Xandi McMahon
Domestic Workers United (DWU)
USA (New York)
2020 has been full of disruptions of many faces: a pandemic, the violence of continuing police brutality against Black Americans, and the reinvigoration of Black Lives Matter protests in every corner of this country. These disruptions are both collective and deeply personal, and they present a chance to imagine something new—and then to demand it.
I am gratefully able to continue the project I’d originally planned with Domestic Workers United (DWU) here in New York City. In the past month, we have had weekly “Know Your Rights” meetings, have begun to distribute stipends to domestic workers in need of financial assistance during Covid-19, and have established a new program to provide fresh food boxes from the local Maple Street Garden to members of DWU. DWU, like the rest of us, has needed to shift its expectations, reworking its plans for this year to respond to the moment.
And perhaps this is part of the beauty of disruptions: they beg us to be present.
In addition to assisting DWU, I have been working with the Emergency Release Fund, a bail fund in NYC whose primary objective is to get all transgender people out of jail. Their work, too, has expanded in response to Covid-19. They are now trying to get all queer people and medically vulnerable people released.
I think this moment makes for a welcome shift in our human rights work, which, in its institutional manifestations, can be slow and bureaucratic. I have expanded my own project to respond to the disruptions, embracing the fact that domestic workers’ rights (and more broadly in the scope of human rights “topics,” womxn’s rights and workers’ rights) are in no way isolated from Black Lives Matter or from public health crises.
Further, I understand protesting to be an integral part of my work for this fellowship. Time and again, I have had the conviction that the concept of solidarity is not static. It is malleable and necessarily responsive to context.
Disruptions make room. They can be challenging and are almost always uncomfortable, but they have incredible potential. They allow us to open our imagination in ways not otherwise possible.
And for me right now, “solidarity” means taking an active part in disruption.