wear a face mask. you ableists are murdering the very people you claim to be in "solidarity" with.
do you all feel like we don't want to experience joy?
do you feel like we don't want to experience connection?
do you feel like we don't want to be able to experience the beauty the world has to offer?
who gave you the audacity to make that decision for us?
but you are doing that
because you have the audacity to place your joy and your connection over ours
your actions are actively killing people who you claim to be in "solidarity" with from afar, and when immunocompromised/Disabled comrades have been calling you in day in and day out, the best response you have is to circumvent any accountability and call us snowflakes
fuck right off
— by avanti.
I know that Disabled people are entirely disposable to most, y'all have made that abundantly clear through your actions these past years.
But if you have ever expressed solidarity with
Unhoused people.
Impoverished people.
Working class people.
Oppressed caste people.
"BIPOC".
"People of color".
Black people.
Indigenous peoples.
If you have ever claimed to care about your elders.
Or your children.
And you're still walking around, mask-less and hopping flights for fun, despite being informed of the rapid transmissibility, and devastating long-term effects, of COVID-19...
Then I know you have been lying about ALL of your supposed "solidarity".
Because we know which communities are most impacted.
We know who will keep dying.
We know who will be painfully Disabled.
We know who will be orphaned.
We know who will be denied care.
And you know that it's least likely to be you.
And you think your privilege will get you the care you will need if (when) you do get sick.
It won't.
Which is why you walk around, brazenly bare-faced.
Your "solidarity" isn't worth the spit with which it flies out your mouth.
— by Rabia.
avanti (they/them) is a light-skinned oppressor-caste South Indian chronically ill artist just trying to understand the world around us and dreaming of worlds where we all cared a little more.
Rabia (any pronouns respectfully used) is a Panjabi artist and writer, Disabled and bedbound by severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ME.
— if you like what we do, support our unpaid, housing unstable editor-in-chief/web manager here.
both pieces originally written on july 9th, 2022 — in response to queer white disabled academics & "influencers" saying leftists should "stop saying WE SHOULD WEAR MASKS & STAY HOME"
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