Resources

Decades of organizing to end the prison industrial complex has prepared Critical Resistance and movements for liberation to respond to the COVID-19 emergency with a focus on putting people’s immediate well-being first, tapping into communities’ knowledges about how to build structures for support and mutual aid, and moving forward with a vision for long-term building. This platform is an offering to our movements, and we hope that it will inspire communities to continue articulating and using abolition as a powerful strategy in a time of uncertainty, hope, and solidarity.

This article argues that, in the face of worsening conditions from climate change, enhanced border enforcement, a growing wealth gap, housing crises, and policing, social movements should focus on expanding mutual aid strategies. Mutual aid projects directly address survival needs, mobilize large numbers of people to participate in movements actively rather than solely participating online or through voting, and offer spaces to practice new social relations. The article looks at examples from efforts for migrant justice, police and prison abolition, disaster relief, and other contemporary struggles and discusses potential pitfalls of mutual aid strategies, such as supplementing and therefore stabilizing existing systems of maldistribution and adopting principles and practices from the charity frameworks that proliferate in capitalism.

This interview with Bilphena Yahwon, abolitionist and restorative practices specialist, provides a primer on what police abolition means, as well as links to further resources to begin exploring alternatives to relying on police within your community.

Every community in the US will be affected by COVID-19 – but the impacts will not be the same in each. This index identifies which communities may need the most support as coronavirus takes hold. Mapped to US census tract, county, and state levels, the CCVI helps inform COVID-19 planning and mitigation at a granular level.

A collection of resources around COVID-19, mutual aid, demands, food access, self-care, housing & rent support, and more.

COVID-19 has created new conditions for police violence against low-income communities of color that will impact those who are most vulnerable to criminalization and/or infection the most. That’s why JC is calling on NYers to CopWatch while practicing social distancing.

Lysistrata has been operating a fund for sex workers (SWs) since the shutdown of Backpage’s Adult Services Section (2016/2017), through SESTA/FOSTA (2018) and despite a major funding gap over the past 6 months. Now we are facing another crisis as the Covid-19 pandemic spreads. Lysistrata takes requests nationally but wants to support a new flurry of local SWs organizing emergency funds/resource distribution and be able to point folks who seek assistance to as many resources available to them as possible (a process hopefully aided by the creation of this doc).

In this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Black people we fight to prepare and save ourselves and our communities. We know, like in all other crisis, that Black people will be hit hardest. We often suffer the worst because of the state’s failure to protect us and oftentimes the states targeting of us—like during Hurricane Katrina and many other atrocities. Everyday, we are still recovering from the tragic and unnecessary theft and loss of Black life. These demands are a product of collective work and reflect demands made by numerous other groups.

The National Security Police State always uses crisis like this to expand oppression, to expand surveillance, accumulate new weapons, push boundaries and justify its violence. This video includes discussion with Celine Qussiny from Palestinian Youth Movement, Anthony Robles from Youth Justice Coalition, Ezak Perez from Gender Justice LA, and Nadia Khan from Stop LAPD Spying Coalition.