Mutual Aid is Inherently Antifascist

My maternal grandmother, Audrie, who was a second mother to me, was my first entrypoint in witnessing mutual aid in practice. She became a widow before the age of 21, followed by a long bout of alcoholism and depression, and had experienced her share of heartbreak. She and my maternal grandfather were two Black Panthers from Oakland, CA who loved and partied and organized and fought the government and did it all over again. My paternal grandparents, two Black Baptist church folks from Alabama who bought a house in Oakland, CA in the 1970s, loved and went to church and fought for their dignity and raised their children. Both held rent parties, fed the hood, sheltered those in need, cared for children, danced with the grieving — doing everything they could to hold each other up in a world that preyed on their desolation.

Cruel betrayals by a government that willfully abandoned its promises left communities to suffer under a system of calculated, systemic neglect. Federal assistance was inconsistent at best. Relationships between my grandparents and other community members became a lifeline that offered dignity, support and resilience when it was difficult to assert. They practiced mutual aid—the voluntary exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Born out of communities abandoned and oppressed, like those the Black Panthers called home, mutual aid mutual aid rejects the system that discards us, insisting instead on dignity, collective power, and care rooted in connection.

What most sustains me in moments of terror and upheaval are the ways our folks have historically and ingeniously improvised to redistribute power from institutions to communities. We do this regularly, on emotional, financial, physical and political levels. 

Mutual aid, for me, is a demonstrated practice of loving. In the past year and a half, I had a baby, fought for my baby to have excellent care as we navigate their diagnosis of an extremely rare type of epilepsy and battled cancer amongst other pressing health conditions. Though these have been the hardest times of my life, I have been loved well, not because of how much folks gave in my family’s time of need, but because I didn’t feel like less of a person in the asking. My dignity was still at the center. Learning to receive help also had its lessons in offering. I am now able to give back because I believe we are responsible for one another, and things aren’t as tight financially, emotionally, and physically, as they had been. 

What my family and I have endured isn’t isolated. It’s part of a much larger pattern of abandonment and resistance. The same systems that force us to fight for basic survival are now escalating their attacks on entire communities, demanding that we meet each other’s needs while refusing to meet their responsibilities.

RELATED: Capitalism makes us think that having our basic needs met is revolutionary. It’s a lie.

We are living through layered, compounding crises politically, economically, and socially, in the U.S. and globally. The Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, women, and queer people aren’t new; they are a continuation of long-standing strategies to strip rights and consolidate power. As dangerous and harmful as it is to our people, manipulating historical narratives is a foundational practice of fascism- one that is steeped in insecurity, individualism and white supremacy. It relies on a scarcity mindset that requires shrinking public support and resources in an attempt to gain control. 

Without knowing about the history of mutual aid, its legitimacy as a form of resistance, and the belief that communities should take responsibility for their own well-being, we miss out on a vital cooperative vision. Mutual aid actively undermines the ideological foundations of fascism. It is an abolition practice that requires revisiting radical models of care as the way forward. 

Mutual aid recognizes that the only way we survive is with each other. It highlights a longer term vision for freedom that underscores how institutions won’t save us. Fascism, however, is short sided, which is why fascists cannot fathom the idea that community members would voluntarily support each other through solidarity, without inserting some type of competition to determine who is worthy of resources. Because fascism relies so heavily on the idea that some people are more capable and deserving, mutual aid directly threatens and contradicts their ideologies. 

This is not just theory, it’s lived history. Mutual aid has long been a vital tool of resistance, practiced by those who understood that survival couldn’t wait on systems that are designed to fail us.

RELATED: Why You Can’t Understand Black History Without a Critique of Capitalism

Mutual aid groups, like those my grandparents were a part of, have provided food, mental and medical supplies, and housing assistance before governmental help arrives. If at all. It has been “successful” because it doesn’t require folks to perform their worthiness or deservedness. 

From The Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program for Children to Gaza Mutual Aid Collectives, more mutual aid networks have sprouted in cities all over the world. These networks are strengthened by the knowledge that our folks have always practiced some form of mutual care and community building. They are an essential part of the fabric that sustains communities, often with little to no external assistance. They embody the idea that collective action can address systemic problems that individual or governmental responses often overlook or ignore. Mutual aid has been a form of community defense in the face of state sanctioned violence, repression and abandonment.

By practicing mutual aid, we create an alternative vision of society—one grounded in solidarity, mutual respect, and equity. It’s a vision where communities come together not just to survive, but to thrive collectively. Mutual aid builds solidarity across lines of difference and resists the divisive and exclusionary tactics used by fascists, who rely on fragmentation and fear. Instead of relying on scarcity, mutual aid emphasizes abundance.

As a community organizer, engaging in mutual aid as both a recipient and participant has only deepened my refusal to let scarcity define us, and strengthened my drive to give fiercely and abundantly whenever I can. 

In the face of political, social, and economic crises, mutual aid doesn’t just meet immediate needs. It builds the conditions for deeper liberation. It teaches us how to organize without hierarchy, how to lead without dominating, how to trust one another in a world that teaches us to fear. It is not a replacement for systemic change — but it is a foundation for it. And in opposing fascism, that foundation is essential because fascism cannot flourish where solidarity thrives. It cannot take root in communities where people see each other fully, care for each other consistently, and refuse to be turned against one another. Mutual aid is more than resistance — it is the architecture of a world where fascism has no foothold. 

Mutual aid says, unequivocally: Black lives, queer lives, disabled lives, undocumented lives,  marginalized lives — are sacred. We will keep each other sacred and at the heart of everything we do. We will not lose sight of each other.