I first read the “Letter to the Anti-Rape Movement” from Santa Cruz Women Against Rape in the mid-1990s. It was a balm. I was already becoming disenchanted with the funded anti gender-based violence field. The survivors I was working with consistently rejected what we were offering, which were mainly legal solutions. That open letter sent me down a rabbit hole to learn more about the actual history of anti-rape and anti-domestic violence organizing. I learned that at every point in history ideas were contested. One side won and others lost. History did not play out as a series of waves but rather as contests and fights. 

Currently in this #MeToo moment, there is a renewed interest in sexual violence by some members of the public. I welcome the interest. It’s important however to learn from the past and to avoid past mistakes. We will not end rape through criminalization. The women of Santa Cruz Women Against Rape warned us of this in 1977. I wanted to make this zine to introduce the open letter to a new generation of activists, organizers, and workers who may not yet have encountered it. I invite everyone who encounters this publication to read the letter and discuss it with your communities. What resonates with you about the letter? What is surprising to you? What is still relevant today? What feels dated to you? If you were to write an open letter to the anti-rape movement today, what would you say?

I’m so grateful to my friend & collaborator Hope Dector (who is the Creative Director at the Barnard Center for Research on Women) for designing this zine. It’s so beautiful. Thanks to my friend Jes Skolnik for offering a few words in closing. It’s gorgeous. Thanks also to Aim Ren Beland for some of the illustrations in the zine. Finally, thanks to my friends Rachel Caidor and Vikki Law for their helpful edits.

View the zine online at Issuu and download a print version of the zine here. You can also listen to remarks I delivered in March at UCLA focusing in part on the Letter to the Anti-Rape Movement below.

Gwendolyn Brooks’s “To Prisoners” was published in To Disembark (Third World Press, 1981). We are currently in the midst of a global pandemic that is ravaging people and communities across the world. One particularly vulnerable group is incarcerated people. Some leaders are employing mass release for public health. While others are letting incarcerated people get sick and die.

“To The Prisoner” is encouragement for the incarcerated and an exhortation to those of us on the outside to pay attention and to fight alongside those who are inside for their freedom.

Here’s the action I am asking you to take: 1. Read “To Prisoners”. 2. Film yourself reading the poem. 3. Post your reading on social media using the hashtag #FreeThemAll4PublicHealth this week. 4. Tag the Governor in your state with your reading. We want them to release incarcerated people for their safety and for our community’s safety. 5. Invite others in your networks to do the same.

If you are interested in listening to people including those who are formerly incarcerated discuss the poem, you can do that here.

TO PRISONERS

I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
Dark gardening
in the vertigo cold.
In the hot paralysis.
Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.
Where it is dry.
Where it is dry.
I call for you
cultivation of victory Over
long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.

Over
what wants to crumble you down, to sicken
you. I call for you
cultivation of strength to heal and enhance
in the non-cheering dark,
in the many many mornings-after;
in the chalk and choke.

“Mutual aid is a term to describe people giving each other needed material support, trying to resist the control dynamics, hierarchies and system-affirming, oppressive arrangements of charity and social services. Mutual aid projects are a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government, but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable.” – http://bigdoorbrigade.com

INTRODUCTORY FRAMEWORKS

The Strategy of Mutual Aid (Ayni Institute) – webinar videos. Other resources from Ayni Institute.

 “We Keep Us Safe: The History and Principles of Mutual Aid” (Highlander Institute) – watch the webinar: Watch the Zoom Recording and Watch the Facebook Live

“Mutua Aid: How To” (Highlander Institute) watch the webinar Zoom Recording.

Why community is our best chance for survival—a lesson post-Hurricane Maria (Christine Nieves)

Solidarity vs Charity Mutual Aid Blog from BigDoorBrigade.com

Collective Care is our Best Weapon from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief

Mutual Aid vs Charity podcast from Rebel Steps

HOW-TO TOOLS

How to Create A Mutual Aid Network

Mutual Aid 101 Toolkit

Creating neighborhood pods 

Neighbor Support Network NYC

Mia Mingus speaks about pod mapping

Pod Mapping for Mutual Aid (Rebel Sydney Black)

Safety Practices for Mutual Aid Food and Supply Distribution During the Coronavirus Pandemic

OTHER RESOURCES:

Building Accountable Communities Video Series: here and here.

Beyond Prisons COVID-19 Resources For Incarcerated People

Mutual Aid Hub – https://www.mutualaidhub.org

Longer article about Mutual Aid by Dean Spade

This #COVID19 Know Your Rights Document has updated information on your rights while doing Mutual Aid and updates around protest rights and #stayathome orders. bit.ly/KYRights2020

Examples:

Ujimaa Medics

Chicago Community Bond Fund

Activities with Students:

How to Make a Mutual Aid Map (Created by Dr. Laura McTighe)

Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid Course Syllabus and reading questions for mutual aid class

In 1951, the Sojourners for Truth and Justice wrote ‘A Call to Negro Women’ to protest the violence, racism, and sexism that Black women experience. Around 130 Black women joined them in Washington, DC to demand justice, safety, and freedom. In this zine, Ashley Farmer and I write essays about the significance of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice in the development of Black feminism and the legacy of Black women freedom fighters. The zine was designed by Jordan De Loach.  The zine can be viewed online here.

For those who want to download the zine and share it with others, I only ask that you make sure to credit me for it. You can access it for downloading here. If you want to read the original Call to Negro Women, you can here.

An Invitation…

When I first listened to the audio stories that are part of “Two Sides of Justice” a couple of years ago, I could not get them out of my head. The pain of the losses suffered and the grief that I heard expressed lingered. But I was also struck by the resilience that was clearly evident though I should not have been. I’ve worked alongside people who have been victimized by violence and who have perpetrated violent acts for over 25 years. Their stories are complex and nuanced.  

I had been in community with both Kathryn Bocanegra and Grant Buhr and am a great admirer of their work. I asked them for permission to create a curriculum resource so that these stories could be engaged and used by more people in their organizing and in their communities. They gave the green light and I reached out to a teacher-friend and long-time Project NIA volunteer, Santera Matthews to develop a curriculum based on the audio stories. 

This work is part of the Building Accountable Communities Project (BAC) spearheaded by Project NIA. The BAC Project promotes non-punitive responses to harm by developing resources for transformative justice practitioners and by organizing convenings and workshops that educate the public. Partners of the BAC Project include the Barnard Center on Research for Women (BCRW) and Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action (ICRIA).

I hope that you find this resource useful in your work. I thank Kathryn and Grant for producing the audio stories. Thanks also to Santera for her work, to Claire Schwartz for editing, and to Rachel Hoffman for designing this resource. 

In peace and solidarity,

MK

Download the curriculum resource here. You can also access it here: https://tinyurl.com/TwoSidesJustice.

In July 2019, I asked for submissions on Facebook and Twitter in response to the following question:

“When you’ve felt at your lowest, was there a piece of advice, a quote, a poem, an excerpt from a book that someone shared with you that was a lifeline? What was it?”

I also requested contributions from incarcerated people as part of a letter writing event hosted by Survived and Punished NY in August. In all, I received 130 contributions. They were all wonderful and so very moving. I reached out to my friend Hana for help. Hana read through everything and selected some submissions to include in the zine.

I also asked some friends if they would create visual art in response to the contributions. They responded with beautiful pieces of art.

This version of the “Lifeline Zine” was designed by Jett Bachman and a copy will be mailed to all contributors. In addition, other incarcerated people beyond those who contributed can request a copy from Survived and Punished NY and it will be mailed to them.

You can read the digital version of the zine here.
The print version is here. Feel free to print and share the zine with your communities.

I am incredibly grateful to all of the contributors to this zine, to Jett and Max for designing two different versions, and to Hana for pulling it all together.

I haven’t posted about it here but I wrote a children’s book titled “Missing Daddy.” It was republished by Haymarket Books and is actually currently on sale if you purchase it directly through them at 50% off for the holidays. I have a website for the book as well that includes more resources.

As I’ve been doing some book events, I wanted to create a document that would summarize some of the things to keep in mind when discussing incarceration with children. For example, I share the following key ideas to discuss with children who have incarcerated loved ones:

You are not alone – many other children and adults have loved ones in jail and prison.

You aren’t to blame – this is not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

How are you feeling? — Let’s identify your feelings. Make a feelings chart. Children experience shame, guilt, loneliness, anger, hurt, mourning, grief, love, sadness, etc.

Separation hurts. Acknowledge the pain.

Children are bombarded with messages that “bad” people go to jail/prison. Stress that criminalization is not about good or bad people but about having broken a law. 

Questions some children wish they could ask their loved one:

• Why are you in jail/prison?
• When are you coming home?
• Will you forget about me?
• Will you still love me? How will I know?

Help children navigate questions that others may have.  They may experience bullying or persistent questions about what their loved one did to end up in jail/prison. Some things that children can say in response to those questions:

• I don’t know.
• It doesn’t matter to me. I love them.

In general, adults should:

• Be truthful.
• Listen.
• Honor the child’s feelings
• Help the child stay connected to their loved one either through visits, phone calls or letters. 

Adults are also impacted by the incarceration of loved ones and can also be traumatized. Be careful about projecting that trauma onto children. What are your own biases, experiences, etc…? 

I asked Flynn Nichols to create an illustrated one pager to summarize these key points and he did a terrific job.

I asked my comrade Flynn Nichols to create an illustrated document summarizing some words by Sonya Shah of the Ahimsa Collective.

The following are the illustrations that Flynn created. You can download them as PDF’s here and here.

You can skip all of the blah blah blah below and just take a look at the wonderful #Map4Youth 2019 grantees here. We had over 90 applications and they were all terrific. Congratulations to the 14 projects selected for grants! You can also read the stuff below if you want some context and information for how we got to selecting these wonderful projects.

#Map4Youth or the Mutual Aid Project for Youth is a temporary grassroots initiative launched by me @prisonculture. As stated on the Big Door Brigade website: “Mutual aid projects are a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government, but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable.” Read more about mutual aid here.

More than ever, it’s important that we work together to create the world we want to live in. There are many ways to do this, mutual aid is a critical one. This summer I and other donors invited U.S. based young people ages 12 to 29 to apply for a one-time grant to execute a summer mutual aid project of their choice. This project offers a different type of political engagement: it’s a politics focused on supporting people in our communities and is not mainly about voting. There are many ways to do politics in the world.

The idea and process were simple. 

1. Applications were made available on May 24. Applicants were asked to complete the application by May 31 (midnight ET).
2. A small group of volunteers read applications and decided who should receive a grant. We alerted selected grantees on June 14th that they received a grant and asked them to get back to us by June 17 if they were still planning their project and accepted the grant.
3. Funds will be disbursed by June 21st via check or electronic transfer.
4. Applicants could ask for up to $2500 for their mutual aid project. We funded everyone at the level they requested.

Other relevant information:

We received over 90 applications. We awarded 14 grants (up to $2500 each). Thanks to generous support from donors who contributed to a crowd fund and also donated directly we raised $34,440 (after all of the fees). We awarded $33,680. The remaining $760 will be donated. You can see all of the wonderful grantees here!

The selection committee included:

Adrienne (@adrienne_cw) who is a new elementary school teacher in New York City.

Susana (@chipoblana) who is a volunteer with the Chicago Community Bond Fund.

Adelaide Matthew (@MatthewDicken92, she/they) who is a white non-binary transwoman organizing in solidarity with abolitionist movements moving resources to criminalized survivors & QTPOC. 

Eesha (@eramanujam) who works at Color Of Change as a campaign researcher focusing on media, culture, and economic justice.

Mariame (@prisonculture, she/her) who is an organizer and educator who directs @projectnia.

Juli (@julimsw_juli) who is an organizer with Survived and Punished NY.

We wish that we could have funded every single project. They were all so terrific. There were seven (7) other projects among the finalists. We were unable to support them. The total amount needed to fully fund them is $16,700. 6 of the projects asked for $2500 and one asked for $1700. If anyone is interested in sponsoring one or more of these projects, please reach out to @prisonculture at [email protected].

“Liberation is the knowledge that we are not alone. It is mutual support, encouragement, and trust that others will be there if we fall, and that we need to be there for others.” – Bobbie Harro

Fumbling Toward Repair is a workbook by Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan that includes reflection questions, skill assessments, facilitation tips, helpful definitions, activities, and hard-learned lessons intended to support people who have taken on the coordination and facilitation of formal community accountability (CA) processes to address interpersonal harm & violence.

You can now pre-order the workbook here.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This workbook is NOT an introduction to community accountability. You will NOT learn how to facilitate processes by reading this workbook. We STRONGLY suggest that only people who have or are currently facilitating CA processes addressing interpersonal harm purchase this workbook.

If you have NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL with formal CA processes, we urge you to get some friends together for a study group using a FREE and terrific resource developed by Creative Interventions (CI). The CI toolkit offers a step by step guide for facilitating CA processes for interpersonal harms.

Finally, this is a workbook for FACILITATORS. That means that it’s not intended to be mainly read but to be ENGAGED. This is not a reference book or a book of answers. It is a book to scribble in, to draw in, to jot down questions in, to think with, etc…

With all of those caveats, we invite people who might find this resource useful to purchase it through AK Press. We hope that it’s useful for your ongoing work.

Any profits that derive from the sale of this workbook (after recouping production costs) will be reinvested in the training and curriculum development work of Project NIA and Just Practice Collaborative.