this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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Thought this might spur some decent discussion. Lots of libs in the comments but a few good points made.

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[–] mononoke@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

E.g. fund free masks, mandate masks within leftist organizational spaces, inform without distancing oneself from the masses.

Have you tried doing any of this? Because I have, frequently, along with a bloc of like-minded people, a "mask bloc" if you will, and for 6 years very consistently the attitude among individuals attending protests, demonstrations around my city, and the various organizations that participate in them has been that I am secretly a fed trying to sow discord, I'm bougie for still caring, or that I'm simply a wrecker to be disregarded, and at best, they will tune me out. What other conclusion am I to draw from this reaction? This poster in the linked thread has the right of it:

... the left has always been shockingly terrible on disability awareness/advocacy, and there's a large overlap between that and paying attention to COVID.

We're propagandized from birth to essentially ignore everything related to public health unless you're "at risk" - it's blatantly eugenics propaganda, but the reality is that most people aren't going to confront that until it tangibly personally affects them.

and as everyone loves saying, you are not immune to propaganda. Someone else in the thread posted this, which I also agree with:

Ableism is the most acceptable discrimination ...

Not a single person or group I have worked with IRL that has not already made masking and mitigating COVID a core foundation of their praxis has budged on this in the last half-decade, and it's not because I'm wrong. I wish I was! Thankfully, I believe everyone will come around eventually whether they want to or not, because this level of reckless disregard for health and the constant spread of illness not materially sustainable. The trends since 2020 are consistent and there is a single throughline: COVID negligence. I just wish people would stop being complete nobs about it in the meantime, to put my feelings very, very lightly.

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I completely believe you, and agree it’s frustrating. The normalization of Covid is something to criticize.

Disappointment is something to be used to as someone trying to steer a ship against an ocean swell of propaganda. If it’s not disappointment about Covid, it will be about the latent (or blatant) chauvinism among western socialists. Or lack of intersectionality among groups that really should be able to connect their own struggle with another.

Fixating on this disappointment is counter-revolutionary and I don’t see anything useful coming from a Reddit post complaining about “leftists” writ-large, telling people that fighting is useless, telling people to stop showing up to the organizations in which they participate.

[–] mononoke@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Fixating on this disappointment is counter-revolutionary and I don’t see anything useful coming from a Reddit post complaining about “leftists” writ-large, telling people that fighting is useless, telling people to stop showing up to the organizations in which they participate.

This would be something worth expanding on if the simple act of merely showing up was accessible, but it's not, and it's due to the actions of the masses which refuse to change! That's the point! For someone like me who is immunosuppressed, who is very vulnerable to severe complications from this virus (though no one is immune, is also the point), I am effectively locked out of participating in a movement that is supposed to be my movement until everyone else gets their act together. "We keep us safe," after all, but do you really? Do you see the problem? Should I just sit at home, then? Does your movement truly speak for me, among the lowest of us, if this is the case? No one can answer these questions. I am already being told not to show up, but not by the Reddit libs.

[–] gayspacemarxist@hexbear.net 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Have you tried doing any of this? Because I have, frequently, along with a bloc of like-minded people, a "mask bloc" if you will, and for 6 years very consistently the attitude among individuals attending protests, demonstrations around my city, and the various organizations that participate in them has been that I am secretly a fed trying to sow discord, I'm bougie for still caring, or that I'm simply a wrecker to be disregarded, and at best, they will tune me out.

Not to be a dick, but it kind of sounds like you all need to refine your approach to talking to people about masking and figure out how to develop a lot more patience because pushing people to change is really hard.

I agree that we need to be better about masking, I agree that orgs could put more emphasis on encouraging people to mask at their events, but it's also true that we have limited attention and resources. Realistically, we need disciplined and well organized pro masking groups to show up in coalition, with other groups, to provide resources and education in a conducive way.

Meeting people where they're at honestly sucks, but if we actually want to reach them, what alternative is there?

[–] mononoke@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Not to be a dick, but it kind of sounds like you all need to refine your approach to talking to people about masking and figure out how to develop a lot more patience because pushing people to change is really hard.

We have had 6 years and many, many events to refine and tailor our approach. I can tell you with confidence there is no approach that works better than any of the others. If there was something, anything that worked, we would know and would be doing it by now. We've tried being militant, we've tried being patient, we've tried "meeting people where they are," and all of this has had the same efficacy and staying power: zero. We provide everything along with guidance, and we are ignored while business goes on as usual. We give the means to independently assess and handle risk to each individual or group, and we are ignored while business goes on as usual. I am all ears for any actual experience you may have with this!