TINU: Well, first my definition of mutual aid is anything that is community-based ways to help each other thrive, not just monetarily, it can be bartering. It can be emotional investments in each other, where we checkup on each other at certain intervals. It can be sharing of resources that we have that may not necessarily be set up for sharing things like, even things down to over-the-counter medications or knowledge that we have that other people don’t have. Or cultural sharings of things that we may have from say, for example, if we have a Gullah background or a Creole background, or African, Caribbean background, cultural things that we can share in wisdom.
The ability to help each other financially, of course, is essential to that. Where I came into it is, it’s hard to say where it started for me, because it’s part of my culture as being a Nigerian descendent. And it’s odd for me to say that, I know from an American perspective, I mean even though I was born in America, I am also Nigerian.
And when people think of Nigerians, they think of the 419 scam, unfortunately, where it’s also very much Nigerian, and I would say primarily Nigerian, for us to take care of each other. And for us to have certain things embedded throughout or culture that make sure that we take care of each other.
For example, there’s a few, a few years ago, I think it was, I think it was Wale, he got in a little bit of hot sauce online because he was, he was photographed spraying his daughter, which was giving his daughter money, you know, usually, pressing bills to the forehead of his daughter while she was dancing.
Now, through an American lens, that seemed like are you treating your daughter like a stripper, but from our perspective, it’s one of the ways that we circulate mutual aid in our communities. We have all these parties, we’re known for the partying, but we’re not known for the fact that when, the parties are a form of mutual aid. We all get dressed up. We all go to the parties.
We all bring money to give to the celebrant and also to people in the community who are in need. So, instead of, you know, if you, you know, missed your car payment, instead of having to beg your friends, you go to the parties. And the people who are in need stay near the celebrants and they receive money. People who have extra will be giving the money.
So that’s naturally circulated in the community instead of there being a formal kind of setup where people have to go, go around asking everyone for money. It’s kind of a natural thing that removes the shame element from it, that moves the, that removes the screening element from it, because we’re all already in community. We all already know each other. We all already can vouch for each other.
Also, when I was very young, my mother was always putting together help for other people. One of the forms of help that was formalized, she had a social club where her and her sister friends, her friends that were close enough for me to call them aunties, would put together parties where they would give away food for free but then charge for the drinks. And the drinks, whatever they made profit off the drinks, they would send to different charities or different people who needed help back in Nigeria.
And so, I learned about, you know, how they set this up and I would help them with all the administrative stuff that they were doing and also be part of, you know, labor part of it, as far as serving the drinks and just being involved at all levels of the organization to see how does all of this work. And how does this, how do we keep this money circulated in the community to make sure that everybody is okay.
A lot of times mutual aid entailed letting people stay in our house until they were stable when they came from overseas. So, I always count mutual aid not as monetarily, but any kind of assistance that you can give to your neighbors and your community, and people that you know or know through other people in the community, in order to keep them thriving, in order to keep the community solvent as a whole.
