Coalition Building in Action: Direct Aid

Online Panel Discussion

Coalition Building in Action, is a series of discussions intended to provide concrete examples of interracial coalition building and solidarity initiatives today. These conversations highlight the work of organizers who actively provide direct aid to multi-ethnic communities, sustain mutual aid networks, offer professional services in unlearning anti-Blackness in non-Black communities, facilitate anti-oppression training, are engaged with transformative justice activism, among other endeavors. It is GYOPO‘s mission to interrogate issues around contemporary art, culture, networks, intersectionality, and social justice. As such, we have asked participants to share some of the most effective and replicable tactics that they utilize in their social justice work along with personal reflections on the enduring process of solidarity building.

Coalition Building in Action: Direct Aid, the first program in the series, highlights the work of four Los Angeles-based activists who have built a mutual aid network across their respective organizations. Their initiatives provide essential resources such as housing advocacy, meals, sanitary supplies, and political education for Los Angeles residents severely impacted by the pre-existing racial and economic inequities that have been inflamed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The United States’ failure to protect its most vulnerable populations is a deep-seated sickness rooted in systemic racism and white supremacy. In their frank and insightful exchange, Roderick Hall of Abundant Housing LA; Sissy Trinh of Southeast Asian Community Alliance; Susan Park of Asian Americans 4 Housing, The Return of GIDRA, WE’RE BAKC (Black and Korean Coalition); and Zerita Jones of Los Angeles Tenants Union, WE’RE BAKC (Black and Korean Coalition); with Steve Diaz of Los Angeles Community Action Network as moderator, will discuss their experiences, continuing constituent emergencies, and tactics used in their work for our communities.

Now is the time to learn from community leaders who have long worked in the realm of coalition-building. It is our goal that these discussions provide insight into the many paths one can take to participate within the vast movement for the end of anti-Black racism. In loving honor of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Riah Milton, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, who represent part of the incalculable loss of Black lives to systematic violence in the United States.