Let’s talk about #labour, #capitalism, #marginalized ppl, and #COVID. Even without the pandemic, we know that the labour of marginalized communities is systemically undervalued. The burden of survival always falls on the #margins, not on the systems that #marginalize. 1/n

& now we r in the midst of a #pandemic & there are a disproportionate rate of mortalities for the marginalized & poor. There r also #COVID deaths that r not caused by the virus, but by #domesticviolence, #deathbysuicide, unemployment, starvation, exposure, desperation. 2/n

Ppl r talking about restructuring economic practices, shifting work systems online, adapting to an E-based world. This is being framed as a model w possibilities..ppl have gone as far as to say it is an opportunity for #marginalized folks to take up space in a different way… 3/n

…a way that was denied to us in a ‘traditional’ sense, where ‘space’ meant the ability to occupy spaces (social, economic) physically. That there is potential in this e-world to challenge notions of #power, to have increased access & visibility. 4/n

& so we also see an uptick in the number of online platforms talking about marginalizations. Myself, and a number of other #queer, #neurodivergent, #activist ppl have been approached by various orgs all pushing the language of radical change & woke visibilities. 5/n

…asking us to speak from our locus, educate, to use this opportunity to reach an audience in a unique ‘unprecedented’ way. There is a fairly popular adage now about how it is ‘physical distancing’ and not ‘social distancing’. 6/n

But here’s the thing – our marginalizations were always social. They manifested in the physical – literal space, life, death. But we have always been socially distanced from resources anyway, & a pandemic and webinars are not going to change that. 7/n

Our always-already social distance has impacted our ability to earn, our #labour is consistently undervalued, and the burden of advocating for ourselves falls solely on ourselves. 8/n

In this new format, one is obscuring the social distance with the language of change & progress, while #marginalized ppl are being asked to donate labour, advocate & defend themselves, ‘educate’ this brave new world… 9/n

…and are not being paid. To recap: ppl who have always been at the margins, have lost income, lost space, lost comrades in the pandemic, r being asked to do unpaid #labour, for the sake of an illusion of a new world order, superimposed on the same old neoliberal shit. 10/n

In fact, this shiny new online world obscures the #cishet #casteist #classist #ableist #neurotypical faultlines with rhetoric. It obscures a #nationalist agenda, that is (as it has always been) fulfilled by invisiblising and exploiting labour of the margins. 11/n

This is a new format for the for-profit commodification of trauma, at the literal cost of those that experience it. It’s just packaged as giving ppl a platform, which is ridiculous, since a lot of orgs profit by monetizing the margins. 12/n

This is all to say for fuck’s sake pay people. Pay people whose labour you use. Have some cognizance about who has been impacted most by this #pandemic. Do not use us, and our hard-won visibilities, to build your brand. 13/n

#SocialJustice looks like #EconomicJustice. Don’t claim one if you can’t do the other. 14/n