Where corona virus help on Facebook is inherently political

Three young organizers in the Detroit area started a group for people to offer face masks, emergency cash or help navigating unemployment. They see it as part of a larger vision. Justin Onwenu, an organizer of a Facebook group offering people help amid the health crisis, said, “For my age group, if we don’t walk away from this moment understanding there are things we really need to change, we will have failed.” Justin Onwenu, an organizer of a Facebook group offering people help amid the health crisis, said, “For my age group, if we don’t walk away from this moment understanding there are things we really need to change, we will have failed.”Credit...Emily Rose Bennett for The New York Times Jennifer Medina By Jennifer Medina May 28, 2020, 3:00 a.m. ET The three young idealists met before this all started, when the most pressing issues they faced were climate change, environmental justice and ensuring clean water for Detroit residents. They were all organizers of a sort: eager to do the unglamorous work of convincing people that they could dream bigger, and demand more from their government. They came from very different parts of a segregated region. Justin Onwenu, 23, lives in Detroit, where 79 percent of the population is black. Bridget Quinn, 35, and Lauren Schandevel, 23, are from the overwhelmingly white suburbs of Macomb County, just north of the city. But when the coronavirus shut everything down, they all noticed the same thing: All around them, people were overwhelmed and feeling helpless. So they organized. And with nothing happening in person, they turned to Facebook, creating a public group called Metro Detroit Covid-19 Support. Within days it had grown to include thousands of people throughout the area. They pleaded for help with child care, offered suddenly scarce toilet paper and donated emergency cash funds with no strings attached. As the weeks wore on, many people requested or provided face masks, and increasingly, in desperation, asked for help with unemployment. The pandemic has unmoored already fragile institutions across the country, forcing many Americans to turn to one another for help instead of to the government or nonprofit organizations. With the belief that the system is so broken that assistance will never come, hundreds of people have formed mutual aid societies, designed to allow people to find help themselves. Though the groups’ efforts vary widely, similar attempts to offer assistance have formed in dozens of states, including North Carolina, Texas and Arizona. The groups are something of a throwback; such networks were popular in the heydays of communal activity, in the early 20th century and again in the 1960s and ’70s. The method is simple: Have something to give? Offer it up. Need something? Just ask for it. ImageThe Metro Detroit Covid-19 Support group on Facebook includes requests and tips about needs like childcare. The Metro Detroit Covid-19 Support group on Facebook includes requests and tips about needs like childcare. There is nothing inherently political about mutual aid groups — their offerings are akin to bringing a casserole to a neighbor suffering a setback. But the newest crop has been formed largely by young progressives, and their proliferation points to a new kind of organizing that could reshape politics long after the pandemic. For young voters who saw their hope in Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign fizzle out just as the virus upended communities nationwide, the mutual aid societies are something of a balm — a kind of stake in the ground for their liberal ideals. “For my age group, if we don’t walk away from this moment understanding there are things we really need to change, we will have failed,” Mr. Onwenu said from his apartment one recent afternoon. “It was just so clear early on: This is a generational moment and it’s going to be on us. You look at history and there are certain moments where the psyche of communities completely changes, and this will be one of them.” In the Detroit area, one of the most segregated regions in the country, the organizers’ most radical idea was connecting people from the city with those in the mostly white suburbs, pushing the idea that they could help each other. From the beginning, the organizers saw the pandemic as magnifying a wide range of existing problems. They view the idea of rugged individualism with utter disdain. After growing up in Warren, a working-class town in Macomb County, Ms. Schandevel enrolled in the University of Michigan as a kind of escape, not planning to return to a county long known as a stronghold for “Reagan Democrats.” But she became involved in organizing not far from her hometown and has worked for We the People-Michigan since graduating a year ago.