Mutual Aid, the 2025 Remastered Edition
So, I’m in City Lights, that San Francisco shrine to beatnik rebellion, now a hipster book shop for bourgeois radicals cosplaying dissent. There’s Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next), a 2020 call-to-arms, sitting on the “Praxis” shelf like a $14.95 bumper sticker for Progressive cred.
The Bay Area has been a tech playground forever now, with homeless folks dodging Waymo’s, and this bookstore’s stocking curated dissent. Spade wants us to ditch charity, build collective survival, and maybe burn down capitalism. Cute. As a crusty cynic who’s watched every revolution fizzle into a T-shirt slogan, I’m here to say: mutual aid helps real people, but it’s not toppling empires anytime soon, and frankly, that’s okay.
Spade’s Pitch: Hippie Dreams, Anarchist Zest
Spade’s got this utopian vibe, claiming mutual aid—“collective coordination to meet each other’s needs”—is the antidote to capitalism’s screw-you systems. It’s not charity, which shames the poor and props up rich egos. No, mutual aid’s supposed to feed folks, build solidarity, and spark movements, all while sticking it to the man.
Spade name-drops the Black Panther Party’s breakfast programs, which fed kids and flipped off the feds (who eventually turned it into nutritional initiatives in schools), and the Young Lords’ health clinics, which gave Puerto Ricans a lifeline in racist cities. Solid. Spade’s got three big ideas: meet survival needs while calling out systemic BS, rally people to fight together, and solve problems without waiting for some savior.
Hong Kong’s 2019 protesters, with their DIY COVID response—mask brigades, sanitizer stations—showed it could work, until the state crushed them like bugs. Spade admits mutual aid can turn into do-gooder nonsense or get hijacked by nonprofits, but thinks we can dodge that with group hugs and consensus meetings.
As Gandhi once said, “I think it would be a good idea.”
Spade’s Legacy: A Flash for 2020’s Newbies
Look, Spade’s book wasn’t nothing. In 2020, when everyone was panic-tweeting about COVID and BLM, Mutual Aid gave a playbook to folks itching to do more than post black squares. It named what people were already trying—fridges, bail funds, rent strikes—and made them feel like part of some grand resistance. That spark mattered, even if it’s now a souvenir for bougie coffee tables.
2025: Same Crap, Same President
Fast-forward to 2025, and the world’s still a dumpster fire. Trump’s back, deporting people and gutting government agencies. Climate disasters are weekly news, and the “No Kings” protests on June 14, 2025, got 11 million people marching, but odds are that sparkle is going to be a sad fizzle.
Mutual aid’s everywhere—free food, tenant unions, jail support—but it’s a patchwork, not a revolution. City Lights, with its “Praxis” shelf, straddles contradiction: selling anarchist dreams in a city where you need a tech salary to buy a burrito. Spade’s book, next to zines and Marx, becomes decor for rich progressives who’d never share their Airbnb.
Social media’s worse, turning mutual aid into #Solidarity porn—memes and GoFundMe's that vanish faster than hopes for a Cocteau Twins reunion. If this stuff were truly subversive and dangerous, it wouldn’t be on display in any bookstore.
Why Mutual Aid Won’t Save Us
Spade dreams of “scaling up” mutual aid into a decentralized utopia that kicks capitalism’s ass. Yeah. Hong Kong’s activists were righteous, but Beijing rolled right over their dreams with arrests, mock trials, and prison terms. Indigenous folks had mutual aid for centuries—guess how colonialism thanked them? Steel and cholera.
Today’s groups face cops, FBI snoops, and nonprofits ready to turn rebellion into a grant proposal. And burnout’s a killer of any group, self-organized or otherwise. You start with big ideals, end up bickering over dishes or who’s the wokest. Spade’s all, “Rotate tasks, avoid perfectionism,” but humans absolutely suck at this. We’re petty, tired, want to do a great job, and broke.
Real power’s in the boring stuff: zoning boards, union contracts, voting precincts. Portland’s DSA got it, snagging city council seats in the 2024 elections instead of arguing over pronouns. Spade’s anti-institution purism is adorable, but systems don’t fall because you shared a casserole. Those machines grind on, backed by guns, money, and public apathy.
Why That’s Not the End of the World
Mutual aid’s no empire-slayer, but it’s not useless. A community fridge feeds a neighbor. A tenant union buys time against eviction. That’s real, especially for the folks capitalism chews up—trans kids, migrants, the unhoused. Spade’s right to build a culture of care, not mix a Molotov cocktail. Rather than cry over failed revolutions, we can narrow our sights and build something that doesn’t collapse under its own ego.
A Path Forward, If You Must
Mutual aid’s best when it stays scrappy and local, not chasing pipe dreams. Here’s the deal:
- Stay Small, Stay Sane: Stick to fridges, gardens, clinics. Leave utopia to the undergrads.
- Mix It Up: Blend mutual aid with real power—unions, policy fights, elections. Don’t just chant.
- Care, Don’t Canonize: Make helping normal—check on neighbors, share tools. Skip the hero worship.
- Burnout’s the Gig: Share the load, take breaks, laugh sometimes. Misery’s not a personality.
City Lights can keep its “Praxis” shelf, but mutual aid happens in alleys and group chats, not curated displays. Spade’s book, for all its starry-eyed bits, reminds us to get our hands dirty, not just sneer. In a world that’s monetized even our rage, that’s not the worst start.