It’s about Dam Time

How mutual-aid & Community Care is our best way forward

Let’s start with a hard truth & then a seemingly unrelated story. First, the hard truth. The State has never functioned to support the most vulnerable & the most vulnerable groups have always known this. I don’t think the codification of a few basic human rights was ever supposed to replace community-based care. However, the supposed allies to the vulnerable seem to think that it has. The buy-in to this illusion is what leaves the vulnerable open to being harmed in moments like this.

Now for the seemingly unrelated.

There’s a story circulating online about Czech beavers who dammed up a river after a government project was delayed due to bureaucracy and funding issues. In 2018, the Czech Republic began a project to restore water areas that were drying out which was impacting the local ecosystem. Certainly with the right intentions, Czech officials began the long and arduous process of pulling permits, coordinating construction efforts, garnering funding, etc. for the plans to dam water ways to fix the ecological issue. However, the project began in 2018 and still had not made much headway other than permits by 2024. Luckily, a group of beavers began inhabiting the same waterways that needed damming in 2020. Beavers are well known for their natural damming behaviors. Creating dams not only positively impacts natural water ways, but it provides beavers safe refuge from predators and provides a place to last out the cold winters or a place to keep their young. The beavers had no idea that Czech officials were laboring so hard over bureaucratic red tape. The beavers just knew that the water ways needed to be dammed up. And thus, the beavers took action. Reports say that these beavers created the very dams the Czech government intended to in just 2 days. The beavers created the same number of dams in the same exact places that scientists had deemed the correct places.

Natural dams created by beavers in Brdy Landscape – credit: Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic

Now this isn’t a story that “nature is healing” and we can just leave the environment to save itself during a global climate disaster. Instead, this is an anecdote to draw parallels to how extremely vulnerable and marginalized communities have functioned before any structural governmental offices cared about them. The beavers worked to do what they knew needed to get done. Why? Because it’s their natural way of living & it is what needed to happen in order for them to live a sustainable and safe life. Poor black & brown communities have been leaning on their own communities for safety, care, and aid for generations. The State hasn’t reliably shown itself to be trustworthy. Immigrant communities have been building their community up and protecting one another for generations. The State hasn’t reliably shown itself to be trustworthy. Queer & Trans people have been providing one another care, solace, family, and aid for generations. The State hasn’t reliably shown itself to be trustworthy.

And yet, there is this pro-Government Structure mindset that keeps feeding the illusion that if we just legislate enough and we just campaign enough — then marginalized people will be safe. This is surely not the case. And yet, the illusion has successfully made many marginalized communities fractured and up a river without a paddle, so to speak. We no longer are holding on to one another’s rafts as we weather the storms. We are free floating as though community & mutuality means nothing anymore because “we have rights.”

For example, the LGBTQ+ community and culture used to be one of deep mutuality. Providing family where there was none. Ball & drag culture provided homes for youth who were otherwise homeless. Medical mutual aid and care when the government abandoned HIV/AIDS patients. Trans/Nonbinary transitional care exchanges. Elder gays adopting homeless LGBTQ+ teens into their homes. Underground systems of mutuality, love, care, and community. Now what do we largely see in liberal areas?

Drag Brunch for all the suburban women to ogle at Drag Queens & drink bottomless mimosas? Corporate Job holding white gay men with 2.5 children and a white picket fence with NIMBY beliefs wanting to keep public transit away from their mid-century modern home? Target Brand Overalls that just say “gay” on them? Twinks singing pop songs about poppers?

Don’t get me wrong. I deeply want all queer & trans people to get to live the life they envision for themselves and live in a way that feels like thriving. But, the reality is, we have lost much of our mutuality. Things have become splintered. There’s certainly a growing mindset of “I got mine, I’m good.” There’s a lacking memory for the ways in which we had to scaffold our existences & lean heavily on others in order to find the simplest of joys in life. There’s a fading energy for independent & grassroots efforts to care for the most vulnerable people in the community. Once the Obama administration was willing to engage us & give us rights — suddenly the Government became our bestie & our need for mutual care faded. Well. At least for the middle class, white, binary-expressing, and college-educated white gay & trans folks. Suddenly, I see LGBTQ+ millennials and Gen Z posting everywhere as though the State’s renewed commitment to queerphobia and transphobia is: 1.) Surprising 2.) Outlandish and 3.) the end to LGBTQ+ life in America as we know it. Neither of these 3 things seem true to me in the slightest if we are capable of remembering our history of mutual care.

Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners

In 1984-5, LGSM was a queer movement that relied on mutuality and relationship with mining laborers to advance their causes.

Grants are being slashed, programs are being defunded, offices are being closed, employees are being asked to vacate positions, and suddenly The State doesn’t seem like our bestie anymore. Perhaps that’s because the Government was never meant to be our friend.

Bobby Seale checking food bags for mutual aid

March 31, 1972. Photo by Howard Erker.

As a Bible-centered & Christ-centered Christian (as opposed to a structuralist Church-Centered one…shade intended) — I do believe in a divine sense of mutual care that was exemplified in Jesus’ ministry and the intent of the early movement of the Jesus-movement.

Appealing to the Empire was never meant to be something Jesus-followers did.

Surviving it and subtly (and not so subtly) undermining it at every turn was the goal. Jesus’ mission was to ensure (via commanding people to or convicting their hearts towards) a community, mutual-care model of thriving under hostile conditions. In many direct commands or opinions that Jesus gave, he expressed a clear imperative for individuals to engage in caring for vulnerable people in their communal structures. Furthermore, Jesus made it clear that we are meant to turn away from our turned-in-on-self orientation to do so. We have to sacrifice something for the sake of the hurt, the poor, the sick, the widow, the orphan, the outcast.

Jesus never pointed and said “campaign to get into the Empire so that you can run it & then orient the structure of Power & Domination towards vulnerable groups.” Scripture is clear that the powers of Kingdom/Empire (State) are never long for the world of charity. They may be used for some good in alignment with God, but more often than not, they are human-made tools of violence and destruction. Scripture is also clear that mutuality, relationship, and the girding up of one another is what must replace the dehumanization of the Empire.

Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz exemplify this when they circumvent the socio-economic structures of their time. Boaz steps in as the kinsman-redeemer for Naomi AND is willing to marry Ruth (to whom he has no real obligation to), when the first-in-line refuses. This is mutual care for the vulnerable. In 2 Kings 4, a widow’s children have been taken away due to her late husband’s death. The only valuable that she has is a small bottle of oil. Elisha instructs her to collect buckets from all of her neighbors & to pour from the small bottle into the buckets until each bucket is full. She pours and is able to fill every bucket & sell the oil to pay the debt and free her children from slavery. This is mutual care for the vulnerable.

No one advised Ruth & Naomi to go get help from those in any type of official power. They wouldn’t have received any.

Elisha was a prophetic advisor to Kings but does not recommend the widow seek any care from the King or his officials. Why? He knows the Kingdom has no concern for the dire situations of widows.

If there’s one thing that has passed the test of time, it’s the Official State’s disregard for the most vulnerable.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a Trump-specific assessment. Numerous Democrats have shirked their promises to protect vulnerable groups. Deportations under Biden far surpassed Trumps first term numbers. Public welfare and Human Services departments all over the U.S. — throughout generations — have often caused harm to Black communities intentionally & unintentionally. don’t think it’s terribly radical to state the obvious: if a state relies on an election by the majority, then the minority will almost never be served well or efficiently.

And still, of course, you may be lamenting the collapse of Government Funded social programs & funding. Surely, it is devastating in a modern world which requires integrated systems of information, data, funding, etc. And yet, there is indeed a way to keep organizations & communities afloat that you are mourning for. So I ask you. Are you ready to walk the walk? Put your money where your mouth is? Fund organizations you are decrying the government for defunding? Donate to places serving immigrants? Refugees? Trans youth?

Charitable giving has seen a sizeable decrease over the last decade or so. Sure, we can all joke “Donate? In this economy?” Or blame inflation. But here’s the thing. Data shows that inflation and economic pressures actually can’t fully explain the decrease in giving. Some researchers have noted “donor fatigue” in which people are sick of being asked for money. Some researchers have noted that Millennials and Gen Z prefer “direct” giving of their time and labor through volunteering. But here’s the thing — money makes the world go round. Money is necessary to steward an organization. Money is what pays the bills for staffing, tangible resources, programmatic services, and so many things that cannot be covered by volunteerism.

I hear from peers all the time that “someone else” can afford to donate more and thus they shouldn’t have to donate. Sure. There will always be someone that can donate more than any given person until we get ourselves all the way up to Jeff Bezos. But here’s the reality. If we only wait for the 1% to provide money that will provide care & aid, then we’ll be waiting a long, long time for any of that to make its way back to some of the most vulnerable in our communities. I’m sorry to say but keeping NGOs, community based organizations, gender clinics, reproductive healthcare organizations, and even some research programs afloat under hostile State conditions is going to require us all to give something up.

The U.S. government has recently reported it will be seeking an end to USAID which was started by the Kennedy administration in 1961 as part of Cold War efforts to fight the spread of autocratic communism around the world. USAID is a function of American “soft-power” which essentially means it is a tool of influencing the overall view of America and American values abroad. USAID money has gone towards things such as: combating terrorism, stabilizing civic life in the global south, disaster aid, HIV/AIDS education/prevention, refugee resettlement (to other countries + the U.S.), child & sex trafficking prevention and investigation, hunger relief, and equipping local leaders to ensure community stability and sustainability.

The funding of USAID is being slashed and many Republicans have wanted to restructure or get rid of USAID since its inception. While the idea that the government is slashing soft-power (diplomacy, NGO, etc.) and ramping up “hard” power (a.k.a. violent conflict and coercive power) is abhorrent to my civic beliefs, I also don’t believe that a reliance on government institutions was ever a reliable source of help. Government driven charity, welfare programs, etc. relies on the State actually understanding, caring about, and having any type of meaningful assessment of what is happening to the country’s or the world’s most vulnerable people. History has shown us that, even under “liberal” leaders, the State is almost never capable of that.

I did the math and, in order to cover the USAID budget cut by Trump’s admin, the average middle-upper middle class person in the U.S. who is left-leaning would need to donate approximately $606 dollars to USAID. On average, these adults are spending $1,000-1,500 on non-essentials every month. That includes subscription services, restaurants, bars, alcohol purchases, coffee, vacation, entertainment, etc. This means that many middle and upper-middle class adults could probably afford to give $606 to USAID (or another organization suffering from grant slashes) PER MONTH and still have ~$400-900 dollars left for non-essential spending. If the 66 million adults who fall into this category were to do so, then USAID could generate a budget of $480 billion dollars.

This isn’t to say that it is the responsibility of the 66 million adults above to keep USAID afloat. But it is to say that, if these 66 million adults who probably did not support Trump — were activated and angry enough about the defunding of programs that they care about — they indeed have the spending power to contribute significantly to causes which impact the vulnerable.

We cannot continue sitting in our echo chambers of grief and staunch moral outrage while simultaneously not taking any action to rectify the situation.

The vulnerable, much like the beavers, are likely not waiting around to be saved by the State. They are adjusting, recalculating, moving, and figuring out how to survive and care for one another.

I recently lamented to my therapist that I don’t feel scared of Trump, rather I feel annoyed & frustrated by the white cis people who keep texting me things like “thinking of you” or “I’ll really be thinking about you this year.” Great. Thinking about me doesn’t do anything for me. Thinking about me doesn’t actually do anything for trans children & trans women facing particularly high levels of scrutiny. Thinking about me doesn’t provide mutual aid to people fleeing states coming after them. Thinking about me won’t do anything to help the undocumented families I serve at work. Thinking about me won’t stop the government from rescinding my citizenship if it so chooses. Thinking about me won’t provide me any financial padding if I have to pay for HRT out of pocket for 4-years.

Stop thinking about me. Stop thinking about immigrants. Stop thinking about the poor people who will suffer because USAID is pulled. Get out of your head and your sympathy & sacrifice something. If you have the privilege to have the horrors of social and economic reality be theoretical to you — then its time to give something to those you seek to care for. Donate. Set up recurring donations in an amount that is comfortable for you. Maybe you could finally drop a streaming service you constantly say probably isn’t ethically aligned with you (Cough, cough… Amazon) and you could donate that money instead. Maybe you could stop spending money on useless shit at Target and donate it instead.

Figure out what else you’re willing to sacrifice. Space in your home for people seeking refuge? Figure out what it is and figure it out quick.

The State is not coming to save my queer, trans, Korean-born ass. But God, I really hope community will.