“Most people in my life acknowledge what COVlD has stolen from me, but do little to nothing in preventing it from happening to themselves or the next person. Finding community with other disabled people online has given me my power back.” Behind the @3M Aura N95 is Venus Justice @cisgusted who nearly lost their life to COVlD.
“I’ve mostly done warehouse jobs since 2021. The end of that year was my first COVID infection, which brought me closer to death than I knew was possible. It is amazing in all the worst ways how little ventilation and air filtration is offered to people who are breaking their bodies to meet the unrealistic and inhumane expectations on the job. So not only am I wearing a mask to resist viruses like COVlD, I do it to protect my lungs against everything else floating around me from the packages and machinery every day, and I advocate online because each COVlD infection has set my life back by months at a time.
I also mask up to avoid being a part of the infection chain that takes another person’s life, knowing that asymptomatic infection is incredibly common. I have lost many people in my life to health complications, mostly of the heart and the lungs. When the pandemic was first announced, I was home in rural Missouri. I live in a house full of immunocompromised people, including myself. With my mom being in remission from cancer, I knew I had to take it upon myself to learn as much as I could to keep my folks alive, so that’s what I did. The imagery of bodies being placed into refrigerated trucks outside of hospitals on the news is something that’s still on my mind today.”
Thank you Venus for sharing your voice to support #MaskTogetherAmerica Prevention is about health equity. Masking is about love and community care.
We deserve better than to keep reinfecting each other over and over again with things we know are preventable. We have the tools to keep each other safe! It’s up to us to value each other’s lives enough to make consistent use of those tools.
Ask yourself, can you afford any unpaid sick days right now? With our healthcare hanging in the balance, can you afford to be (further) disabled? If you’re a “just mask when sick” type, do you know that 49% of COVID infection is *asymptomatic?
*asymptomatic means with no noticeable symptoms, as in no fever/cough/sneezing/etc, where the infected person nor the people around them have any idea they’re infectious
#covidconscious #covidcautious #stillcoviding
We deserve better than to keep reinfecting each other over and over again with things we know are preventable. We have the tools to keep each other safe! It’s up to us to value each other’s lives enough to make consistent use of those tools.
Ask yourself, can you afford any unpaid sick days right now? With our healthcare hanging in the balance, can you afford to be (further) disabled? If you’re a “mask when sick” type, do you know that 49% of COVID infection is asymptomatic?
#covidcautious #covidconscious #stillcoviding
Saw the sweetest comment thread of requests for a video like this, so: I will not leave you behind for those who still need to be convinced. That is the commitment I’m making to you if we’ve been in this together. We are not pain receptacles, we are humans struggling against being discarded. We are allowed to build collective power within each other through expressing exactly that. And I noted while editing this that I was using this language of “and then get back to the work” but I want to affirm that I view exactly these kinds of conversations with each other as doing the work just as well! As we all have heard from others, or maybe even from ourselves at a previous point, one of the biggest reasons for dropping COVID consciousness is “everybody else stopped” / “I was one of the only maskers left.” I made this video lengthier and with less editing so that it could feel more like how a conversation with me in-person would if you needed emotional support, and reaffirmation of our shared commitment to each other! I was sitting next to my fishin spot for the first bit, so you know I was speaking from the heart😁🫶🏽
For the next 20-ish hours, you can tune into my long ass story to hear me complain about my own struggles in maintaining connections with community. Who at one point met me halfway on COVID, and then didnt. Not content, just my life. If you recognize yourself in any of them… ok but did I lie?
In the face of public health collapse, and a culture of endless cruelty and collective abandonment in its place, why choose to police those who are trying to make noise and sound the alarm… regardless of how much their tone hurts the ears that have been massaged by comforting lies. Considering this is an issue that literally spreads socially, we cant get out of this without changing the culture we’re socializing in. Every step of the way to where we are has been unbelievably violent, and the people who haven’t turned away from facing it alone aren’t even allowed to scream?? The “people-centered” orgs cant even care to acknowledge this unbelievable grief???
For International Long Covid Awareness Day, I’m sharing a piece of what my new normal became post-infection. Only a portion because it’s a low energy day and I would not have had the energy to speak or edit for the amount of time it would take to go through it all in one video😅 The best time to become aware of how much even one infection can have long lasting health consequences was years ago, the second best time is now. Masking in public spaces, air filtration, ventilation, testing before gatherings, and vaccination are community care. There’s still time to take care of each other!
#oneofthetwo #blackanddisabled #covidcautious #longcovid #longcovidawarenessday
Now that we’re talking about how those AI glasses are just another layer of big tech surveillance and privacy violations, we should remember that Doja Cat played a huge role in laundering their image through participating in their holiday ad campaign… and @elleusa helped her
AHHHH I picked this book today and it turned out to be a gift within a gift!
Thank you to @fierceblackfemme for writing, to @crutches_and_spice for narrating my listening experience, and to Daniel Boone Regional Library for the access🙏🏽
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#blackanddisabled #blackdisabilitypolitics #disabilityjustice
I locked in and did it, y’all!! Which means I’m ahead of schedule, AND top of my class right now🤭 Onto the Medical Billing portion, starting tomorrow🙏🏽 Happy BHM to all my niggas who were pushed out of traditional college but didn’t let that be the end of our education🗣️‼️
