About Covid: if engaged in mutual aid and helping others do you think is there responsibility towards the people we're trying to help?

Submitted by gone_to_croatan in AskRaddle (edited )

Should we own the responsibility for endangering people who may be disabled, or are in a risk group like elderly, etc?

I am totally in middle here, because I agree wholeheartedly with this view but I don't want to impose (or force a consensus) mask wearing and other prevention measures.

My friend shared this concern and I totally felt they were correct and was my fault to "ignore" such issue. But then their justification was very moralistic, appeal to solidarity and mutual aid as mission to take care of others that asked our help and were living in bad conditions, etc.

First some of other friends shared their view as a negationist(not the antivaxx type but more akin to those plandemics and crust punks). I supported their point by saying that this can't be mandatory or imposed to the other volunteers engaged in our mutual aid.

At the end there was a "fabricated" consensus around this moralistic view.

Ps: fuck! how tiresome can be this shit sometimes...
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bloodrose wrote

Should we own the responsibility for endangering people who may be disabled, or are in a risk group like elderly, etc?

I mean, one should own responsibility for all of their own actions, no? I am not visiting my mom until I get my booster because I'm worried about getting her husband sick - when he had pneumonia a few years back, it was really awful for him and he's in his 70s so I should be responsible. However, I'm not a cop. If my brother choses to see my mother and she agrees to have him over, that's their prerogative. I just won't be the one responsible for bringing something unsafe to my mother and possibly damaging her husband.

I don't know how to apply this logic to a group. I wouldn't lead a group so my brain just doesn't go there...

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gone_to_croatan OP wrote

Yeah you got the dilemma, the group dynamics is something that I am struggling particularly.

I totally agreed with you and my friend that raised the flag, what bothers me is pushing a consensus where clearly wasn't any, enforcing a moralistic view for the sake of moral. In this case I was arguing for the collective responsibility to be broke and each individual chosing their stance, but logically this would defeat the purpose and efforts of some people taking care and other don't.

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Tequilx_Wolf wrote

Do you have a specific example? For me it's just about measuring the risks in the specific context and then responding.

Are you talking about helping elderly people who are not willing to wear masks / get vaccinated / go outside? Depends on the kind of help and other factors.

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gone_to_croatan OP wrote

It's a community dinner and winter clothes distribution, and usually the elderly and homeless people are the ones getting aid.

But the issue was to stablish this covid protocol for the volunteers. The people coming would be free to follow (or not) any cares they like

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Tequilx_Wolf wrote

Bringing strangers together in an enclosed space on its own is probably an issue given how infectious especially omicron is. I assume this event is not happening outside? Is there any way to do this in an open-air space? I don't know what the temperature is like where you are.

I think it is fair to ask the volunteers to mask up, and even to ask visitors to mask up while they are not eating. But I don't think I could know enough about the situation to say whether you should tell volunteers or others not to come if they don't wear a mask.

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gone_to_croatan OP wrote

Thanks for the insights :)

We are doing It open air by night, temperatures going down as 4°C.

Maybe I was bothered by my own lack of understanding of the issue, bc I already knew that taking care was the only possible thing to do, the saviour complex hinted by friend gave me something to think.

The ambient is loosely anarchist, and some of the people are antivaxx so the group dynamics made me confused

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lettuceLeafer wrote (edited )

I think it depends on what u are doing but requiring people to do a certain amount of covid procedure is the most self serving thing to do.

This situation is or is close to a zero sum game. You either have covid precautions or you don't. If you implement the covid precautions you loose people who don't want to do them. If you don't do covid precautions you will loose those who don't want to engage in such a thing. Also if an at risk person relies on the service they prob won't be happy that you are putting the in a situation where they have to risk their life to get help.

So I say self serving in this regard as it is more effective to keep the people who are willing to take precautions to harm disabled people less and getting rid o those who don't. So by not having covid precautions you will loose people who are more useful for mutual aid and anarchist activities than those u kept.

If say to try and keep the best of both worlds. Say you have to wear a mask and mostly social distance or whatever you plan is. Then add a different option for those who don't. You only meet with them outside or do dead drops for giving the stuff or whatever.

I guess I see it as you are at a crossroads where you either loose people with better disability politics or people with worse disability politics. Choosing to be people with better disability politics will be associating with people who are more likely to cause less problems in regard to ableism.

Also if I had boundaries with how much risk I was willing to put people with a mutual aid program and someone didn't like my boundaries so they have me an ultimatum to try and change my boundary I wouldn't consider changing it. Tho I don't think it sound like that is the case for you.

Edit: this isn't a zero sum game but I simplified the issue to one so it's way easier to get my point across

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gone_to_croatan OP wrote

I get want you said about the 0-sum game, and like I said to bloodrose don't make sense some people taking care and others don't.

Like we choose to act by consensus or whatever, the covid measures where agreed upon discussion, but I played devil's advocate there bc the solely moralistic argument about it made me doubt for a sec. I don't understand enough about Ableism and it's relationship with politics to build a better argument.

I am not worried about volunteers splitting in 2 factions tho, but some of the elderly we attend are very antivaxx.

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