Dear radical left, dear lefties, and especially, dear anarchist comrades

i beg you, please listen to this podcast: https://soundcloud.com/deathpanel/organizing-and-covid-19-part-1-021623

It’s is not too late to start a mutual aid project in this ongoing pandemic. Now mutual aid starts by doing everything you can, to not exclude people. Doing everything you can to not fall into the ableist and COVID normalizing (and frankly eugenic) rhetoric, that now dominates the general discourse.

Anytime you organize an event you have the choice to either suggest a mask mandate or to organize a video conference (or a hybrid setting) that offers remote access to the meeting via video.

If you do not do this, you effectively exclude people (like myself) from participating. Many people, the immuno-compromised, the chronically ill, disabled people or even just people who want to remain cautious, will not be able to attend. We get excluded.

This is ableism! This caters to only able bodied people at the exclusion of the dis-abled! This ignores intersectionaility!

You might now ask, why aren’t you happy for us? Well it’s complicated. I am happy for you that you can attend a meeting without precautions. But i also worry, am stuck wondering if you are taking this insidious disease serious enough, if you are still well informed about it (did you know, that there is a 58% increase in diabetes even after “mild” cases of covid? [https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/risk-of-diabetes-rises-58-after-covid-even-amid-omicron-study-finds/]). And i am angry, that i don’t seem to count, that the small inconvenience of wearing a mask is too much to ask from you, just so i could participate. And finally i am sad and i feel isolated, not seeing a future here. I am despairing to witness the circle of my political friends and comrades drift away into ableist territory, connections lost, friendships broken.

So it’s a heavy emotional mix.

And really, is it too much to ask to simply wear a mask or organize a video link? I don’t think so.

Yes, everyone is tired of the pandemic, me too. But the price (heartache, lost solidarity, despair etc.) we will have to pay for this increase in ableism, will burden us for years to come.

#Anarchy #Ableism #MutualAid #Communalism #Intersectionality #DeathPanel #COVID19 #LongCOVID