker 1: to be out in the smoke inhalation UM and even
Speaker 1: though all of our gear is built to protect from
Speaker 1: um C S gas, that doesn't necessarily translate to smoke
Speaker 1: air everywhere. In taking a look at what the community
Speaker 1: requests were, ewoks social media got a lot of requests
Speaker 1: of UM, calls for medical support, calls for supply provision UM.
Speaker 1: The other organs that are headed by EWOKS organizers began
Speaker 1: getting requests through their social media and it became really
Speaker 1: clear that the aid sites that were previously established were
Speaker 1: overworked and ineffective and their functioning UM largely because of
Speaker 1: the amount of people that they had coming through and
Speaker 1: the issues that happened when you have those that many
Speaker 1: people with differing views really meeting in the middle UM.
Speaker 1: When the Red Cross and the Salvation Army established a
Speaker 1: base at Clackmus Town Center or in intent was initially
Speaker 1: to be further down the south with them, but when
Speaker 1: that psyche quickly reached the pacity in the overflow went
Speaker 1: to the organ Convention Center. We realized that there was
Speaker 1: going to be a whole group of people that weren't
Speaker 1: being serviced by the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army also
Speaker 1: does not provide any sort of food or diapers UM,
Speaker 1: and their clothing supplies are pretty much limited to what
Speaker 1: you can carry. UM the malt site and MALTA is
Speaker 1: an acronym that stands for Mutual Aid at Lloyd Theater.
Speaker 1: UM we established in the Lloyd Movie Theater parking lot. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the manager of that parking lot did not have an
Speaker 1: issue with it UM, but we began doing all of
Speaker 1: the supply provision that the Salvation Army and the Oregan
Speaker 1: Convention Center was unprepared to do. UM. We also found
Speaker 1: that we were getting a high level of UM migrant
Speaker 1: communities and minority communities that might otherwise feel grossly uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with organizations that have appeared to have of room and
Speaker 1: participation and cooperation in the past. When sort of roll
Speaker 1: through started to slow down, and the Oregon Convention Center
Speaker 1: began to stabilize UM as as paired with the breaking
Speaker 1: of the fire line and the actual higher danger moving
Speaker 1: a little bit further south. We moved into the clack
Speaker 1: of this area, and our goal was finding a site
Speaker 1: that was going to be safe for humans to come
Speaker 1: through no matter what their resident or minority community status
Speaker 1: was UM to receive services, but also to be close
Speaker 1: enough to jump further down south if that was flow
Speaker 1: was necessary. Well, when we established the Mama's Site UM,
Speaker 1: and now that I'm thinking about it, I can't remember
Speaker 1: what Mamma stands for it and I apologize. Mama stands
Speaker 1: for Milwaukee Area Mutual Aid fare. We go thanks to UM.
Speaker 1: When we established the Mama's Site, we had every intention
Speaker 1: of continuing to move further our south. Something really amazing
Speaker 1: happened while we were there, and putting us inside the
Speaker 1: mutual Aid area of Milwaukee allowed best to have resources
Speaker 1: within other organizations within the community and the mutual Aid
Speaker 1: network to send supplies further down south. What that happened
Speaker 1: to move our site UM, that location ended up being
Speaker 1: really key in terms of in terms of being able
Speaker 1: to move supplies, gain supplies and see community needs UM.
Speaker 1: And it also highlighted the needs that we were not
Speaker 1: able to meet within that which was the the property
Speaker 1: damage in the economic impacts of having lost everything UM.
Speaker 1: In that respect, it allowed us to move more supplies
Speaker 1: to safer locations for humans because we were able to
Speaker 1: see that that was happening and able to pre plan
Speaker 1: for what their future coming needs would be. Some of
Speaker 1: those supply lines are still open and we are still
Speaker 1: funning about supplies UM that have just been passed around
Speaker 1: groups since time. May I jump in, Yeah, So a
Speaker 1: couple of things I'd like to add. One of the
Speaker 1: things that was really important about malt or Mutual Aid
Speaker 1: at Lloyd Theater we we were able to address the
Speaker 1: needs of our houseless community that did not want to
Speaker 1: UM go inside and stay at the convention center UM.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we did is resourced
Speaker 1: pretty much every respirator UM that was still in existence
Speaker 1: in the Portland me people in an area. UM I
Speaker 1: had volunteers calling, getting in the quarries UM, making purchases
Speaker 1: and delivering the respirators and filters to the houseless folks
Speaker 1: at UM A C three PO and other camps where
Speaker 1: people where people were UM just left to their own devices.
Speaker 1: I hear that the city or county was trying to
Speaker 1: find respirators on eBay, but of course we had better
Speaker 1: connections UM, and then we were able to, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure that that our houseless community had their needs
Speaker 1: met UM before we moved to MAMA and UM. I
Speaker 1: think the really important part about MAMA was that it
Speaker 1: allowed people who were not safe at the Clackamas Town
Speaker 1: Center location to access mutual aid UM, the immigrant and
Speaker 1: refugee community UM, l g B t Q community UM.
Speaker 1: There's there was a real disconnect in terms of providing
Speaker 1: safer spaces for UM people UM at that Clackamus County,
Speaker 1: Clackamus towns, at the Clackamus Town Center site. UM. I
Speaker 1: think that's all I really wanted to add. The fires
Speaker 1: took a community that was based around brutality and trauma
Speaker 1: and helped remind people that not only do we take
Speaker 1: care of us, but that mutual aid and support were
Speaker 1: also the basis for larger change. After forming bonds and
Speaker 1: clouds of tear gas, there was something poetic and protesters
Speaker 1: turning their focus outwards to support others in a region
Speaker 1: where the air had been rendered unbreathable. After the fires,
Speaker 1: more mutual aid and support would be directed outside of
Speaker 1: the immediate protester community and towards those displaced by fire,
Speaker 1: the chronically houseless, and those facing eviction. While these centers
Speaker 1: of collective care and support were forming among protesters, another
Speaker 1: group had been preparing to mobilize in Portland. In our
Speaker 1: next episode, we'll talk about how the Proud Boys and
Speaker 1: far right extre mists were capitalizing on the same paranoia
Speaker 1: that had made Malicious form checkpoints and start preparing for
Speaker 1: a violent return to the city to round us out.
Speaker 1: Though Here are some final thoughts on mutual aid from
Speaker 1: activist Krimberu lay the Ewoks, Courtney from Wall of Moms
Speaker 1: in the Street Mechanic Block. One of the things you
Speaker 1: like to say is, uh, defund the police and invest
Speaker 1: in community. And you know one of the things, like
Speaker 1: my mom was on earlier and she's like and that's
Speaker 1: your monitor and they're out, lady, need one thing just
Speaker 1: like you can do the other thing, like stop fighting
Speaker 1: the battle, and it's like help the people that need help.
Speaker 1: And we want to use society where the police aren't
Speaker 1: needed for every goddamn thing. The police aren't needed to
Speaker 1: harass the house with people in various locations. The police
Speaker 1: aren't used to respond to various mental health situations of
Speaker 1: all high end all over the city. The police are
Speaker 1: you know, basically you don't have the presence they do
Speaker 1: and the potentially they do to escalate that. We got
Speaker 1: the situation. Um, you know, so what we can do
Speaker 1: instead of I guess taking away the power directly and
Speaker 1: you know actually burning down p p A is just
Speaker 1: take their jobs in the sense of like takeaway all
Speaker 1: their responsibilities and believe them, what's nothing to do, ah,
Speaker 1: because that's the bolt at the end of the day, right,
Speaker 1: is to have everyone in the community taken care of.
Speaker 1: Like that's all we want. Um. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: I said, the through line to like Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: and topaptism, uh like Boston police, It's like we all
Speaker 1: just want like community taking care of them. All these
Speaker 1: people who see that needs to becomes through whatever different
Speaker 1: specific ones as we need. Um. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: more of a I hope it continues to do this, right,
Speaker 1: I think it will. It's coming more of people are
Speaker 1: organizing actions that is directly benefiting their community. The one
Speaker 1: thing that really stands out is that Portland's infrastructure is
Speaker 1: what makes it possible for us to continue to stay
Speaker 1: out here and do this work, UM, and to continue
Speaker 1: to persist even as UM those that hold on to
Speaker 1: white supremacist structures really clean to the dying, gasping breadths
Speaker 1: of it. UM. If you are in another city and
Speaker 1: you are looking to form your own mutual aid support network,
Speaker 1: firstly and foremostly this is going to be a massive
Speaker 1: collaboration effort. It's going to feel like you want to
Speaker 1: do everything because everything needs to be done, and so
Speaker 1: the most important steps that you can take is recognizing
Speaker 1: your lane and recognizing how to stay in your lane,
Speaker 1: and recognizing how to let your lane meet other people's late. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that just like the sense of like communities
Speaker 1: and people taking care of each other. UM. We're in
Speaker 1: a pandemic and a lot of people just don't even
Speaker 1: have jobs or are working right now, and the house
Speaker 1: of community is only like getting larger, and the police
Speaker 1: are attacking the house of community as well. So UM
Speaker 1: just seeing people rally around to take care of our community,
Speaker 1: while UM the government and UM the police that we
Speaker 1: actually pay with our tax dollars. I'm not doing shipped
Speaker 1: to help people right now at this moment um. Seeing
Speaker 1: us gather around and really take care of each other,
Speaker 1: even though like we don't personally know each other, we're
Speaker 1: still you know, everyone is still a family and doing
Speaker 1: everything they can to provide um the necessities to live
Speaker 1: to each other. So I think that that's like something
Speaker 1: that's been really amazing is all of the mutual aid
Speaker 1: that's come out of this. Uh what's been going on
Speaker 1: here in Portland is really beautiful. Um, people are able
Speaker 1: to make relent, people are starting to get jobs through
Speaker 1: other people's connections. People are able to eat. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: people are like providing shelter and you know, things to
Speaker 1: live to the house of community after like they've been
Speaker 1: taken and flashed by the police. So I think that
Speaker 1: that's just something that's outside of all of the protests,
Speaker 1: is really amazing to see uh this on this community
Speaker 1: come together. And I actually took my children down to
Speaker 1: jail support to drop off some things this past weekend
Speaker 1: in Vancouver, and it was just a really great opportunity
Speaker 1: to show them how we as a community need to
Speaker 1: take care of each other and how much love is
Speaker 1: around all of this. It's hard for my kids to
Speaker 1: kind of understand what's going on and see like why
Speaker 1: I'm like put them to bed and then you know,
Speaker 1: leave them with their dad to like go out every night. Um,
Speaker 1: and then sure and they see certain things like on
Speaker 1: the news and stuff, so they have like I tried
Speaker 1: to explain to them what's really going on, But it
Speaker 1: was really important for me to take them this weekend
Speaker 1: to show them that like we do how like we
Speaker 1: always say like we got us, like we really do,
Speaker 1: and um explain to them that if anyone's going to
Speaker 1: take care of our community, like, it's going to be
Speaker 1: us at the end of the day. So I just
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to eradicate feels are not at a
Speaker 1: young age and just teach them, um, at a young
Speaker 1: age that you know that in the end, we are
Speaker 1: the ones that take care of each other. That I
Speaker 1: think about a lot in terms of where things are going,
Speaker 1: is just about like all the skills that everybody's learning,
Speaker 1: um from whatever they're doing. There's so many different mutually
Speaker 1: like groups and blocks popping up and trying to like
Speaker 1: create material action um. But there's also a kind of
Speaker 1: things that are being learned on the street, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of being things being learned in terms of organizing
Speaker 1: protests and direct actions and media campaigns and all of
Speaker 1: these other kinds of things. And I think that, um,
Speaker 1: as the protests continue and as the kind of resistance
Speaker 1: to the powers that be continues, UM, I'm really hopeful
Speaker 1: that we all continue to grow and get better at
Speaker 1: what we're doing, UM, so that we can really like
Speaker 1: keep pushing forward and build the world that we want
Speaker 1: to see. I have a couple of things. First, UM,
Speaker 1: anybody can do it. Anybody, it doesn't matter how small,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what you're doing. You can be part
Speaker 1: of a larger scale operation in the sense of if
Speaker 1: you have something, you can provide it, even if it's
Speaker 1: like helping something dig something off of the internet or
Speaker 1: you know, telling someone this is how this thing works.
Speaker 1: Anybody can do that. And also, do not be afraid
Speaker 1: to ask people for help if you don't understand something
Speaker 1: or if you just need help in terms of like
Speaker 1: resources like these things are there and the more people
Speaker 1: that are involved, the easier it becomes. Does that make sense? Yes? Great?
Speaker 1: And that also mutual aid can be as small as
Speaker 1: it needs to be and as quiet as it needs
Speaker 1: to be. Something like helping your neighbor jump a car
Speaker 1: like that can be mutual aid. It's like you can
Speaker 1: start a group and raise ten dollars over the course
Speaker 1: of a few months, and you know, like give people vehicles.
Speaker 1: That's also mutual aid. Um. You don't need to like,
Speaker 1: you know, create weird hierarchies or kind of prioritize one
Speaker 1: form of it over another. Um. It's really just like
Speaker 1: like like a means for helping each other. Uh. Or
Speaker 1: the grand pops who couldn't fathom the Obama system hate
Speaker 1: America just to me, and she keeps the promises teens
Speaker 1: looking like the sixties. It's crazy, a nationwide deja what
Speaker 1: my people post to do? Go to schools named after
Speaker 1: the clan founder we're around town? Is I don't see
Speaker 1: why we're frowning Native American students forced to learn about
Speaker 1: when o'pellah Sarah? How is that fair? Bro? Some heroes
Speaker 1: unsung in some months, that's get monuments built for them.
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