Building Systems Of Care (Part 2)

Part 2 of our Building Systems of Care Episode focuses on the work of West Virginia Can't Wait, an organization aiming to replace those in power with pro-democracy candidates. Founded in 2018, the group has seen significant success, with 29 of their candidates now in office. They face backlash, including threats and internet trolling, but have developed a Community Defender program to support mental health and physical safety. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they implemented a neighborhood defense program, combining voter outreach with mutual aid, which increased voter turnout by up to 20%. The organization emphasizes self-governance and direct action, highlighting the power of community-led initiatives over traditional political systems.

Transcript

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Music, welcome. Welcome to Kairos time. It's Kairos time. Welcome everybody to it's Kairos time. Kairos time. It's Kairos time. You music. Hello and welcome back to its Kairos time. This special season of its Kairos time convenes leaders from movements for racial economic climate, gender justice and more, who are calling for an end to the war economy. But this latest season, we aim to remind listeners and ourselves that we are not alone, and that in these times, silence is betrayal, as the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr reminded us in his final book, where do we go from here? Chaos or Community? A final problem that mankind must solve in order to survive in the world house that we have inherited is finding an alternative to war and human destruction when scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men. Now today, we're building on our conversation from last episode with FOD from drum about building communities of care the United States, war economy has no hesitation to fund militarism in the name of safety, but where is that funding for the care that actually saves lives, for things like housing, food, clean water? How, in the richest nation on earth, can there be 140 million people who are poor or living paycheck to paycheck? We cannot claim prosperity by the size of our military when 800 people are dying every day because of poverty in the US, communities around the nation that refuse to accept these conditions are finding ways to rely on each other and organize for structural change, and today, we're joined by one of those leaders, Stephen Smith is an organizer with West Virginia can't wait a statewide political machine that aims to replace Those in power, not to persuade them. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia, with his wife Sarah, and 12 year old son, Jackson, Steven. Thank you so much for being here. Let's jump straight into it. It's my pleasure. Let's talk about all of the terrible things in the world and how we can make them a little less terrible. So yeah, tell us the let's just start at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about West Virginia can't wait talk about some of the missing needs in the community that you and other organizers have seen, and what, what gap is your organization filling? Yeah, that's a big question. So about six years ago, there were a core group of us who were involved in a lot of advocacy work and state legislative work, and on the one hand, it was going really well. We'd pile up eight or 900 people up at the state capitol, mostly working, women and children. And we had some success through political pressure. We would we passed more than 25 pieces of legislation. We increased the minimum wage a little bit we expanded school breakfast programs, but on the other hand, it never felt like nearly enough. We felt like if we kept doing the things we were doing, that maybe the best we could hope for is that things would get worse, slower, and that was terrifying, and kind of that feeling, that fear, manifested in a question. The question was, what if, instead of spending all of our effort trying to persuade those in power, what if our job was to replace them? What would it look like if we had a government made up not of the people we were trying to convince who were in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. But what if the people we were bringing to the Capitol were the ones in charge? And what would it look like if our strategy was to make that real? We were started in 2018 2020. Was our first election cycle, we're like, you know, maybe we can get 20 or 25 people to run for office in this way, this no corporate cash, pro labor, unapologetic type of campaign. By the end of 20, the 2020 cycle, we had 101 candidates who ran for office, and by 2021 we had 11 people who won their primaries and their generals and were in office. And since then, we're now up to 29 of our people in office around West Virginia. And as those folks started to get real power, real formal power, very quickly. They came under serious threat. And it was those threats that formed the beginning of what became, what has become our Community Defender program. You're starting to get into it. I want to hear what more about some of the backlash that some candidates have faced as through this political development, what have been some of the challenges to organizing in this way? And this was different when we were when some of us were involved more in traditional advocacy work. We were operating through the proper channels, right? And so those in power didn't give us much trouble. And the opposite is true now that the establishment of both political parties feels threatened by what we're doing. And it is not a coincidence that as our strategy has changed, the strategies of our opponents have changed too. So it looks a million different ways. For example, it looks like the sort of standard, but still very scary internet trolling. It looks like doxing and people sharing public information about where candidates and elected officials are going to be. It looks like threats and criticism by people in power. So members of party apparatuses threatening elected officials and the candidates and the elected official threats is sort of where our work in community defense started. But it's not necessarily where it's ended that I think probably the biggest way that we see the threat of modern authoritarianism, or whatever you want to call it, is through the systematic criminalization of large groups of our people. That includes trans kids. It includes people who don't have shelter. It includes people with criminal records. It includes people who use drugs. It includes immigrants, it includes people speaking abortions. And so the work we're doing in this area tries to begin to be an answer for folks, no matter what that threat looks like for them. What are the conversations like when you're talking to potential voters or other organizers about moving outside of the traditional dynamic of, you know, participating and supporting one of the two dominant political machines. Commonly, it's, you know, vote blue, no matter who or you know, red is the working class party, and these like kind of narratives that they've created over, you know, decades, they're kind of like resonate with a lot of folks. So I don't know, but when you use this language of, you know, instead of persuade, we need to replace, how is it organizing against these two dominant narratives that are traditionally here? How does that present, sometimes challenges when having these conversations? But also, how is it potentially opportunities for folks that are actually resonate with that message? It's a great question. We get two very different kinds of responses that from everyday people and community organizations and voters and non voters. The response is almost universally positive. Wait a second, you guys don't care what party someone's in. You just care about what they stand for. Like it automatically resonates with anyone whose life is not electoral politics or party politics. Now, on the flip side, if your life is party politics, if you're part of that establishment, if you're profiting off of it, which is, I think, a surprisingly large group of folks. Then you know, the response we get is that, even though our candidates, almost by definition, are the the most generous and gentle and welcoming human beings you'd ever want to meet, we literally endorse people from all different kinds of parties. But the story that gets told about us by those in power is a story of unabashed radicalism, even anarchism. I mean, we just we are described as if we are the people in power doing the harm those in power tell on themselves, right, whatever they claim we're doing to harm the people. That's usually what they're actually doing. So it's ugly, and I don't I don't want to, I also don't want to make light of it that for me, personally, for our candidates, for our organizers, it is no fun for the day to day conversation online or in the media or in a city council meeting, to be those in power who might be from the same party as you talking about how you are the problem and you want things to move too fast, or you're doing things the wrong way, or you're stupid, right? Anything to make smaller what we're up against. And this may be a chance to talk about one of the specific tactics we've used, but our Community Defender work is partly about providing physical support and physical defense and literally protecting bodies, but as much as anything, it's about protecting the mental health of our people that one of the very first elements of our defense. Work was building this sort of cooperative of mental health providers like we're a big movement. We know a bunch of people in our movement who provide mental health services, either as a therapist or psychologist or pastors. Can we tap into this skill and say, Hey, would you be willing to set aside one or two of your slots for free, and if someone from West Virginia can't wait contacts you and says I'm in trouble, can I get on your schedule? Or can I, can I be a client of yours? You'll answer yes, no questions asked, and we won't track it, right? We're not trying to violate anybody's HIPAA, but if we provide a referral, will you say yes to our people? And that now exists. We now have a stable of mental health providers across West Virginia, so that if any of our candidates or elected officials or staff or volunteers who find themselves in a mental health crisis often either compounded or directly related to the brave work they're doing in public and the criticism they're getting for it, they can get free mental health services, no questions asked, that as much as anything else we're doing to provide safety or security at an event or a location or threat assessment for a candidate, the mental health and the knowledge that that mental health and those services will be available that we find to be a huge comfort for folks, Oh, absolutely, restoring humanity in all areas of the work. I feel like that that's really doing that. I feel like it's still on our minds and still really present when I think about covid numbers. But thinking about the height of covid in 2020 you talked about a big election cycle and reflections from that. But what are some of the challenges, and what have you seen from just things on the ground related to covid? How you all responded, how politicians responded, what messages are resonating with people in these times? So back in 2020 we were in the midst of our first election cycle. It was this really big moment for us, and we were building this beautiful field plan to elect our candidates, and covid happened, and just we had to throw it out the window, right? We couldn't do big events. We couldn't do door to door in the same way, and so we had to reimagine our field plan, and we took it to our volunteers and captains and said, you know, what do you want this to look like? Do we still want to do it? How do we relate to this moment? And what emerged in those conversations was this program called the neighborhood Captain program, where we recruited 397, of our top leaders, and each one of them became responsible, or took responsibility, for 100 voters each, and it was a combined mutual aid and voter turnout program. So you know, people talk about multi contact or multiple contact voter turnout programs. We were doing that. But a lot of the contacts, the majority of the contacts, were about, how are you doing, and are you aware of these resources? Is there anything you need? And so the sort of normal, traditional drumbeat of vote, vote, vote was combined with actual human concern. And the result was pretty wild. I mean, it was, it was a beautiful thing on a case by case basis, but it was also a systemic, or held a systemic impact for increasing voter turnout. It turns out, when you treat people like human beings and you're curious, and you show up with more than just the same old message to vote for our guy, that people actually do want to listen and do want to be included and do want to vote. And among some populations, that program increased voter turnout by as much as 20% we've kept elements of that work and mutual aid work year round dating back to that experience in the middle of covid, and maybe just to say one more thing about it, if I had to summarize the main thing that we're learning and constantly relearning and reminding ourselves, it's that the most threatening, in a good way, the most threatening thing that we can do to the powers that be is to do the work they should be doing that they are perfectly happy to have us whining and complaining and protesting and petitioning them. They're still the show. They're still the ones holding the power, but taking lessons from union organizers in West Virginia 100 years ago, the Black Panther Party, 50 years ago, teachers in the West Virginia teachers strike five years ago. That throughout American history and West Virginia history, there have been these examples where the people say, not just We're fed up, but we're fed up, and we're going to start delivering to the people. Directly the government they deserve, and that is the most threatening thing to those in power. And we found that even if your job is to persuade those in power, the best way to do so is to threaten them in this way to show that the things that they should be providing can be provided and can be provided by the people I'm happy to dig into more of those stories, because I think it's, it's fascinating and encouraging, but maybe I'll leave it there for a moment. No, you're, you're speaking very powerfully right now, and I actually do want to hear more about some of these stories, and possibly even more of some of the programs that you do. So I guess it's like a two part question. One, we'd love to hear more stories. And maybe related to that, how is a leadership development a component of the mission of West Virginia? Can't wait, great questions. So one of my favorite stories, and it's not a story about us, it's a story about West Virginia. Wait, it's a story about West Virginians in general. But there was a flood a few years ago, shoot, probably eight years ago now, in West Virginia, that took out 4000 homes, and there were essentially two responses to the flood. One was a response that was led by the state government, under normally corrupt leadership. They weren't especially corrupt. They were just the normal amount of corrupt, and they had something like $140 million to rebuild homes. And then there was a second parallel response that was led by community groups, churches, neighborhood groups, individuals. It was real, scrappy effort, and three years later, the the local community groups had built more homes faster than the 100 and $40 million state sponsored corruption plan, right? And the state sponsored corruption plan had funneled money to different entities, had held a couple expensive conferences, but it was a reminder to our people as a story we often come back to of how we've been doing this right? We've been taking care of our people, and so it's not, it's not so much that we have to invent something from scratch. You ask about leadership development. One is we did a project called the Hometown Heroes program, where we identified 41 mutual aid leaders, and we offered them leaders and groups, and we had offered them 2000 bucks each, no strings attached. Said, keep doing what you're doing. And here's access to our movement safety program and mental health program, and here's access to our organizing trainings, and here's access to a coach, and here's access to Fiscal Sponsorship. We're not going to tell you what you need. We're going to force you to take any of these. But our faith is that the people who are doing the thing know best, the people closest to the problem are also the ones who have the solution. So we're going to show up with invitations and offers. Thank you for tuning in to it's Cairo's time stop the war on the poor. We're going to take a brief break from our conversation to hear about an upcoming policy summit on october 17. The Cairo center is bringing together experts on the economy, militarism, the rise of authoritarianism, and project 2025 alongside religious leaders and organizers to offer a concrete analysis of our current context and how our movements and organizations are responding. Join us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of this kairos moment and how we can build on lessons from the pandemic era to build up powerful movements for the long haul. Visit us@www.kairoscenter.org Welcome back to it's Kairos time stop the war on the war. Yeah, we'd love to hear your reflection. Reflections on this whole idea of, you know, we're meeting our most immediate needs right now because of the gap that we are seeing from, you know, the folks who are actually supposed to be taking care of us. But we also understand that this is not the long term solution, like this is not a solution this meets our needs so that we can build the power to end these systemic injustices. There's any reflections on that? Yeah, it resonates with us. I think the thing that feels essential the way in which we approach survival and meeting needs, that there is a way of approaching meeting needs that says Our job is to serve other people when we do it that way, sometimes it ends up dividing us, right? There's the serve and the servers, and it kind of reproduces the power imbalances that make society all apart, make it cruel and harmful, and what we take from the Panthers and. From generations of union leaders and radical activists and everyday people in West Virginia is says, Yeah, our job is to meet the needs. Our job is to survive. But what we are doing, the project we're engaged in, is not the project of service, as good or bad as that might be. The project we're engaged in is governance, is self government, that we are governing ourselves. We are meeting our own needs. We are the served and the serving. And when we do that, we operate, we collectively operate from a position of power, rather than a situation where we're just reimagining or reforming a system of the haves and the have nots, and we found that to be powerful over and over. It's also it's not just powerful and good. It's also fun and exciting that when the two parties in West Virginia, nobody was doing any candidate recruitment or candidate training, because they were happy to just put up their same old folks over and over again. And we built our own candidate training program. It was thrilling right to see like we don't know that much, but we know that something like this has to exist. If they're not going to do it, we're going to do it ourselves. To build our own community defender program, to build our own hometown hero program, offering that deep support for mutual aid. We had a citizen media program where we said, you know, let's find a few citizen journalists out there. People want to start their own podcast, and we don't have a lot to offer, but we can offer them each other as a sort of cohort. We can offer a little bit of money to help them get started, raised from our people and and just the the electricity that comes from saying we are going to be the ones who do this for ourselves is an exciting and fun affront to the rich and powerful. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on what you say to folks that you know say that these policy demands are impossible to reach, and I don't know, maybe even some success stories, or even some victories of candidates, or something like that, showing that, you know, the programs of today that will actually save us are the ones that the people want. One, I think at some level, people who say that this system can't produce the results we want, I think they're right. The traditional tools don't work and aren't working, not even a little bit. So things like traditional kinds of lobbying campaigns or petitions, it's not that they're not worth doing or they can't produce some positive results, but they are not delivering legislative victories, at least not in West Virginia, and I think not very much at the federal government level either. And so that can either cause us to try harder and harder, to sit that square peg into a round hole and to burn ourselves out doing so, or it can be an encouragement to say, what other kinds of power can we exercise? What about the power of non cooperation? About the power of building alternative institutions? What about the power of disobeying government when it's doing wrong. What about the power of strike? We think that's where the fun is. We think that's where our power lies is by refusing to use the proper channels for those the same reasons that those people are bringing up, they're the proper channels for the rich and powerful. They're not the proper channels for us. And so some of the victories that we see in moments like this are the, you know, the election of the first transgender elected official in West Virginia history who gets into office and wheeling West Virginia and opens an office for and by unsheltered people, or the election of longtime social worker and community leader in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who, in the midst of a city council that was criminalizing harm reduction and recovery programs and recovery houses, says, we're just going to build our own people's housing program, and we're going to build Bring all the people, the dozens of organizations and individuals and contractors and small businesses and nonprofits that give a damn about housing, we're going to bring them together, and we're going to provide housing for the people, whether the city council wants to vote on something or not, we see both underground and above ground harm reduction in West Virginia that is a living example of people doing for themselves and each other what the government refuses to do. So I don't want to paint a rosy picture, but that's where we see, the wind that we see. If folks want to, you know, learn more about West Virginia. Can't wait, possibly even donate and get more involved. Where should we go? Where can we find y'all, so our website is WV can't wait.com. And we're really big on personal relationships and conversations here, so if anyone really wants to find out what we're up to or figure out there's a way to work together, I hope folks will contact me directly. My email is Steven. It's my first name at WV, can't wait.com, thank you so much again, Steven, for taking the time. Just to to get on the show. I know I learned a lot. I know our listeners will as well. Take care. Thanks again. You bet my pleasure. You