Response to Black Women Radicals disposability during Disability Pride Month
From my Medium archive | July 2022. If you appreciate my writing please consider supporting me.
This disability pride month I’m going to talk about being blocked by a large account that profits off of historical Black women.
What excuses can be made for not making events accessible, offering live-streaming, enforcing N95 mask wearing and negative PCR tests for in person events?
Upon seeing quite a few mutuals share a post from Black Women Radicals about an upcoming Defend Black Women March, I looked into it a bit more closely. I wasn’t seeing any mention of COVID protocols, nor any concern as monkeypox and BA.5 cases continue to rise, drastically undercounted. So I added my own comments to my story to which I was immediately blocked:
When are leftists or progressives going to acknowledge that gatherings like these are simply not safe?
During Disability Pride Month, let’s talk about some of the most common autoimmune conditions that are particularly at higher risk of dying (and have died) from COVID during this pandemic. It is so fucking exhausting to see people act like this pandemic does not have consequences, and further, as if Black people are not being impacted at staggering and disproportionate rates.
The way the government responded to HIV and AIDS in the 80s is a copy and paste response to what we are witnessing with SARS-COV2. Black people of marginalized genders are those who experience the most harm due to the medical industrial complex and often lack resources to care for their material needs.
When you call shit out — and people who have organized with you, have admired your work, have called you “comrade”– don’t like that shit… well. The reactionary responses are incredibly revealing.
They talk about wanting to be engaged in “principled struggle” but then blocked a disabled person for concerns about encouraging cross country and international travel during multiple pandemics.
Does that seem principled to you?
Some one-off direct actions have been more impactful than this. Over the past week, I have heard many stories about these “organizers” who refuse to listen and meaningfully engage with further marginalized community members. This is a pattern, not an isolated incident. If by naming this, I am perceived as “divisive” and “antagonistic,” then so be it.
What theory of change will be solved by a march? It feels like M4BL and Women’s March funders just hit copy + paste. Having academics and celebrities part of these “radical” archiving and organizing projects should make all of us question: who is continuing to be erased?
It is disingenuous to talk about Disability Pride Month and gloss over the contradiction of inviting people to gather during global pandemic(s), ones that are disabling and killing people, at that.
Why do some of you encourage (or better yet, observe and not speak on) your friends co-opting politics that they do not embody? Are you aware that this brings skepticism to your politic and practices as well?
It is unfortunate to know that disabled people are being tokenized in these “organizations” while simultaneously, further marginalized people are belittled and dismissed because they are not certified™️experts.
It is disgusting to use Black death as a performance for your own class aspirations. We cannot ignore our way out of fascism and eugenics. How much money is being directed to academics and celebrity “organizers” to ignore the material conditions of marginalized people?
We can organize in a principled way without further putting our communities at risk. A disability justice politic is not merely posting about a month where disability is supposedly celebrated. If you deny what is currently happening, then you cannot properly assess and determine what is “safe.” Stop harming others with your internalized ableism.
I don’t compromise with abusers, fascists, or any type of ideologies and practices aligned with them.
After asking two questions under a post of a person that mutually followed me, this was the only response received from anyone affiliated with BWR:
Nevermind that this response was disingenuous and flat out untrue — that I have not made “any efforts to be in direct conversation,” — even though I was blocked, as seen above. This person’s response was in fact, ableist as fuck. I spent that entire day boiling water because I received a notice that there’s an E. coli contamination that has not been rectified as of yet. (Yes, I have been boiling water for the past few days.) Do you know how many often I interact with other people? I basically see my friends once a season and only leave my house for body work. Just because I am not out and about, unmasked speaking at events and the like, does not mean that I have “free time.” That shit is ableist. I absolutely DO have time to respond to being disrespected. I don’t tolerate that shit and I do my best to practice my politic. Calling me “disillusioned?” Go to hell.
What’s funny is that is NOT about me. This person made this about me. I asked a question, out of concern for Black disabled folks — specifically those in Chocolate City who have had thousands of people come to their city to protest for bodily autonomy, while not wearing masks — who may have been invited or encouraged to attend these events that are being advertised while BA.5 and Monkeypox cases are RISING and drastically undercounted.
If they have been working with a COVID-19 committee and consulted with an epidemiologist for a year — enforcing or making PCR tests available so that people can submit negative test results within 24 hours prior to the event — should have been doable. They could have sent attendees PCR tests ahead of time and created an online portal for folks to submit their negative PCR test results. They could have coordinated a designated team of folks throughout the march who distribute masks and enforce masking. They did not publicly state any COVID protocols until asked, and still not even doing the bare minimum, which would have included live-streaming this event for high risk community members. This indicates that they do not have relationships with Black disabled feminists who are extremely vulnerable and if they do, they are exploitative — I would not be surprised if those further marginalized were subject to the same belittling, gaslighting, and ableist dynamics that many movement spaces enable.
If this is how you treat people that you don’t know, how are disabled people treated in your “radical” spaces? You all are full of shit. We are tired of Black queer and trans disabled folks being treated like shit while the more “desirable,” lightskinned, negrosie aid the state in its restabilization on the backs of those further marginalized than them. BLM, M4BL, BYP100, it’s the same handful of affiliated folks reshuffling to form a new “radical” project that improves material conditions for no one but themselves. Good luck with that
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