24January25 - Darling, put on the mask

Since early 2020, disability activists have been talking about the straight line cause-and-effect between mass disabling events like pandemics, and the rise of fascism. They showed us how the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic was crucial to the cascade of events that led to WWII. They warned us, over and over, that refusing to do everything we can to squash Covid-19 was going to accelerate our decent into fascism.

In the wake of the 2024 election, there was a movement among White Women Democrats to try to come up with a symbol that would show the world that they weren’t part of the 69% of white women who voted for Trump. That they were “safe” and “one of the good ones”.

They came up with wearing a blue bracelet.

Masks are right there. Masking is tangible, active, demonstrable proof that you care about the health and well being of your community. They also have the added benefit of shielding your face from surveillance.

Now we’re looking down the barrel of H5N1, and Trump has gagged all Health and Human Services departments nationally. All we have is ourselves.

Be antifash - wear a mask.