12th Al Jazeera Forum: Session 4 - Changing Alliances in the Region

 Quiet Community Care Among Impoverished Communities

Having lived in the central Appalachian Mountains for 13 years, I saw this community support.

Terra Vance - Marked Melungeon 

September 9, 2023  · 

I’m going to attempt to put something to words that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen put to words. Maybe it’s been done, but I’ve not seen it. Please bear with my clumsiness.

I am going to attempt to characterize the cultural differences of the Generationally Poor for the benefit of the ever-growing broke.

Being Poor is wildly different from being broke. I believe that the broke could save themselves generations of trial-and-error by learning from the Poor, so I am going to attempt to translate some nearly-extinct Old Ways.

We did not ever say any of this out loud. It was just inherent to the culture and is largely absent elsewhere.

Broke and Poor:

Being broke is a temporary condition that has a simple fix (getting money), and broke people generally live similarly to the mainstream, with similar values and ways of navigating the world.

Being broke is not woven into generations of culture and is not a significant part of a person's identity.

Being Poor is.

As more and more Americans struggle with being broke, even to the point of destitution, I feel they may benefit by learning some things from the Poor.

The majority of the broke have never experienced any sense of Interdependence in community, and that’s a tragic byproduct of the American myth of independence.

The growing American broke are the entry generation of the future Poor.

While this may feel like doom for many people, it’s actually a thrilling prospect if you think like me. Being Poor is better than being broke once you get your mind to a place where you’re ready to accept that.

There’s hope to establish something new and better when the majority are fed up enough to tap out of the myths and propaganda.

Mutual Aid

There’s an emerging cultural wave that has people moving away from toxic patterns of generational trauma and seeking to build community together, and it’s beautiful to witness; however, there’s a lack of guidance about how to establish and maintain community that means lots of people are going to struggle.

This is complicated further by the vast expansiveness of the world under the internet.

Capitalist society is structured to make people broke, but not Poor. Poor people are less beholden to corporations.

Being broke keeps people spending, investing in the economy, and believing that a break looms somewhere in the future, a safety net exists, or if they just do things the right way, they will eventually solve the geometric proof that yields the American Dream.

Being Poor means that for generations, you’ve settled into the gutter and built a community of people who depend on each other because they don’t expect anyone else to come to the rescue.

A lot of the activists spearheading mutual aid efforts are broke, not Poor. They often come from generational wealth or from parents who are middle class or academics and might be the first broke people in their families.

Being broke is navigating life while being under-resourced. A person can be homeless and not Poor. Poor people are less likely to become homeless because they have an interdependent community.

If you’re broke and in a mutual aid cycle, it may look something like:

-give to a person facing eviction

-give to a person needing medications

-have nothing left

-experience a flat tire

-ask for mutual aid

-repeat

While nothing is wrong with this, it is not a sustainable model. People tend to tap out after the first few asks.

This is not to say that you lose hope for an easier life, or that you stop working towards it, but that you live differently and don't expect your circumstances are going to change.

If, for generations deep, you come from people who have formed a culture on the mutual understanding that the world has forgotten you or seeks to exploit you, survival depends on Interdependence in community.

I think that many people are recognizing this and are trying to get there.

Coming from a place that was always considered behind the times, it was also ahead of the times, oblivious to the cycles of the broader world.

When a community with a unique culture has been together for centuries, having survived genocide and brutal economic oppression, they have a unique collective skill set.

Poor people have different safeguards and sensibilities when it comes to mutual aid that are discerning.

They tend to operate strategically because there are extreme interpersonal risks for giving and accepting aid, and extreme cultural differences between the Poor and the broke.

This list captures my understanding of some small slivers of closed culture in the Appalachian coal camps that I watched gradually phase out over the span of a few decades.

1. Reciprocity

You give in ways that are quiet and have a consensual reciprocity, meaning you also accept something in return. This eliminates power imbalances and facilitates a culture of bartering and trading.

Receiving something also preserves the dignity of the person in need.

Receiving in response does not need to be direct and can be done with a message of, “You have given so much to me/people I love, and this is the least I can do.”

You care for people who care for people because everyone’s survival and wellness depends on everyone understanding that communities become destabilized when people struggle beyond their access to sustain a living.

That’s when communities dissolve into dangerous neighborhoods.

People who do a lot of service, taking care of elders, giving free/discount labor/expertise like repairing people’s vehicles, mowing their lawns, cooking, sewing, etc. are reminded, privately, about what they do for others.

Service can also extend to storytellers, people with specialized knowledge, and healers who serve communities in ways that promote mental health, provide solace, and promote wellness, sustainability, and stability— especially when there’s no access to professional services.

2. Crisis aid

You don’t usually give directly to people in crisis if you have no safe, mutual relationship with them or members of their family or close circle.

Giving can be dangerous, and when you’re Poor, you risk your and your family’s security by giving to someone who, in their desperation, may expect more later or who may be in an addiction cycle or a pattern of reckless desperation.

Money is not something to spare, and broke people who are in crisis are going to need more almost immediately, like they’re spending their money and energy trying to slow the inevitability of a sinking ship.

3. Accountability in closed communities

This section is more a value relevant to considering approaches for effective mutual aid.

Accountability and an internal sense of justice is established by community relationships. Without those interdependent communities, people are left with only the System.

The Poor tapped out of the System a long time ago.

In a closed community, you don’t exploit or harm people that are in your sphere of community or allow personal grievances to disrupt people’s livelihoods.

Ever.

This means you don’t go recruiting against people other community members rely on, and you don’t bring in outsiders. Outsiders don’t know the unwritten rules and wouldn’t know how to follow them.

In a closed community, accountability looks very different. You know how much harming a person harms those they love as much as, if not more, than the person themselves— especially their children. You have a vested interest in preserving the health of the community for this and the future generations.

The broke do not generally have experience with closed communities and their sense of justice is much less about recovery and reconciliation and more about punishment and shame. It is not strategic.

Punishment-based approaches impact the entire ecosystem of a closed community.

4. Insiders and Outsiders

Bringing in a new person does not just happen instantly. They need mentors and a long, slow learning curve. They are accountable to you, and you are accountable to the community.

They will be around a long time before they’re fully considered an insider.

5. Distribution circles

All decisions are made with community in mind and family/close circle first. Everyone respects this is how it works. A person with a family member in crisis needs to tap out of community obligations until things stabilize.

The other Poor understand when you have needs to break some rules because you have hard times. They will quietly help you.

6. Quiet help

Quiet help, no matter how downtrodden someone is, comes in subtle forms that always have some sense of reciprocity.

For example, you can buy from someone’s trunk yardsale wares, but instead of dickering to get the price down, you say, “Oh, I think this is a Joel Myers Blenko glass decanter. I can give you $100 for it,” even if you know that it was a common Viking or Kanawha glass piece that you'd normally only pay $5 for at a yard sale.

They know what you’re doing and accept it. There will just be a look between you that outsiders can’t understand.

You never talk about it again to anyone, ever, and mentioning it to anyone would be seen as an indication that you’re not to be trusted with other people’s dignity.

Not adhering to the understood rules doesn’t mean you’re to be outcast or mistreated. It just means you won’t be brought in to leadership or decision-making circles.

7. Folk currency

It is always acceptable to trade canned or prepared food, plants, or services as currency. Hand grown and prepared food, especially those regional Old Ways recipes, is medicine. It is love in a Ball jar.

You can respect and care for your elders by making sure they are able to use food and their skills (whittling, ministering, caregiving, sewing, cooking, canning, painting, gardening, etc.) to continue to be in community in ways that feel mutual.

8. In-demand skills

Skills do not lend themselves to hierarchies, but people with in-demand skills do get taken care of with priority.

A minister or community organizer who serves the dying, for example, has a very heavy burden on them all the time. This is a very important job for people who observe the Old Ways. The community gives more to this person.

One does not need to personally benefit for that to be considered mutual reciprocity. If you have no sick or dying family, but your neighbor is a minister or organizer who serves the sick and dying, you go cut their grass and bring them food, and you don’t mention it.

People who do jobs that others wouldn’t want or couldn’t do as well, who uphold the community, are assets who need to be on call and don’t have the time or resources to invest in their own lives. Others show gratitude by lightening their burden.

9. All people contribute

A place is made for anyone to contribute, regardless of any factors that would prevent them from contributing in the mainstream.

An example I witnessed (details changed for anonymity) involved an intellectually disabled older adult who lost her elderly mother. She was not able to provide for herself without supports.

The community came together to secure her a safe place to live and bought her camera. They made her the community historian.

She was at every event taking pictures, and she was great at it. Everyone got to know her, and she got to know everyone. This was not “inspirational charity.” Storytelling and camaraderie is important to community, and the benefits of her storytelling through photos added much value and cohesion to the community.

10. Waste-free giving

You save things you don’t need to give to people who can use them without expectation of reciprocity.

Canning jars, aluminum cans for recycling, seeds, used clothing or things that get deconstructed for scrap, etc. are all acceptable to give to people. You give it to them like they are doing you a favor for taking it off your hands.

Certain people collect and redistribute things like school supplies and children’s clothes. Everyone knows Lacy Dingess is the man who comes to get the bricks if a structure is being torn down. He makes wishing wells.

Frank Lambert picks up the lumber and uses it to build ramps for elders.

As soon as someone has a baby, they learn that Misty Boggs collects glass baby food jars to repurpose for her business.

11. Giving to and receiving from outsiders

It is okay to abandon these roles and rules when dealing with outsiders. You can give to them or receive from them with no reciprocity.

You only perform superficial versions of your real traditions for outsiders who only want to be entertained by your "eccentric" or "exotic" otherness. 

Reciprocity is *not* safe when it comes to outsiders because there’s no internal accountability to keep things fair and mutual. There’s only the System to hold them accountable, and that clearly is not ideal.

Recap: mutual aid is a function of community. Without community, it’s not sustainable.