17 ms·
A mutual aid auto shop in Alabama
- js2 3y ago> While finishing the soup, Henson told me, kind of plainly, that his dad was a “bad man.” “At this point in my life,” he said, “the highest compliment someone can say about me is that I’m a ‘good man.’ That’s all that matters to me.” Yiddish has just the right word for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensch
- grahamplace 3y agoIs there a word for a “bad man”? The anti mensch, as it were?
- 0_____0 3y agoschmuck, unless you want to get real specific about it
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 1letterunixname 3y agoOf course there are: putz, schmuck, kadokhes, khnyok, khamer, or kholerye.
- jpmoral 3y ago> He is a self-identified redneck (as in the original reference: communist-sympathizing miners in West Virginia) I think this would've been better up front instead of in the third paragraph but maybe that's just how the writing flowed.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoThat's one usage of the term ("redneck"), one I was not familiar with. It's a lesser usage, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoThe lesser usage that I am guessing you are referencing: > He is a self-identified redneck (as in the original reference: communist-sympathizing miners in West Virginia) Interestingly it doesn’t actually seem accurate. The Wikipedia article cites a quote from 1893 referring rednecks in the more well-known context. Did the West Virginia miner thing happen before that?
- DoreenMichele 3y agoAt the bottom of the section about 19th and early 20th centuries: Coal miners The term "redneck" in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandanas for solidarity. The sense of "a union man" dates at least to the 1910s and was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.[18] It was also used by union strikers to describe poor white strikebreakers.[19]
- js2 3y agoIt's apparently not correct to call it the "original" reference in any case: > I, too, was confused to hear this new version of an old bit of folk wisdom, and went to check up on it. The Oxford English Dictionary finds derogatory usages for redneck—when defined as “a poorly educated white person working as an agricultural laborer or from a rural area in the southern United States, typically considered as holding bigoted or reactionary attitudes”—much earlier than 1921: 1891, 1904, 1913. What gives? [...] > This history of disputation around the uses of the term is what’s most interesting here, and it’s also what resists a “just-so” story about the word’s origins. Catte pointed me to a 2006 article by historian Patrick Huber in the journal Western Folklore that she said formed the basis for her own interpretation. Huber’s argument—that redneck, in the 1910s through the 1930s, sometimes meant “Communist,” or at least “a miner who was a member of a labor union,” especially one on strike—made it clear that this usage was a strategic reclamation of a word that had been used as a slur. Some union organizers, Huber found, used red bandanas and the term redneck as a way to culturally integrate groups of white, black, and immigrant miners—who were often set against each other by owners eager to divide labor’s power—into a single identity. Because miners often wore red handkerchiefs to protect their faces and necks from coal dust, the bandana was a symbol of labor that was universal among ethnicities and races. https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/redneck-origin-definition-union-uprising-south.html https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/redneck-origin-definition-...
- cdot2 3y agoWikipedia's citation from 1893 says the term comes from sunburns on farmer's necks which would predate any supposed communist symbolism. "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts ... men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks" Frederic Gomes Cassidy & Joan Houston Hall, Dictionary of American Regional English VOL.IV (2002) p. 531. ISBN 978-0674008847
- kikokikokiko 3y agoFor me personally, as a non english native speaker that never even lived on an english speaking country, the term redneck was always self explanatory: it comes from the sun burns on the necks of white farmers. To think anything other than that is the origin for the term is just stupid. Makes the whole claim by that guy to have been tested and having an "off the charts" IQ seem very dubious.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- psychomugs 3y agoThe article mentions repeatedly that the shop tries to keep politics and identity out of their practice. So I disagree and believe that it's placed exactly where it should be.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoHow refreshing to see mutual aid here. I’m not sure what else humans should be doing, but this seems to encompass at least the ethos we should promote above all.
- SoftTalker 3y agoThese sorts of places aren't really that uncommon. This one goes to an extreme, but my town has a co-op garage where people can go and work on their own cars. There isn't a mechanic there, but it's helpful for people who know how to change their oil or put new brake pads on but are not allowed to work on cars where they live. There is at least one similar shop for bicycle repair, that also does a parts exchange. If you're upgrading your bike, you can leave your old parts for someone else to use. I'd bet that almost any town of more than 100,000 people, maybe even less, has places like this.
- kqr 3y ago> There isn't a mechanic there, but it's helpful for people who know how to change their oil or put new brake pads on but are not allowed to work on cars where they live. If you go at the right time, you can also often find someone who is willing to teach you these things, despite not being a professional mechanic.
- elliotec 3y agoMutual Aid _means something_[0], and it's not just places where people share tools to work on their own stuff, but it is that too. These sorts of places aren't uncommon because maybe, just maybe, that's how things have been for eons and naturally have been as an evolutionary adaptation to millennia of change. In this case, cars are the focus. But one could see the expansion of the concept. The IQ thing is barely a side story. An attention grabber. People will focus on that, and some will use it to add to the pile of things to care more about the point. But I hope some will accidentally see it as, "hey, smart people do smart things so mutual aid is a smart thing." [0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_(organization_theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_(organization_theor...)
- DoreenMichele 3y agoIt's an interesting read mostly about the history of Alabama, politics, racism, classism, and the social implications and negative motives that can underly infrastructure decisions and policies. It's also the story of a gifted child failed by the world in ways gifted kids are frequently failed. When Henson was 6, he tested off the charts on an IQ test We routinely take our best and brightest, tell them a high IQ is good for making money and essentially try to break them in childhood. We could do better, if we really wanted to.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoMy grandparents continually compared me to their friend's kids and were set on making me feel worthless unless I was a billionaire by 25 through the magical, cargo cult transformation that only can occur with good grades, a good university, and excessive debt.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bagels 3y agoWere your grandparents billionaires?
- davemp 3y ago> When Henson was 6, he tested off the charts on an IQ test I find it very hard to believe an IQ test on a six year old is going to be much of a indicator of anything. I guess it would at least indicate that the child belongs to a group whose parents’ would give a six year old an IQ test. > We routinely take our best and brightest, tell them a high IQ is good for making money and essentially try to break them in childhood. We could do better, if we really wanted to. We could start by not trying to abuse IQ on an individual level.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoI used to do pro bono professional work for a gifted organization. It was generally understood that a child with an extremely high IQ should be assessed at a young age to get the most accurate results. Though there is a difference between testing and assessment and lots of pitfalls with such and TFA doesn't give enough info to determine which he got. Some people assess kids young for all the right reasons. This case being mishandled isn't proof kids should never be tested or assessed at an early age.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoThis sort of thing in the bicycle scene is very common; there are a lot of "bike kitchens" in urban areas. The best part about them is that most bicycle maintenance can be very DIY even in a tiny apartment; you just need tools and know-how, so you're not just "giving a man a fish" - people can become very self-reliant for many bike repairs. Park Tools has an AMAZING youtube channel that teaches people how to do damn near anything. I've wanted to do something similar, and I remember reading on reddit that communal garages are very common on military bases...but in the real world, the greatest barrier I can see is insurance, primarily liability insurance. The potential liabilities, especially if you are a "shadetree" mechanic without some sort of recognized certification, are huge. Waivers cannot cover everything (including gross negligence.) I really wish the article had covered how he structured things; maybe he's simply banking on not having anything worth going after? There's the liability not just from the repairs but from having volunteers using tools and lifts. On a moral front: I'm very experienced with car repair, and while I have done things like brake jobs for street and track cars - it's me in the driver's seat in those cars. I wouldn't do a brake job for a friend beyond maybe a pad and rotor change, mostly because I couldn't bear the thought of my fucking up something and it resulting in someone being hurt. Efforts like this are commendable, but what we really need to work on is putting back the public transit infrastructure that used to be in this country, and making it not only possible to walk and bike, but safe to do so, in terms of infrastructure and enforcement of vehicle standards and traffic laws that hold people more legally responsible if they are at fault when injuring or hurting others. The automotive industry acclimating us to the notion that you can get away with injuring someone in a car crash you caused without any criminal penalty is the greatest wool-pull-over on the American public in probably the history of our country. Ditto for establishing the precedent that the identity of someone inside a metal box with partially reflective (and likely even tinted) windows in order to hold them responsible. Why? As the article points out: > Automobile culture is a system in which individuals privately shoulder the cost of public economic life. If your car fails in Alabama — and you cannot get to work, the grocery store, or school — your life begins to fail. It’s a system that perpetuates poverty. If he really wants to help people, getting them on e-bikes, if it's practical to do so, would be a huge money savings for them. The vast majority of the US population lives in urbanized areas, and the vast majority of vehicle trips in the US are well under 5 miles. The "need" for cars is entirely artificial in much of our country and it is due to conscious choices by transportation planners and politicians to make infrastructure hostile to people not in a car. I think the break-event point for a $1-1.5k ebike, which is a pretty damn nice ebike, is probably less than a thousand miles of driving a car (going off the IRS 50 cents/mile deduction) particularly an older one that doesn't get good mileage. Even if you've got a Prius, in gas costs alone the payback is under a year presuming you drive 20k miles/year.
- whatshisface 3y agoI wish the article went more in to explaining how their business worked.
- burkaman 3y agoI don't think it is a business. It sounds like they collect some money to pay for parts and such, but it's mainly community members helping each other in a somewhat organized fashion. I don't think a mutual aid group can be a business. Edit: Ok I see they refer to a "business model" at one point, but I don't think it could be thought of as a business in the commonly understood sense, as it's not for profit and mostly staffed by volunteers.
- kerkeslager 3y agoExactly. Henson is quoted as saying: > “At this point in my life,” he said, “the highest compliment someone can say about me is that I’m a ‘good man.’ That’s all that matters to me.” ...and: > Before he started work on their car, Henson sat the Ellises down in their kitchen and made it clear what he was all about. He was a communist, he said, and his repair work was in service of that. The shop is probably a "business" on paper, because it has to be in America: capitalism has fucked things up so bad that it's impossible to create legal organizations that help people without the assumption of a profit motive.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoIt’s not impossible but it’s damn hard. I’m doing this with a cooperative and I can tell you there aren’t any templates or legal docs or examples. Compared to the profit adjacent (c-corp, non-profit) which have effectively the same structure of ownership just different tax structures, there’s basically nothing off the shelf for mutual aid organizations
- kerkeslager 3y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but even cooperatives are basically assumed to be profit-seeking entities, no?
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoPeople interested in this article might also like this one: https://acloserwalknola.com/historical-context/benevolent-societies-and-social-aid-and-pleasure-clubs/ https://acloserwalknola.com/historical-context/benevolent-so... It's an article describing the benevolent societies and social aid and pleasure clubs that were a necessity in New Orleans during and after slavery and segregation. These societies were formed so that people could ease the burden of poverty and allow for their dead to be buried during a time when white funeral home owners weren't keen about allowing black bodies into their establishments. The result is still a huge part of the fabric of New Orleans area culture to this day.
- greenie_beans 3y agothanks for the rec! gonna piggyback this and plug the book "hammer and hoe" by robin d.g. kelley if anybody wants a deeeeeep dive into a 20th century history of communism in alabama. the article touches on that (the sharecroppers unions etc)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- KennyBlanken 3y agoShop website: https://www.automotivefreeclinic.org/ https://www.automotivefreeclinic.org/ Substack: https://themadredneck.substack.com/ https://themadredneck.substack.com/
- scotty79 3y agoI think government should be promoting workers cooperatives by waiving business and salary taxes for them. Otherwise they can't compete with traditional businesses that can squeeze out additional value from workers at workers expense.
- derelicta 3y agoThe State should straight up take over regular businesses and make 'em into workers co-ops. And make sure to have labour courts to keep 'em operating within the republican norm. But I'm mostly dreaming.
- refurb 3y agoSo basically what happens is the workers get more money, but everything they male costs more so everyone ends with the same standard of living?
- scotty79 3y agoWhat happens now is that things produced by workers cooperatives can't cost more because they wouldn't find customers so if the workers don't want to exploit workers they won't be competitive. Tax break would give them the edge that normal businesses get when they fuel themselves with never ending rotation of exploited workers. The end goal is not to make lives more or less affordable. Just make the work more reasonable by putting working people in charge of how work is organized and rewarded, more often.
- refurb 3y agoSo what happens if a bunch of businesses then decide to become worker cooperatives? No more taxes paid? So personal taxes go up?
- greenie_beans 3y agoyou're basically explaining how this already works under capitalism.
- nonethewiser 3y agoI had no idea there were so many communists on HN. For example: > The State should straight up take over regular businesses and make 'em into workers co-ops. And make sure to have labour courts to keep 'em operating within the republican norm.
- aww_dang 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jacobin.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=redsails.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=redsails.org Contrast to this shadowbanned domain https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=mises.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=mises.org
- erulabs 3y agoThat's pretty sad, as there is some great content on Mises.org. Some of the editorials/writers are lousy, like with any magazine, and others are quite great. I'd love a discussion on any Jeffery Tucker article on HN. I've never met a more openly communist group than the tech industry though. It makes sense; we're engineers. Engineers think like engineers, and default to seeing other people as cogs in a great machine. "Social Engineer" has the correctly negative connotation, but still doesn't get used as the insult it truly should be. "Techno-Karen"?
- giraffe_lady 3y agoWe have open eugenicists and right libertarians too I'm not sure why this fringe is the surprising one. Anyway socialism & communism are minority but not extreme political affiliations in most of the world; it's only really the US where this is somehow considered fundamentally unacceptable.
- erulabs 3y agoHave you spoken with any Polish people lately? No one is more anti-communist than the Poles in my limited experience. Warsaw makes San Francisco look like Moscow.
- nonethewiser 3y agoDid anyone else notice that despite being “free” the cost of a yearly membership is about the same as a years worth of services from an auto shop (according to their price list).
- bmj 3y agoMy understanding that the yearly membership packages aren't the sum total of what they do. I suspect those packages are ways to support the business, rather than provide a free/cheap service. According to the article, customers pay for parts at cost, and then there is a scale, based on income, for paying labor charges. Also, note that "Toyota Dealer Maintenance Packages" are generally offered to people who have purchased their vehicle at the dealer, new (or slightly used). That's not the target market here, and compared to having those services performed at an independent shop (or at a dealer without such a package), that monthly charge is quite affordable.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago[dead]
- psychomugs 3y ago"The highest compliment someone can say about me is that I'm a 'good man.' That’s all that matters to me."
- freemanofthewan 3y ago"But Ellis told me that in an automotive shop it is hard to get good service as a woman, not to mention as a lesbian. She worries about getting scammed, looked at funny, insulted, or worse: “You have to watch your back, guard your purse, and just be mindful of the space at all times.”" Funny, I help out at the family service station from time to time. Had a nice lesbian couple show up last weekend. They requested assistance installing a taillight bulb. I walk out and am greeted by a man-hating, derogatory sticker on their trunk lid. I didn't say a word, and still installed their taillight with my useless man hands. This article started out alright, then slid further and further left until it fell off the topic altogether.
- p3rls 3y agoI've done a good bit of service plumbing work throughout NYC and the bumper sticker leftists are the worst of the worst. Give me a bedbug building instead.
- KboPAacDA3 3y agoTry reading this article as if it were from The Onion.
- vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago[dead]
- sizzle 3y agoI tried changing my spark plugs to save a couple bucks, didn’t have the right long reach socket and sheared the ceramic coating off the spark plug into an engine piston. That was an expensive mistake and valuable lessons to get the right tools or pay a local trustworthy shop to do the work.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago"You're wasting your life." "How so?" "You're a genius. You could be a captain of industry by now." "So I'm both a genius, and no longer a child?" "Yes" "Are you also a genius?" "No" "Then aren't I by definition the best judge of what would constitute wasting my life?"
- themadredneck 3y agoThis is Zac Henson. The business model is that the community subsidizes automotive repair through individual donations and institutional networks subsidize through grants and we are able to provide a service for dirt cheap. We do have a staff that receives small stipends, but we would like to grow to a point where we can have a full time paid staff. For profit businesses receive probably trillions a year in subdsidies, but mostly pocket the money. We use the money to serve the community.
- radnor 3y agoThanks for providing your time and skills to the community. More communities need places like yours! In my area there are free tool libraries where people can go to learn, fix their items, and help others.