The use of viruses as a weapon
The first thing would be to understand the handling of eugenics that has been used against people marginalized and oppressed by the system. An example of organizing against this eugenics is the case of the Black Panther Party, which saw sickle cell anemia as a neglected genetic disease, because most of those affected were of African descent. A rapid detection test based on a simple finger prick existed, but it was not widely used. The Black Panther Party rectified this government failure by establishing a national screening program.
These eugenics have not happened only with HIV and it is happening now with COVID, but also for example with Lyme disease, there are writings made from the US of cases of migrants, especially poorer people. The science of the ruling class was used to disable and kill people, while they were told that they were depressed and lazy for not wanting to work, Leslie Feinberg, a militant who was also affected by this pandemic, writes: “Ruling classes have a long history of witch hunts to scapegoat the ill in response to epidemics of infectious disease, rather than to meet the needs of the population. Under feudal rule in what is now Europe, the bubonic plague was blamed on Jewish people charged with poisoning the water wells. During the early AIDS epidemic, gay and bisexual men were demonized for sexuality outside of coupled, monogamous, heterosexual marital relations.
Denial of the seriousness of the Lyme/+ public health crisis is a denial of materialist- based science. Once having run off the paved path of science, medical judgments about people who report illness, pain and disability have nowhere to travel except in the ruts of already deep historical prejudices. By denying the mass impact of Lyme plus its co-infections, the U.S. scientific establishment issues an open appeal to already existing bigotries to “explain” why so many are so ill. Without a scientific explanation, doctors too often fall back on pathologizing those who are oppressed based on race/nationality, sex, sexuality and gender expression. This creates more obstacles for those who are oppressed to access health care. People who are ill suffer denial of credibility, unemployment, poverty, lack of health insurance, institutionalized racism, the demand for identification papers, women’s oppression and other oppressions based on sexuality, sex and gender.” Casualty of an Undeclared War Series.
Vulnerable and non-vulnerable, the lie to feel safe
There is a widely accepted idea that there is a group of vulnerable people who need to take COVID seriously, but that the rest of the people, if they don’t fall into the immunocompromised category or have long COVID or are elderly, can simply ignore it. “It’s just a cold or flu.” Now, aside from being cruel and abandoning a bunch of people, a big part of society, it’s also wrong, and I think it just stems from the fact that most people know very little about COVID and don’t really understand what it’s doing in their body, how it works. They don’t know anything about it, to be honest. And one way I can demonstrate that is if I were to say, what cells does COVID infect? What is it doing in your body? Most people have no idea. It’s really not their fault. Public health is supposed to tell them that. But most people would tell you, I don’t know, or it infects your respiratory system, and that’s not true.
The reason comparing COVID to the flu is so infuriating is that the flu is a respiratory illness. It enters your respiratory system and infects respiratory cells practically, exclusively. Now, COVID infects things called ace receptors, and they’re all over our bodies. They’re in the lining of our blood vessels, they’re in our kidneys, they’re in our heart, they’re in our brain. They are practically everywhere. And so when someone says COVID feels like the cold or flu, I don’t really care how it feels. Your blood vessels have no nerves. There are several parts of your body that COVID can get into that don’t have nerves. When a disease feels a certain way, it’s usually your immune response. So, something that also feels like the flu is HIV. HIV presents with flu-like symptoms for two weeks, and then lodges in your immune system and works on it for years. So does the fact that HIV feels like the flu tell you a lot? No. Like HIV, COVID has several ways of dampening our immune system. So, another thing that people say is, I hardly felt anything. Well, great. Either your system fought it off very quickly and effectively, or if you don’t feel much, it’s because your immune system isn’t kicking in and it’s not fighting it off.
So, a lot of people are coming to this conclusion of, I keep getting this disease repeatedly and it doesn’t feel too bad. I must be fine. And what’s really happening is that it’s becoming like Russian roulette. It may be causing organ damage, it may be affecting your blood vessels, it may be affecting your brain. And each time it’s like rolling the dice. And this is not something that you can just do continuously. And people are getting COVID 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, times, there’s a point where long COVID is almost certain. If you get COVID twelve times or 15 or 20, there’s just no way it’s going to be good for you. Think about going backwards, before the pandemic. If someone said, I’ve had the flu 20 times in the last 20 years, you’d be alarmed. And that’s pretty much the story that many people will have. They’ll say, yes, I had COVID eight times in the last ten years.
Intersectionality
Sins Invalid, 10 Principles of Disability Justice
1. INTERSECTIONALITY Simply put, this principle says that we are many things, and they all impact us. We are not only disabled, we are also each coming from a specific experience of race, class, sexuality, age, religious background, geographical location, immigration status, and more. Depending on context, we all have areas where we experience privilege, as well as areas of oppression. The term “intersectionality “was first introduced by feminist theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe the experiences of Black women, who experience both racism and sexism in specific ways. We gratefully embrace the nuance that this principle brings to our lived experiences, and the ways it shapes the perspectives we offer.
3. ANTI-CAPITALIST POLITICS Capitalism depends on wealth accumulation for some (the white ruling class), at the expense of others, and encourages competition as a means of survival. The nature of our disabled body minds means that we resist conforming to “normative” levels of productivity in a capitalist culture, and our labor is often invisible to a system that defines labor by able-bodied, white supremacist, gender normative standards. Outworth is not dependent on what and how much we can produce.
7. COMMITMENT TO CROSS-DISABILITY SOLIDARITY We value and honor the insights and participation of all of our community members, even and especially those who are most often left out of political conversations. Weare building a movement that breaks down isolation between people with physical impairments, people who are sick or chronically ill, psych survivors and people with mental health disabilities, neurodiverse people, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, Deaf people, Blind people, people with environmental injuries and chemical sensitivities, and all others who experience ableism and isolation that undermines our collective liberation.
8. INTERDEPENDENCE Before the massive colonial project of Western European expansion, we understood the nature of interdependence within our communities. We see the liberation of all living systems and the land as integral to the liberation of our own communities, as we all share one planet. We work to meet each other’s needs as we build toward liberation, without always reaching for state solutions which inevitably extend state control further into our lives.
“Perhaps one of the most heartbreaking aspects of Long COVID and disability is that people generally assume that their loved ones will show up for them if they suddenly fall ill or need support, but for most disabled people, this just isn’t true. A remarkable amount of newly disabled people are shocked to find out that no matter how much you think people love you, your abilities and what you can offer people sometimes dictates their willingness to be around you. Under capitalism, a lot of our love is conditional, whether we recognize it or not.
When your abilities suddenly change, the context of your relationship to others changes, and in their eyes it might not be worth sticking around. When the terms of your relationship changes, that person you thought would never leave, might surprise you. Additionally, people sometimes don’t like to be around disabled people, including formerly able-bodied people because it serves as a reminder that no matter how healthy they are, they are not invincible, and this can, in fact, happen to them. For Long COVID patients it’s even further complicated by the fact that even mentioning COVID awakens an instinct to jump immediately into denial and deflection. It is not very socially acceptable anymore.
All of this information can be really overwhelming, especially when you’re surrounded by crowds of unmasked people. Ignoring COVID is more socially acceptable, but why, as an anarchist, communist, or just empathetic person do you feel the need to fit in? Is it because it’s convenient? Is it because it’s fun to go out to eat, or to concerts, and the world is so bad right now that having those social interactions feel necessary to you?
The answer to that question is yes- because we have normalized mass death, genocide, and war, and our rationale is that it’s okay to turn away from reality in order to protect our own mental wellbeing. You don’t get to ignore problems until they personally affect you.” TheCOVIDcollection. Fanzine
COVID SAFETY IS COMMUNITY CARE.
You may be suffering from cognitive dissonance if you’re advocating for liberation but ignore the intersectionality between disability justice, medical racism, and the disproportionate impacts of COVID on the most marginalized communities.
You are committed to left/anarchist/communist principles, harm reduction and community care... However, you don’t recognize the call to action from your disabled peers (or ignore it altogether). You believe in recognizing and practicing intersectionality... yet you ignore the intersectionality of struggles between disability justice, Palestine, and other liberation struggles in Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, and beyond.
GRIEF
Between 2020 and 2021, more than 14 million deaths (and more than the years that have passed until then). More than 8 million people have long covid. The world of capital prioritizes money over life, because it has been doing it for a long time, and it was not going to stop for this. Every day we are surrounded by oppression and suffering caused by capitalism and ableist eugenics.
There are fires everywhere, deaths, disability, and it’s overwhelming. And when we talk about masks and covid we see a dilemma: many find it difficult to stay emotionally connected and face a sense of insensitivity. We had tears, anxiety attacks and terrors in 2020 that were impossible to control, now most people look the other way with deaths and negligence with covid. But covid has not stopped, it is the world of capital that has once again made its propaganda.
It’s easy to feel guilt and shame about emotional insensitivity. However, there is a difference between types of numbness. There are those who feel perpetual emotional insensitivity, never having felt the weight of the world, and this is rooted in a lack of critical awareness, often linked to Western individualism and privilege. But there are also those who feel emotional insensitivity after carrying so much heaviness and pain, rooted in critical awareness and empathy.
It doesn’t mean that you’ve suddenly become a carefree, detached, and neglected human being. Emotional numbness can occur after periods of emotional flooding, which is when you’re overwhelmed by many intense emotions. This not only drains us emotionally, but also physically. Numbness can also be a coping mechanism. By becoming numb, we prevent more pain from entering our bodies. We may need this disconnect to regroup and process.
How else can we see it? It’s important to understand emotional numbness so we can talk about it and connect with others about our shared experiences. By being vulnerable and honest about what we’re feeling, we can destigmatize insensibility and collectively overcome any associated shame and guilt.
From this place, we can then discover, together, how not to get caught up in insensitivity and how to use it as a signal to step back, process, regroup, and recharge to move forward in our essential work for liberation. Think of emotionlessness as an emotion in itself, and embrace it to learn about yourself and your needs. Honor where you are, with an eye toward returning to the emotional world when you’re ready.
Just because you feel insensitive or de-responsible for covid deaths does not mean that you should act in this way. Convictions go above the terror and heavy and difficult emotions to which the system subjects us. Not because we feel apathetic should we act in an anti-solidarity way. Empathy is an individual construct that depends on many things, but we know that solidarity depends on one: conviction and the defense of our lives.
You probably don’t feel comfortable with the idea that people with cancer die because you don’t wear a mask, or chronically ill people, or children, or the elderly, or vulnerable people. Surely you do not feel comfortable with the idea that your anti-mask means that people become disabled or more disabled, that we must isolate ourselves 5 times more than the rest because the world left us behind.
But after the emotions since 2020 you don’t have to feel sadness for us, we don’t need sorrow, or crying, we need connection and care. Just because the world has made you see so much violence that you disconnect from emotions, does not mean that you should act in political consequence to it. It means that we must speak, connect from subjectivity and fight against eugenics. Let us not let the meanings of the world of oppression hold us back with our actions. It is not too late to act. Masking is a political practice of hope.
“We need to grieve. We have lived in a dire health crisis for far too long. Mourning has become a perfunctory ritual expected to take place in the margins of our days. Genocide reduces lives to statistics for us to inhale without complication; yet, so many of us have seen our communities shrink, grow tired and get sicker. For marginalized people across the world, each day has been doused in distress by the capitalist elites who are waiting for us to eagerly march into our own coffins.
Sometimes, there are no words left to say. But, we implore all of us to replace silence with screaming, sobbing, the sounds of grief. We deserve to feel devastated. We deserve to stop pedaling on through labyrinths of productivity and distraction. We deserve time to feel the pain we’ve been conditioned to fear feeling.
Hope requires grief. If we can’t mourn what has been taken from us, how can we begin to imagine what we can give to each other? How can we appreciate mourning when this grief is needless? How do we learn from this mourning when our sorrow is relentless? Mourning in grief requires gentle or sharp release, yet there is no release when our mourning persists. We want grief to be profound and not just a solitary experience we’ve been forced to adapt to and tolerate. In grief, we can connect to others. Grief remembers joy in our relationships and our humanity, and delivers ourselves to the purpose we live. Everyone deserves not only bare minimum safety, but also joy, depth, and community throughout their lives.
You can make the choice to stop abandoning the communities that you want to have solidarity with. Community is not just a word that liberal institutions espouse in order to form false unity and claim diversity. We must remember Mao’s assertion that “Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension.” To be in solidarity with your community means duty, sacrifice, and listening to the demands of those most vulnerable among us.
When we can allow ourselves to embrace slowness and take the time to look at the vast landscape of suffering that has been inflicted upon us, we must also acknowledge that or currently lifestyles are antithetical to the future we are working towards. As Mao Tse-tung wrote in Combat Liberalism, “To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue” is a type of liberalism.
The mass unmasking wave has caused irreparable harm, and we cannot allow that to continue. How can we say we prioritize community care if that care doesn’t include the health and safety of vulnerable communities? How do we intend to wage war on capitalist elites if we all grow weak and fatigued from never-ending re-infections?
The eleventh and final principle type of liberalism Mao Tse-tung concluded was “To be aware of one’s own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself.” To allow liberalism to win is easy. It demands no accountability for the ways those have rejected fact and reason. Yet there are people in your lives who have never stopped following safety guidelines, wearing a mask, and protecting their health and your health.
We want to see you alive in 30 years. We want to see you persist in the struggle. We want to see you resist the nihilistic acceptance of illness, death and constant grief as the standard of life. We can only live on to fight another day if we’re able to protect the health and safety of oppressed people everywhere.
Combating liberalism can look like taking a breath and recognizing the ways you’ve allowed state-sanctioned violence to pervade into your communities. The people will thank you, even if they don’t all understand just yet. Solidarity with community can start with putting on a mask in the presence of your loved ones and guide them as to why you have started to care again. And with that first step, we will welcome you back without shame, fold you in, if you will have us.” People’s Health Education Program, COVID IS NOT OVER FANZINE.
This is an excellent, thoughtful, all-encompassing piece. Thank you.🙏🏻