I’m back and honestly, I’m only madder than I was two days ago because I’ve had time to mull the bullshit over. Link, for those of y’all out of the know.
It appalls me that any community of people that claim to be marxists, that claim to follow the scientific method in all things that would contribute to the betterment of the world we’re forced to share, that claim to be really out here performing praxis and making differences in their communities; it fucking galls me that a community like everything I just described can still look at a still on-going pandemic and still have such a tacit anti-mask stance.
More of you admitted to not masking than I’m comfortable with and y’know what, maybe we could’ve left it at that. It’d have been a form of liberalism to not dig my heels in on that and take a swing at that mindset because again: I took on a new disability in the wake of a COVID infection. My partner took on a new disability in the wake of their infection. I was put in a hospital bed, my grandparents were put on respirators, so many members of my family and my community were genuinely out of commission and a good number of us really had to question if we were going to make it to see the next morning under those infections-- but maybe, we could’ve left it at that.
But then, I have to see you people not only trying to justify it, but taking up for smuggards who just think it’s all some big fuckin joke, like they’re their favorite podcast crackerbro getting to have their own personal Matt Christman moment. I expect “u mad bro” smuglord fuckery out of crackers who can’t even be trusted to properly wipe their asses after they shit, or to wash their hands after doing so. And worse, you expect me to not be heated about smug-assed crackers making light of genuinely-disabling infections after the fact.
I stand ten motherfucking toes down on what I said to Cantaloupe Ass and Ghost of Faso; any plague rat motherfucker who wants to take issue with how I feel about people who won’t mask can catch the same cases my partners and my family caught. It’s a whole lot of you motherfuckers that are so unserious, so emphatically not my comrades that it sickens me seeing you call yourselves so.
Do better. Deuces.
I mostly recall posts qualifying as “anti-mask” coming across as a defeated, beaten down attitude about it, like “I give up”, not something anti-science or the like. I understand some stuff got heated and removed though, so if there were posts going into detailed anti-mask stuff, I don’t think I saw it. A lot of what I was there for to reply to people (that I can recall) was trying to commiserate and relate to people on reasoning they’re dealing with and how hard it is dealing with the pressures of other people and the system as a whole, trying to be conscientious in spite of that. Some of us dealt with, or still deal with, family members who refuse to take it seriously now, or for some people, family members who never took it seriously. On top of living in places where virtually nobody else is doing it anymore, which can attract strange looks or worse, depending on the place. Which can be very isolating, trying to somehow overcome that and be principled while people are getting sick in spite of what we do. It can make a person feel helpless and demoralized. That was one of the sentiments I saw there and I know it well in certain forms myself.
That is being anti-masking and anti-science. Copying and pasting what I said in the Hexbear thread on this:
If you live with people who refuse to mask, I feel for you, that’s awful and I’m sorry they are damaging your health through their inaction. That does not excuse contributing yourself to the spread of illness in your community. If you have the ability to mask but refuse and take a defeatist attitude, then you are not my comrade. Camaraderie is not given freely. Respect is not given freely. I’m tired of being talked down to people who claim to be on my side while contributing to the shit that has fucked up me and my family’s entire life for the last almost half decade now.
I’m sorry but fuck off with this. You want to know what’s isolating? Having all your friends abandon you because you are immunocompromised. Being forced out of every community you were a part of because none of them will accommodate you. Being forced into the fringes of society because everywhere you go, everything you do, is a constant, neverending reminder that your life matters less than everyone else’s to the general public. And you know what’s really isolating? Spending years, years, calmly and patiently explaining to people the dangers of Covid, the effectiveness of masking, the history of ableism that has led to this disaster, the action we can take to improve, offering people free masks, free tests, anything at all out of my own pocket (even though we are barely scraping by ourselves!) just to try and get anyone to care at all, and none of them accept them, no one takes what we say seriously, and no one can be fucked to change their behavior. How long do I have to be nice and patient with people for? Cause it sure as fuck isn’t working, and if being nice won’t work, then I have no problem with getting mean.
This right fucking here. Too many motherfuckers believe they’re just entitled to camaraderie while having only shown and proven their asses. We not doin that.
I’ve worn a mask the entire time and self-isolated a lot. My whole approach to this topic from the start was in good faith, to better understand where people are at with it and if possible, to reinforce my own reasons for wearing a mask.
I can empathize with how bad you have it, though I can’t pretend to say I understand it, as I’m not immunocompromised. But I’m not going to go along with a tone that implies real struggles people are dealing with aren’t real because someone else has it worse. My whole household got sick with covid at one point, after a long period of managing to avoid it, because one person was being a socialite and not masking. Thankfully we’d been able to vaccinate before that happened and there was no (known) long-term damage, but by god did it get to me after how hard I tried to manage the risk. That is real and demoralizing. I can’t even imagine how bad it is not having the vaccine as an option, but you are effectively taking shots at the messenger here. I’m trying to understand and describe a problem and what its challenges are, not make excuses for people having such a systemic lack of any sense of social responsibility.
Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to compromise on important issues because they don’t want to make waves. The problem is the practicality of it. I can’t give people more willpower to stand up on this. And sure I can go on with guilting myself or telling myself I’m doing some small amount of % harm reduction or telling myself I’m being principled, but it’s not helping me persuade anyone else or explain well to them why I’m doing it. Like what am I supposed to tell people? I’m seriously asking here. I don’t know and I don’t expect you to know either, but I really don’t know what to say to people about any of it. People are insistent on treating it as a thing you just sort of “move on from” at some point and I don’t know how to counter that. Should I yell at them about immunocompromised people? I’ve never tried that one. I honestly don’t know if it would move anyone.
I don’t know either, I really wish I did. Appealing to their morals doesn’t work. Appealing to their self-interest doesn’t work. Yelling at them about immunocompromised people definitely doesn’t work, maybe the least effective thing I’ve tried so far. Being visible and vocal in my workplace hasn’t worked. And people’s logic just goes round and round, you disprove one thing and they use it to justify some other misinformed take, and then you disprove that one and they move on to the next or bounce right back to where they started. It’s a never-ending cycle of cynicism and defeatism at best, and ableist, settler brainworms at worst. I wasn’t kidding when I said being nice doesn’t work, so now I’m just mean. At least that way I’m not biting my tongue off.
So what are we supposed to do? At least masking can have a positive effect at all. Who benefits from us not wearing a mask? The capitalists kind of benefit I guess, but even then I can’t see mass disabling your work force as beneficial to them, really. The only other people I can think of are those who choose to opt out of masking for their own personal comfort, trading their health and the health of those around them to avoid social pressure. Hell, it’s not exactly a material benefit, but least when I see people properly masking I can feel a little relief that anyone around me cares.
The only other thing I can think of is if you are the organizer for any sort of event or social gathering, require N95 respirators and strictly enforce that rule, kicking out anyone who takes theirs off or refuses to wear one. Agitating in gatherings you don’t organize is worth it too I’d say, though frankly I wouldn’t expect much in my experience. I guess if you can get your job to provide air filtration that would be good too, but again good luck if you already can’t get your coworkers on board.