#onpoli
#onted
#COVID19ON
#OntarioisDying

If you follow me and you were pissed about playgrounds and you happen to be white (like me) and you're financially secure (like me), I'm going to say this at the risk of repeating something you've heard today already:

/1

The playgrounds are open because a giant wave of well-off white people (including many a PC voter) lost their collective shit yesterday. Ok, good. The shit should have been lost and it was and now the playgrounds are open.

/2

But where has that same energy been for the last fucking year!?!?!?!?

Or three years, for that matter!?!?

This Tammany Hall wannabe and his party of political rejects - that effectively won by default - have been pissing all over Ontario's rug since June 2018, ffs.

/3

I mean, this schmuck cut a billion dollars...a BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS!!!!...from public health, just 6 mths before the pandemic blew up, despite EVERYONE hating this move (even most of his own base).

And "comfortable" white people weren't saying shit, for the most part.

/4

But then the pandemic hit. And now those are hurting *you*, ya? Like when PHUs are so overrun that the inept PC gov closes parks as some type of ass-backwards Hail Mary play and that makes you "big mad", ya?

Me too. So we got mad and yelled a bunch and look: parks open.

/5

But you know what else is open?

The Amazon warehouse that packaged and shipped the fifty-third craft project you ordered to keep your kids entertained without a screen for at least twenty minutes. That's open.

So is the grocery store you Instacart your Fudgeos from.

/6

Ditto for the that many working in the warehouse and the grocery store use to get to work each day to ensure you get your stuff. It's "essential", right?

And no finger-pointing, here. I've ordered both crafts and Fudgeos *multiple times*.

It's been a year, after all.

/7

But all of that is open and no vaccines specifically for those workers. No guarantee that those we called heros exactly a year ago can be made safe from this malevolent virus. No #PaidSickDays for those that are the most vulnerable, those we keep referring to as "essential".

/8

So financially secure white people (like me), here's the deal: you can't shut up.

Sorry not sorry, but you can't.

Yes, you're tired. Yes, you're hurt. Yes, you're angry.

So is *everyone*.

/9

But you know what everyone isn't?
Financially comfortable and white.

You know what everyone doesn't have?
The immense amount of privilege and power that comes with both in our super-inequitable society.

/10

And that privilege and power is real. Look at the parks. Seriously.

The Ford government didn't change their mind because it was "the right thing to do" or because they had "new information".

They changed their mind because a bunch of well-off white people went ballistic.

/11

So use it! Use the privilege! Use the power! But not only for playgrounds. Use it for things far more consequential.

Use it to demand #PaidSickDays.
Use it to demand #EssentialWorkers get vaccinated.
Use it to demand smaller class sizes because #SafeSchoolsSaveLives.

/12

And if you're annoyed, if you're like "I do!", well, then I'm probably not talking to you. But I know most of us well-to-do white folk aren't. I know this bc the parks are open today & I saw who screamed about them being closed.

But those hero workers? Remember the cartoon?

/13

Not only do they not have paid sick days; not only do they not have vaccine priority; not only do they have to send their kids to classes that are jammed so that they can make ends meet.

On top of that, they're not even making a living wage. You know why?

/14

Bc the "hero pay" they got for a couple months got slashed.

Bc the @OntarioPCParty, as one of their first orders of business, slashed the one-dollar min wage pay increase.

(Oh...the meagre two paid sick days, too.)

/15

And you know what we didn't hear from most white peeps w/ when all of that happened?

The collectively vocalized, unified, and concentrated rage that leverages racial privilege and economic power to effect change.

So again: sorry not sorry.

Parks aren't good enough.

/16

Use your privilege & power to keep squeezing this government - *OUR* government - to serve the people it purports to represent.

Use it. Otherwise you're just like the guy that closed the parks because it was the easiest thing to do to avoid doing anything real at all.

/Bye