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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I need sports on it. If you don't get out
of here, everybody each other, I'm awful, get out of here.
The first thing that comes to mind is just like
the power of mutual aid UM. The smaller events really
build the community ties together UM and just it enables

(00:27):
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 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

(00:50):
to what I feel like will be a world like
avoid of police and and like constant state violence. Is
will have these net works in mutual aid communities that
UM will basically make that obsolete. So that's really huge
for us. That's Jedi, a local organizer and musician. As

(01:11):
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 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

(01:34):
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 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

(01:56):
live in. To narry 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 Portland were exhausted and traumatized, but
ready to return to the real fight of defunding the police.

(02:17):
But the enormous protests of early June were now months passed,
and after the wild circuits 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 Alliance talks about organizing exhaustion. Well, to be honest

(02:38):
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 months off where I just can't anymore, where
I'm I'm just exhausted to the bone, where I I
literally have nothing left to give. And during those times
is when my comrade come in and do what they

(03:04):
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, it caused there's a huge toll. Organizing
takes a huge toll on people. Even just organizing one event,

(03:25):
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
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

(03:46):
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
has become prominent or their name has become prominent, and
people think that it's all them, and it's not. There's

(04:06):
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
can't do it and need to break someone else were

(04:27):
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

(04:48):
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 can actions 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 up to

(05:08):
fill holes in the line. Nightly actions began to be
organized autonomously anonymous calls to action with 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

(05:30):
of 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

(05:52):
insults than anything else, adding in an occasional dumpster fire
to mix it up. Despite the nightly actions of getting
to follow up predictable pattern that usually ended with police
roll 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

(06:15):
were not borne out by the arrest that they made.
The charges leveled at protesters arrested were almost all I
p O or interference 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,

(06:39):
nearly all 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

(07:01):
with no 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 Portland and

(07:24):
expanding them 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 were
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 aid. It's bringing some amount of equity
where there is none, you know, in this very small

(07:47):
sense of like the street max. 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 ment and through

(08:10):
that action is a small amount of equity where there
would be none. I was just gonna say, kind of
piggybacking off Cyprusus point. Um I I kind of see,
you know, what we're doing as a you know, I
think it's it's kind of it. It's trying to challenge

(08:31):
the current system, 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,

(08:52):
kind of living this we live under capitalism, you know,
we live under in a system that tolerates you know, homelessness. Uh,
you know we live under yeah, I mean a system
that oppresses so many minorities and stuff like that. Um

(09:12):
So I think that just what mutual aid is, and
you know, specifically, 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

(09:35):
anything out of it. We're just helping people because that's
what we're supposed to do as humans. I think that's
something that we really need to keep in the center
of reminds me to thinking about mitchial 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.

(09:57):
And that is one of the or like motivating factors
behind 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

(10:20):
situations in which that little bit of extra help can
really 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 something that'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,

(10:40):
and mutually it's really just a fancy word for community support.
If that doesn't actually happen, those people aren't 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 basing. Something that I about a

(11:01):
bunch in this ort, in this group is that I
actually sometimes don't think that organizations can provide mutual aid um.
That instead people have to provide mutualate and that because
that principle isn't about like mutually, it's about seeing activity
and women like acting within the um, whereas charity is

(11:25):
all about like creating this other thing. You're providing business,
and there's like a lot of citying and a lot
of like apologizing that happens in that relationship that mutually. Really.
Some mutual aid groups existed in Portland prior to the
George Floyd uprising. As COVID swept the country in spring,

(11:46):
new mutualay organizations popped up all over the city, 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 hands and tides are
in distributing it around the city at the beginning of
the pandemic. As protests intensified, they were to reverse engineer

(12:07):
chemical wives to help with tear gas and pepper spray.
Medics loaded with cards 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

(12:32):
began to happen 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

(12:52):
whole park full of people at that time. And so,
you know, initially it was just handing 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

(13:14):
else can we distributed? Basically, and one thing that treatmatics
usually do, or or that streament is a really trained
to do, is to flush out people's eyes if they've
been either pepper sprayed 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 we're like, this

(13:38):
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 in these? Can

(13:59):
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 the products, and

(14:23):
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 was clear that like it's us building up
this trust community and not some other random group. UM.
Then people started to UM. So just sort of like
the demand created the whole chain of events, and because

(14:43):
people already knew us from distributing hand sanitizer, we had
a lot of good will 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 a lot of work with people living outside,
We're like, okay, you seem to be more or less

(15:06):
on the same page with us. So that's how those networks.
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 jail support waited outside the central precinct every

(15:26):
night with food, hot drinks, 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

(15:48):
beginning of before COVID hit, UH symbiosis was mostly focused
on UM. At the time, our our project merk or
Munisipalist Go Resiliency Project, where we were working on kind
of UM connect again and with that dual power lens,

(16:08):
trying to UM consolidate uh like food access and production
infrastructure for the community UM, as well as like doing
some housing rights work UM. When COVID hit, we're a
really small organization UM and immediately just kind of like

(16:28):
called this sixty sixty organ wide coalition 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

(16:49):
we could work on filling that need. Part of that
was UM creating uh hubs around town. UH there there
was a few all the 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

(17:14):
sure that our communities have the PPE they needed when
we were being told that we that we 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

(17:36):
skills and how to interact with one another in this
directly democratic way. But we're also activating the community by
creating these groups. 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

(17:57):
numbering in the thousands, UM and and getting and partnering.
We also created the Solidarity UH Fund UM this Inbiosis
Solidarity Fund, which basically was not only UM giving individuals
in the Portland area who were experiencing economic hardship and

(18:17):
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
well as well as grassroots organizations that needed money to
continue their vital programming for example UH Portland Action Medics

(18:38):
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
through our our mutual aid program through share and solidarity stitchers,
the Solidarity Fund into UM also expanding within ourselves sort

(19:02):
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 it
means to be an accomplice, things about the the radical
left movement that have been forgotten or never learned. This

(19:23):
group 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 the
protests began, Symbios's moved to make sure that PPE and
resources were available there as well. We were printing zines

(19:44):
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 that great.
But we're gonna do that and seed a culture of
taking care of each other. UM. So yeah, in distributing

(20:07):
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, snack
Mom was realized that they were not interested in running
from the police, but they can make sure that the
people in the streets had food and supplies. Uh, snack

(20:30):
MoMA number one. I go by Shiba um where I
guess we're mutual A. Yeah. Yeah. We hand out snacks
and waters and things that nature. Anything you know, anybody
would need, uh soot things like that, stash medical supplies,
any like extra like mass or gas masks or protective

(20:53):
gear that we can possibly get our hands on. Um,
lots of stuff. I mean there's been a lot of
endom stuff that we put out there is whatever the
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 we do, mutual aid. Yeah.

(21:17):
How did you get started, Like when when did you
first start coming to the out to the protests? Like
how did you get started coming out to the protests. UM,
what was thetis 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

(21:38):
it was it was definitely just hard to watch UM
again again and again and again and again. And this
was just coming the last off for everyone, you know,
I feel like UM. And then there were protests going
on down town. UM, so we went and checked them out.
And then after that we started going out pretty much
every night after that and just checking them out. UM.

(22:01):
I don't exactly remember when it was, but we have
started up with UM, the next partner of mine, now
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're cooking downtown. UM. We did that for

(22:22):
like maybe a month too or two. UM. We're what
we're called Don't Starve PDX. Yeah, don't Start UM. Yeah.
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. It was part of
Don't Start UM. And then after that, I mean, the

(22:47):
the original snack band. He was supposed to get that. UM.
And then after the domestic dispute, UM, the 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?

(23:09):
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 point people kind
of 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 adult Starve. UM. What

(23:31):
really was just like to feed people? UM? I think
I think we just want to support the movement. And
I mean, honestly, we're a couple of chunky girls. You know,
we were 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 die and or you know what I mean.

(23:53):
We're just like, man, this is like this is too
much for us because I cannot run. For yeah, the
first time I know that that isn'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,

(24:14):
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,
so defend. So I just didn't have any gas master
or anything yet or at that point for 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, right.

(24:37):
I think that's kind of where we started, like doing
that for other people that wanted to protests but didn't
feel comfortable going out alone. Comrade collective connected protesters to

(24:59):
each other, sparking the connections that help sustain the movement.
That's a tough has a kind of a tough one
to summarize. 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. And
right around the time of uh fourth of July and

(25:21):
like 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,
Disabled commeron Collective, Care Collective, UM soon to be Queer

(25:42):
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,
I just sort of started sitting in a park with
a sign, just asking people if they needed buddies. I

(26:05):
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
needs to be able to participate in protests. Yeah. How
um so, how Disabled Comrade Collective started was kind of like, um, so,

(26:30):
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 handling
disabled comrade collective. Uh, they also are disabled and chronically
ill and so um. They just kind of like we

(26:52):
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 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

(27:16):
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 were fighting integrated medical and mental health care that's
trauma informed and harm reductive in nature. This service model
was really adapted from another organization that we worked with

(27:40):
um as organizers called Whitebird Medicine UM and they've been
the attention of National news recently for their cooods program. However,
looking at the situations in Portland and the socio political
inequities that are being enforced every single day, it became
increasingly clear that Britland's model was going to need to
look at little bit different. So we beefed up our

(28:02):
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 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

(28:24):
begun to reflect the police forces ability to protect people
who served them, UM E walks has really 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

(28:50):
not work for many patients and it also leaves our
houses community severely lacking as always in 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 about tornadove resources to police involvement, and while

(29:11):
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 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.

(29:32):
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 groups organized around identifying and
helping with one community need at a time. Protesters set
up a wide ranging network of alternative organizing to help

(29:52):
each other outside of the frameworks of the city or capitalism.
In many cases, the blocks were explicit that in an
abolition this framework, the goal was to meet needs without
the charity and violence that 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

(30:15):
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 they honestly like shocked me every
day because I'm just like, oh do we I even
asked them, like, yo, do we have a kram plastic
Block Like yeah, I don't say I have a favorite.
I am just amazed by people being able to come

(30:36):
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 think it's amazing for like, yeah,
this little community. I'm like, I wish people like would
know more about this. I wanna say no more about this,
but get more involved because I'm like the community is
just doing it and like, yeah, we protect us and
it's amazing. As August continued, community events in mutual full

(31:00):
affairs became common. Mending Block could repair your clothes and
made bockle buzz for anonymity at night actions. Beauty Block
could give you a manicure, but 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

(31:23):
don't have time to cover every group that arose during
that time. We can't have Some of the activists describe
how and why they formed. Jedi 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

(31:45):
kind of things set up, and then just pull everybody
together and creating digitals with 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

(32:06):
lot of the the community events that we would hold, um,
half of those 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,

(32:26):
the tragic death of of of him and many others
fallen before him have kind of, in a way like
been a catalyst for strengthening mutual Aid in our city.
UM And anybody who's been on the ground, been going
to these events has seen it with their own eyes.
So many different mutual aid groups have formed because of

(32:49):
u's just coming together 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 keep us. 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

(33:10):
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
to help people repair their cars and provide vehicle assistance
for protesters, but quickly in large their focus to help

(33:31):
with other transportation needs. Here they explain how they formed.
The Proton Street Mechanics started UM kind of just like
on Twitter, primarily because there were calls for people's cars
getting to repairs after having them being damaged out in protests. UM.

(33:54):
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
away from the protests scene actually allows us to UM

(34:14):
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
manage their day to day needs UM, but also helping

(34:38):
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 a big part of it is
building the world that we want to see UM, So
we kind of quickly moved into that perspective. I think

(34:58):
a lot of plays we end up writing a lot
of support for other blocks. So a lot of the
people that we help and 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
are reliable and safe UM so that they can provide

(35:20):
their own kind of like practices. Because a lot of
a lot of other MUTUALID 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 we
we haven't really been able to UM kind of meet

(35:40):
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 with like people being fine
with people distributing food, but then we're like, oh, can
we do an all change in your parking, It's like no,

(36:01):
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. Coming up next is

(36:27):
a Lane, my colleague in the streets and my partner
in writing 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
Blok had vegetables, sprouts and seeds that they were giving away,

(36:49):
and care Block offered massages to protesters and Tea Symbiosis
tabled books and zines, and people 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, waving signs declaring that black lives mattered.

(37:10):
Mac was on the ground that day. You know, I
think a lot of folks once once things went off
in Minneapolis, and once we knew they were you know,
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 days continuous protest.

(37:34):
When did you realize this is not a normal not
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,

(37:56):
ore Agon began one of its worst fire seasons on record.
As one of the last marches commemorating the hundredth 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

(38:16):
at the big march in St. John's because we all
started coming back and we were just like coughing 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 a fire. But I was like, but where
And then obviously, you know, twenty four hours later we
started becoming hell. But how much it just shows like
the community transition to mutual aid in aiding like fire

(38:38):
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 shopping and dropped him off like
they got a place near Lloyd's 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 four states.

(39:00):
Oregon was enveloped in the worst fires the state had
seen in decades. Smoke from multiple blazes blanketed the region,
making breathing impossible and 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

(39:21):
to counteract the rumors, it was too little, too late.
The fearmongering rhetoric had scared individuals and right wing militias
to stay in fire areas, hindering evacuees, and to set
up armed checkpoints 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

(39:42):
come together and kind of a great example of we
protect us, you know, manifesting right before um fuck, there
were people that were like rollying together trailers to go
help people evacuate their barn animals and take them to
somewhere safe. So yeah, I mean that's what we went

(40:04):
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 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,

(40:25):
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 was
also a fire risk and the protests were happening, and
this is something people were super concerned about. Um And

(40:46):
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 unlessa soon found out how serious those conspiracy
theories were being taken. At the time, the witches had
showed up and they had brought a bunch of it's

(41:09):
like swagons filled with supplies. Um, we were on our
way to I think it was at the time, the
airport um because that's where the firefighters had told us
that they were gonna have the firefighters be stationed as
well as be taking supplies. So on our way there,

(41:33):
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 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

(41:55):
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 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

(42:19):
thought about this in so long, but yeah, we've We've
pulled over to take this picture and Justin and Sergio
are kind of 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

(42:41):
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, I thought maybe it was like Justin and Sergio.
But I look up and there's three dudes with with rifles, um,
you know, pointing their rifles at us. And it it

(43:03):
took a bit for me to register what was going
on because I was really confused. UM, and I got
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

(43:27):
aggressive and hostile? Like I I was legit, just like
I could not figure out what was going on. And
then they kept asking questions, you know, like where are
you from, why are you in ore in the city,
or are you taking a picture of this. UM started
talking about like because we all had our press credentials on,

(43:47):
we were all in plain clothing, and you know, slowly
like based off the questions they were asking. It slowly
started to kind of click for me. But even when
it clicked, I think that just kind of me more confused,
because like, we were literally all tweeting about this jokingly
last night, but somehow and fuck, literally two to three

(44:11):
days this rumor manifested into a fucking conspiracy 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,

(44:35):
and they kept saying the word loot, and 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.

(44:57):
I was like, oh, okay, they really do believe 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

(45:19):
and uh it was Justin who came down 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 just writing us? Man? Yeah? Yeah not and

(45:40):
not physically nobody touched us, but just like 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 and we're just trying

(46:00):
to take pictures like we're not gonna bother you like
like whatever. And also like we we also tried 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

(46:24):
the fuck? Yeah, you know, we're not here to 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

(46:46):
of all of our faces. They took a picture of
license plate. Um, so yeah, it's kind of creepy, 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

(47:08):
then like an hour or two later, we're just like, fuck,
Like we got held up at gunpoint. Um 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

(47:31):
are all very pro these right wing militias over there,
So um, the seriousness of it definitely didn't kick in
until a lot later. But what were 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

(47:52):
victims of the fires as possible. Alyssa continues. UM. You
know Portland, Like mutual aid groups from Portland were dry
being all the way down to Eugene 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

(48:15):
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 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

(48:37):
is this is part of anarchy, you know. UM. And yeah,
just seeing people really like commit was really incredible. I mean,
did you make it down to mal Morgan from Team
Raccoon had been coordinating filter exchanges and sourcing gas masks
for children and rapidly changed their focus as the area
was smothered by smoke. Yeah. Yeah, I was really fortunate

(49:00):
to get to kind of collaborate with UM A lot
of mutual aid groups for Malt the Mutual Aid Lloyd
Theater and also Mama, the Milwaukee area of Mutual Aid. Um.
We decided to move MALT to Mama because it was

(49:20):
damp out because of all the smoke cover and we
were getting lots of donations of cloth goods like blankets
and mattresses even and um, clothing in all kinds of
things that we didn't want to mildew. Um. But yeah,
I I was on the ground giving out respirators a

(49:40):
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
spider man now that they had their respirator on, and
that was fun. We had fun that day. Um. But um, yeah,

(50:04):
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 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

(50:25):
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 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

(50:48):
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 Ewoks transformed an
empty mall parking lot into a fire relief aid station
almost overnight, becoming a node for a tremendous amount of
supplies and care to bolth evacuees as well as to
the houseless community that had nowhere to go to get

(51:09):
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 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,

(51:33):
that doesn't necessarily translate to smoke air everywhere. In taking
a look at what the community 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

(51:56):
their social media and it became really clear that the
AID sites that were previously established were overworked and ineffective,
and they're 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

(52:17):
Cross and the Salvation Army established a base at Clackmuths
Town Center, or intent was initially to be further down
south with them, but when that psyche quickly reached capacity
and 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.

(52:37):
The Salvation Army also does not provide any sort of
food or diapers UM, 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

(53:01):
Movie Theater parking lot. Thankfully, 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 at the Oregon 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

(53:23):
feel grossly uncomfortable with organizations that have appeared to have
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

(53:43):
the breaking of the fire line and the actual fire
danger moving 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

(54:04):
be close enough to jump further down south if that
was flow was accessary. Well. When we established the Mama's
Site UM, and now that I'm thinking about it, I
can't remember what Mamma stands for, 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

(54:26):
every intention of continuing to move further now south. Something
really amazing happened while we were there, and putting us
inside the 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 downs south. What
that happened to move our site UM. That location ended

(54:51):
up being really key in terms of in terms of
being able to move supplies, gain supplies, and see community 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

(55:14):
that respect, it allowed us to move more supplies 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 funneling
about supplies UM that have just been passed around groups
since time. May I jump in yeah, so a couple

(55:38):
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 it to
UM go inside and stay at the conventions entner UM.

(56:01):
So one of the things that we did is resourced
pretty much every respirator UM that was still in existence
in the Portland metropolitan area. UM. I had volunteers calling
getting into quarries UM, making purchases and delivering the respirators

(56:22):
and filters to the houseless folks at UM for 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,

(56:44):
but of course we had better connections UM and then
we were able to, you know, make sure that that
our houseless community had their needs met UM. Before we
moved to MAMA and UM. I think the really important

(57:04):
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 Refugee community UM, l
g B t Q community UM there's there was a

(57:26):
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 think that's all I really
wanted to add. The fires took a community that was

(57:48):
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 your Guest, there was
something poetic and protesters turning their focus outwards to support
others in a region where the air had been rendered
unbreathable after the fires, more mutual aid and support would

(58:10):
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 far right extremists were capitalizing on the same

(58:30):
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
Krim Bruley, the Ewoks, Courtney from Wall of Moms, and
the street mechanic Block. One of the things you like
to say is, uh, defund the police and invest in community.

(58:52):
And you know, one of the things like my mom
earlier and she's like, and that's your monitor, and now
lady need one thing just like you can do the
other thing, like stop by the battle and it's like
help the people that need help. And we want to
use society where the police aren't needed for every goddamn thing.

(59:16):
The police aren't needed to harass the house with people
in various locations. The police aren't he is to respond
to various menial health situations of all high end all
over the city. The police aren't. You know, basically, you
don't have the presence they do and the potential they
do to escalate every god dam situation. Um. You know,

(59:39):
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, uh, because that's the goal at
the end of the day, is to have everyone in

(01:00:01):
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 to caaptism uh, like Polish
and police. It's like we all just want the community
taken care of, and all these people who see that
needs to become through whatever different and specific ones this
we need. UM. So yeah, it's it's more of a

(01:00:25):
I hope it continues to do this way. I think
it will is becoming more of a think of people
are organizing action that is directly sitting their community. The
one thing that really stands out is that Portland's infrastructure
is what makes it possible for us to continue to
stay out here and do this work, um and to

(01:00:46):
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, firstly and foremostly this is going to be
a massive collaboration effort. It's going to feel like you

(01:01:07):
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 and people taking care of each other. Um,

(01:01:30):
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 talking the house of community as well.
So UM, just seeing people rally around to take care

(01:01:51):
of our community while the UM the government and UM
the police that we actually pay with our tax dollars,
I'm not doing shipped to 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 still you know, everyone is still a family and

(01:02:12):
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

(01:02:33):
able 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 with 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

(01:02:55):
the protests. Is really amazing to see, uh this this
maybe come together. And I actually took my children down
to jail support to drop off some things this past
weekend in Vancouver, and it's just a really great opportunity
to show them how we as a community need to

(01:03:16):
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 on
the news and stuff, so they have, like I tried

(01:03:38):
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
we always say like we got us, like we really do,
and um, explaining to them 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 a'm

(01:03:58):
like trying to eradicate I feel as had 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 where things are going,
is just about like all the skills that everybody's learning,
UM from whatever they're doing. There are so many different

(01:04:20):
mutually like groups and blocks popping up and trying to
or like create material action. UM. But there's also a
ton of things that are being learned on the street,
and there are ton 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

(01:04:43):
kind of resistance 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

(01:05:03):
matter how small. 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

(01:05:27):
not be afraid to ask people for help if you
don't understand something or if you just need help in
terms of resources, like these things are there, and the
more people that are involved, the easier it becomes. Does
that make sense? Yes, gritty, And also mutual aid can

(01:05:49):
be as small as 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 like you can start a group and raise ten
tho dollars over the course of a few months, and
you know, like give people vehicles. That's also mutually Um.

(01:06:10):
You don't need to like you know, create weird hierarchies
or um kind of prioritize one form of it over another. Um.
It's really just like like like a means for helping
each other. Uh. Where the grandpops who couldn't fathom the
Obama sis, I don't hate America, just to me, And
she keeps the promises in teens looking like the sixties.

(01:06:33):
It's crazy, a nationwide dejab. 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 frown in Native
American students forced to learn about when Opeba Sarah? How
was that fair? Bro? Some heroes unsung in some months.
That's getting monuments built for them. But ain't be all
a little bit of monthster we crook? You know this

(01:07:01):
pass prepos