Melba Martinez
Pacoima California
“I use the term “marginalized” because I think oftentimes we are literally sometimes pushed into the margins. Like, if you look at geographically where people of color and poor people live, like, literally pushed into the margins of communities.”
Ryan Roach: Could you just let us know who you are and how you identify?
Melba Martínez: My name is Melba. I identify as a part of a lot of different communities. I identify as a fat, queer, Xicanx, dyke, anti-racist abolitionist, anti-capitalist, very radical, left-leaning politically person.
I am an artist as well as a cultural and community organizer. I have been organizing since I was like 14 or 15 years old. I grew up in Pacoima, California, which is in the northeast San Fernando Valley northeast of Los Angeles. I do a lot of work around empowering my community. I worked as a community organizer for three and a half years here in Pacoima and the Northeast Valley area, which is a low income community of color. My art revolves around a lot about body and community. I’ve made stuff around queer family and what that looks like, and what that means for me. Also what my body feels like to me and being at home, those are a lot of themes that my art work revolves around. And my art is very, like, DIY rasquache, as we say in Xicanx studies, and community based. I try to involve my family and stuff when I can.
RR: What has your experience been like during the pandemic?
MM: It’s been a lot. It’s been up and down. The last, like, 16 months for me have been really a period of change and challenge in general since February of last year. So 2019, in February, I was promoted. I went from being a community organizer in my neighborhood. I was offered the position to run our community arts program for the non-profit that I worked for. So I moved out from living with my parents in the community that I had grown up with to living in South Central in a queer and trans, Black and brown co-op with seven other people – at times six. It kind of shifted. Then, being the director of this program, being upper management, so dealing more of a nine-to-five schedule.
So I was dealing with all of that. I was managing it, and then, in July of last year, I was hired to perform as a go-go dancer at a Pride party in San Francisco. I stayed with a friend and we went to Santa Cruz after I stayed for a week. And on our drive from Santa Cruz back to her house in Oakland, we were in a really bad car accident. We were rear ended by an 18-wheeler, and that spiraled my life into chaos. And I ended up quitting my job. I realized a lot of things I didn’t like, and I also didn’t receive much support. Three months after I had gone back to work, my boss explained to me what my options were in terms of me taking time off. At that point, I had already been in and out of the doctor’s office. I had lost a ton of money just in time and in terms of work that I couldn’t do. At that point, I was just upset. I quit my job. A lot of things were happening. That was at the end of October, and then I decided to move back in with my parents because at that point I was also really depressed. I struggle with depression and anxiety, and, as one of my therapists explained to me, that my depression comes always as a result of a reaction to something. So six months after this car accident, I was in one of the deepest depressions that I’ve been in in the last five years. So I moved in with my parents.
I moved back in with my parents in January of this year, so COVID and all the shutdown started in March. I had just started to get my life back together. I had gotten a new job. I was literally interviewing to be an educator at a museum. I was going to be doing Spanish tours at the museum. First, I moved on to the second interview, and then the museum shut down. And I was taking classes again to finish my degree – at this point I need one more class, and at that point I needed two. And I was going to school in person at Cal State Northridge. Shifting to online was really stressful. In the past, I had not finished the first time around because of depression and because I just could not finish. I had taken the classes, I just had not passed them. And so thankfully this time I was only doing the one class and I did finish it and I got an A in the class. So that’s been a high in the middle of all of this hecticness. COVID has forced me to take time off and it’s helped me heal. I was dealing with a shoulder injury from that car accident and it didn’t fully heal until – I mean, I still get flare ups, but it’s been doing a lot better because I’m resting. So, in a way, that’s been helpful. It’s been a time of rest and a time of healing, of allowing me to really nest into my space and nest into this move.
At the same time, it’s been really stressful. I lost my job. I had been working with a street team that promotes arts and cultures events, and every event we promote is 100 people or more. So soon as COVID was declared a global pandemic, we shut down. We shut down that week.
So since March I’ve been unemployed. It took me three and a half months to finally get unemployment. I did thank God! That’s helped with my stress. So there’s been ups and downs. It’s really hard for me to say this because I know so many people are struggling a lot more than I am. I’m super privileged to have an open and safe relationship with my parents, and to have a space in my parents’ home that I can be in, and that’s helped me a lot. My parents own their home and that is a privilege, you know? I don’t have to worry about rent every month. Like, I just have to worry about my car payment, my phone bill, and my food, and that has allowed me to use some of this time to heal. But, again, I know that that’s a privilege and I know that that’s not what is happening for everyone. It also has been stressful because, like I said, I had no income. Thankfully for the internet, I was able to do some stuff through the internet and make a little bit of money. And now I’m receiving unemployment, but I’m still terrified because I know I’m not going to have a job, I know, until next year and maybe even the year after that. Because it just seems like everything gets pushed and pushed.
So a lot of adapting to everything, but also a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. The first couple weeks – one of the closest grocery stores to us is a Costco. In the area that I live in, there’s, like, five grocery stores in our entire community, and one of those is a Costco. And so I waited in line for an hour and a half. You know those weeks that everything was really hectic, and it was such an intense and anxiety-inducing experience that I had to talk to my family and be like, “I can’t go grocery shopping for the next month. I would really appreciate it if you all can do it. And I will help in other ways around the house and pick up some of that slack, but I can’t leave the house right now. Like, my anxiety is just through the roof and being around people is through the roof.” And thankfully I have that.
RR: What has your day-to-day been like during the pandemic?
MM: It’s changed. The first couple weeks I slept a lot. The depression kicked in and I was just sleeping to the point where my family asked if I was sick, and I was like, “No, just tired and sad and angry and trying to sleep all of that off.” I slowly started to organize and clean. Mess and clutter are really big parts of my depression. It’s so hard for me to do laundry or clean, so, like, I just don’t. It’s the last thing I care about.
And usually I have all these other things to distract me from that mess. I’m not a homebody. I love going out. I’m super social. You know, in a weekend I’ll attend, like, six to eight events and being, like, in my space has forced me to kind of confront that a little bit more. So in the last six months, I’ve – and originally I wasn’t planning on, like, being at my parents’ long term. I was like, “Oh, like, I’ll take six months to, like, you know, get my life back together and decide what path I’m trying to move into and then move out,” so I hadn’t even unpacked shit. I was like, “I’m just gonna leave things in boxes.” COVID has changed that. Now, I’m probably going to be here for a little bit longer than I had expected and I’ve actually, like, nested. It’s given me time.
I think there’s been so many phases to COVID. I think about it before the uprisings and after the uprisings because that’s really changed a lot of the way that I use my time. But I was doing a lot of, like, the Zoom parties and attending those on the weekends and hosting those as well. I was able to work with three queer fat artists to do photo shoots and then video shoots as well through Zoom, and do some art. I’ve been able to focus on tie dyeing and dyeing clothes and sewing. I’m learning how to sew. Every day is very different. I’ve been watching a shit ton of TV. [Laughs]. I absolutely love TV and have just binge watched. [Laughs]. I am currently watching Shameless and I have watched a season a day, and it’s 12 episodes. So I like a lot of TV. I don’t like reading and I don’t admit this often. I’m a very slow reader and not a very patient person. So the fact that I can’t read quickly frustrates me, so I’d rather watch documentaries. Or, like, I have a lot of zines, you know? I like shorter stuff that I can get through quickly. But my day-to-day changes – it just depends: spend time on the internet talking to friends, check in with folx every once in a while, spending time outside. I’m really privileged and lucky to have outdoor space, gardening. I’ve been learning how to propagate plants.
Well another thing that happened. It’s been a hectic five months or however long it’s been. My grandmother is 90 years old and she ended up in the hospital – not COVID related, other stuff – and she got really sick and now she’s in hospice. So for the last month and a half, she’s been in hospice. My family decided to take her into one of my uncles’ houses instead of in the hospital. She had a mental breakdown when she was in the hospital because we couldn’t go visit her and she got really desperate. She pulled all of the machines off, like the I.V. out. She tried to walk out of the hospital because we weren’t going to visit her. And because everyone’s wearing the PPE, she got really scared. So they let us actually start visiting her in the hospital. Then, a couple of days later, they let us bring her to one of my uncle’s houses, and we’ve been taking shifts providing care for her. So that’s also changed my day-to-day, because one night a week I have a night shift with my mom and we’re providing hospice care for my grandma, and then the next day I sleep all day. And that has shifted my schedule. I don’t really have a day-to-day, and I usually don’t. That’s kind of just the person that I am. Every day looks different and I take it differently.
RR: What has your experience been like coping during the pandemic?
MM: Yeah, I smoke a lot of weed. [Laughs]. That calms me down and it helps with my pain a lot. When I have the energy for it, I have been trying to do a lot of really cool online classes that I usually don’t get to. I got to take a ballet class with a fat ballerina, which, like, eight-year-old Melba dreamed of being a ballerina. So, like, getting to take my first ballet class at, like, 27 made my heart so full. A friend teaches Zumba. She’s a trans woman and teaches, like, really cool Zumba. So I’ve been doing that every once in a while.
Like I said: TV and talking to friends. Talking to friends has helped, although sometimes talking to friends is hard. Because it’s like, there’s not much to talk about, you know? There’s not much happening. And I was talking to a friend, and I was like, “I feel like when I talk to my friends, it sometimes makes me more sad because all we have to talk about is all this scary, fucked up shit that’s happening.” But it still helps, like, just connecting with people and checking in and checking in with them. Making art helps a lot. It helps to at least distract me and focus on something else. Sometimes I’m like, “Oh, I haven’t thought about COVID for a moment there. Forgot we were in a global pandemic for the last hour that I spent, like, trying to dye this thing or trying to learn this new thing.”
RR: Before you mentioned that you’re not a homebody and the other day you mentioned you’re involved in the nightlife scene in L.A. and that you have been hosting an event called Jiggle online. Can you tell us a little bit about that event and how the nightlife scene in L.A. has changed during the pandemic?
MM: So I love house and techno music, so I’m really into the underground scene in L.A. Right now, I’ve seen a decline in like the Zoom parties, but I saw the majority of my friends transition to Zoom parties or, like, doing live sets on Instagram or Twitch or YouTube even.
With Jiggle, Jiggle came about for me because of the amount of fatphobia that I was seeing specifically around COVID, you know? We’re seeing, like, medical fatphobia with a shortage of beds and ventilators. If you’re fat, you are considered that you don’t have as high of a quality of life, right? You’re not going to be the person to receive the bed most likely, or the ventilator. And that’s fucking scary. That adds to the anxiety. Also, all these people that are worried about gaining weight because they’re at home and eating food because that’s all there really is to do right now. So seeing all of that, I needed to feel connected to my fat community, which normally I hike with a group of fat folx or I go to events where I know there will be other fat folx. So being at home I didn’t really have that, even though a lot of my fat community was built online, which I think is what helped Jiggle also happen.
So Jiggle is a fat, LGBT, dance, online, virtual party. You don’t have to dance. You could just listen to music. What I love about Jiggle is that I think it has been able to happen because it’s online. Because I can’t imagine being able to put a downpayment on a venue to create a fat queer space only. There’s a lot of us, but there’s not that many of us to be able to host, like, a big, real party in person. So I think really Jiggle has been able to happen because COVID has forced us to think of other ways.
You know, I had never thought about having a virtual party until COVID. I had thought about having fat-only, fat and queer events, but every time I had thought about it, I was like, “Well, it can be, like, fat and queer centered. But in order to make it fat and queer exclusive, it has to be at a really small venue. It can’t be what I imagined, what I dream of it to be.” Like, the only times I’ve been in fat and queer spaces have been at conferences. Closed fat and queer spaces don’t happen very often. And then, moving digitally, it’s that and then accessible as well, right? In terms of finding a venue that is wheelchair accessible, that is fat friendly, and has fat friendly bathrooms, that is a really big challenge that I’m sure is doable but it just would have been a lot more work than what Jiggle has been. And it’s been cool. I mean, I know a lot of fat DJs, and so it also came out of that. I want to do what I can to help folx have an income. And folx have been able to make money from Jiggle. We don’t charge a cover fee: It’s all donation based and it all goes to the DJs. And it’s been really fun to have two hours to literally just jiggle, to just move your body in whatever way you want to with other fat queer folx with no sense of judgments, and a space where we can truly just be happy for a little while and forget about all the fucked up shit that’s going on outside of our computer screens.
RR: We saw on your Instagram, and you mentioned the other day, that during the pandemic and prior to the pandemic that you’ve done a lot of nude modeling. I think in general a lot of people are just not comfortable modeling nude. Can you tell us a bit about your experiences and why you enjoy nude modeling?
MM: Yeah. So the first time that I modeled nude was maybe like four years ago. But even before then, I guess I’ve always been really comfortable just being very naked. Ever since I was a little, I’ve loved running around in my underwear. I love clothes, but I also love being naked. And then four years ago I saw in a Facebook group called “L.A. Fatties” that someone posted they were looking for folx to come be part of a nude glitter shoot. And it was here – it was in North Hollywood, which is like 15 minutes away from where I live. I was like, “Fuck it, why not? It’s worth it.” I was like, “Let me push myself out of my comfort zone and do something new.” And I went and I did that. And there was a wide range of body types, and I literally walked in and there’s already naked folx getting painted. Like, I had brought a thong and I had brought pasties, but everyone was like, no pasties, you know? It was really awesome.
Even just here with my family, like, my family has gotten used to seeing me naked all the time or, like, semi-naked. They know that if I’m in my room, I’m
probably not wearing clothes. And personally I have felt very disconnected from my body. I grew up feeling that my fat body couldn’t do a lot of things that I’m now learning that I can do. There is some discomfort I think at first with being naked in front of other people. But it’s just skin. It’s just skin and flesh.
And I think it’s really funny how people react to it, and how this idea around nudeness being such a big deal when that’s literally how we’re born. Seeing myself in pictures – looking at myself in the mirror – this is the bag of meat that holds me. That’s what it is. Just someone decided, you know, some bags of meat are more desirable than others. It’s helped me realize like, “Oh shit, like, I’m hot, you know? Like, oh shit.” [Laughs]. Like, I enjoy looking at myself.
There is a fear a lot of times that comes with being bigger – and with all bodies. Fat phobia affects everyone. It doesn’t just affect fat people. It affects fat people in a different way, but it affects everyone. Like, it makes everyone question – like, I don’t know a single person that has not once looked at themselves in the mirror and not seen something that they’re not happy with, you know? I mean that’s not just fat phobia, it’s a lot of other things. But fatphobia affects us all. It affects fat people in more of a direct way and in a way like we are the ones that are discriminated against and actually deal with other repercussions of fat phobia, like more of the systemic repercussions. But at the end of the day it affects everyone. And so my nude modeling has helped me deal with my own internalized fatphobia. It’s helped me find
community too, ‘cause a lot of other fat folx are like, “Oh my God my body looks just like that,” and like, “I feel this way about it and seeing yours like helps me.” Which is cool, you know? This connection is nice. Sometimes it brings bad attention on the internet. I block a lot of men all the time. [Laughs]. The nude modeling has also led to go- go dancing and stripping. It’s helped me make money off of my body. And my comfort with being naked, and close to naked, and using it as a tool in our society – and then as using my body as a way to survive. I mean, that’s what capitalism forces us to do unfortunately.
RR: How has this time period impacted go-go dancing and stripping in your life and in your community? How has it really changed?
MM: I mean, a lot of folx have gone digital. I didn’t get to. I was gonna be a part of a digital strip show. Some shit happened that day and I ended up having to cancel. But there’s been a growth, you know? OnlyFans is an online adult website and a lot of folx have been able to create content and put it on there. I’ve seen a lot of folx turn to Patreon as well and other digital platforms to share their dancing. I’ve seen folx who do Instagram lives and then just put their Venmo for tipping.
I mean, it’s been the switch to the digital. It’s not the same, you know? There’s not as many gigs obviously, and it’s hard because a lot of folx are unemployed and usually, like, the community supports each other, you know? So it’s hard when, like all night life workers, like, a lot of artists in L.A. are a part of the creative economy. Like a lot of us. Especially once you get into a certain circle. The creative economy is pretty dead right now. And in terms of what we can do. So we’ve moved online as much as possible.
There’s been a slow down, but it’s starting to pick up again. I think at the beginning of June when the uprisings happened – at least the circles that I’m a part of because they’re more, like, social justice – we shifted all energy to support the movement. And that’s where we needed to be, so there was a slow down in terms of digital parties and digital events. And I’m starting to see them pick up again. But in terms of performance in general, you either had to adapt to doing online shows, which there’s not as much money in it. But sometimes there’s more though, to be honest, because you can reach a worldwide audience at the same time as opposed to a live event where it’s only the people that show up. I know it’s also similar to, like, with Jiggle, where that’s an event that would be hard to happen in person, because we are a big community online, but in person it’s a little harder to make it happen. I think it’s similar to the go-go dancing and the stripping where you’re able to open up to a wider audience online as well.
RR: As you mentioned the uprisings have shifted how folx are functioning. These uprisings, which often take place in physical spaces are not always accessible but folx find ways to show up. How have you been involved with the uprisings?
MM: I normally am someone who is out on the streets. I’ll be honest, I marched in L.A. and Santa Barbara. You know, I’ve seen the police turn a peaceful protest into a riot real quick in L.A. before. I am currently not going out into the streets. One, because of COVID. I have asthma and I’m fat, and if I were to need a ventilator, I might not get one. And that scares the shit out of me. So it’s kept me off the streets. Also the situation with my grandmother being ill and my fears of transmitting it to her. I’m like, she’s already ill. She is going to die. We don’t need her to die in this way.
So not being in the streets right now has been challenging to be honest because I understand there is a certain feeling being – I love being in crowds. There’s, like, a moment in a crowd of just feeling like you’re part of this huge thing. And physically seeing so many people is really powerful and can be really empowering. So to not be able to do that in a moment when I’m so angry – and I’ve been angry for the last 15 years, since I started to wake up to all this shit and to learn about all of this stuff – and to not be able to physically share that energy has been frustrating. But like you said, there have been other ways of participating.
The internet has made this whole situation so much better than not. Because I was so frustrated, and was even more frustrated that I wasn’t able to go scream in the streets, I did something that I had been talking and thinking about doing for a long time during my time as a community organizer. I did see a lot of anti-Blackness. I was working with mostly immigrant women in the northeast San Fernando Valley. Latina immigrant women, Spanish-speaking – all my organizing was done in Spanish, and so I saw the lack of resources in Spanish. I had looked for alternatives to calling the police in Spanish because the women that I worked with wanted to resort to the police for everything. And so I had seen this lack of stuff. So I decided to translate things. So that’s how I started this conversation, because I had personally never seen it before. Unlike how we talk a lot about communities, and we talk a lot about these changes. And when we talk about the immigrant communities and talk about undocumented communities, but we don’t translate our resources, we don’t make it accessible to folx. So I made a really quick little sheet with some terms that might come up. And I think it really did open up a conversation because the guide itself was translated into, like, 11 different languages. People kept sending me messages like, “I made this one in Portuguese,” and, “I made this one in Tagalog,” and, “I made this in just a ton of different languages,” and I was like, “That’s so cool!” We’re now having a transnational conversation. And even just within the United States, like, how many children of immigrants want to have these conversations with their parents but don’t have the language for it? Don’t have the tools for where to start?
So it forced me to be more creative. But I don’t think I would have personally made that because I just would have gone out to the streets and screamed. And then I would’ve been like, “Okay cool, I feel connected to the community. I feel like I did my part.” And because I couldn’t do that, I had to think about, “What other skills do I have? And what other roles can I play?” My role has changed, you know? I’m not that 18 year old anymore [laughs] that I didn’t give a shit if I got arrested. That’s not who I am anymore. I was that person at a certain time – like, I had a shit ton of energy and used my anger and in a different way.
So COVID, and not being able to go out into the streets, and then having to take care of myself – because, like I said, younger me would have not given a shit. I would be like, “Who cares I’m going to die anyway? Fuck, at least I died for a good cause!” So it forced me to find a different way. I think in a way that has been more impactful than me – not that like me showing up for a protest isn’t impactful, but I think in terms of the conversation that has been had around language and having resources, it’s opened up more conversations than if I had just showed up to protest.
RR: During the pandemic, the government and media have deemed the chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised communities as “vulnerable.” What are your thoughts on the terminology of “vulnerable”?
MM: Ah that’s funny, vulnerable [laughs] I’m, like, oppressed by the elite is this more what it is than vulnerable really. I use the term “marginalized” because I think oftentimes we are literally sometimes pushed into the margins. Like, if you look at geographically where people of color and poor people live, like, literally pushed into the margins of communities.
I grew up in Pacoima. I have asthma. When I told someone once that I am from Pacomia, he asked me, “Do you have asthma?” and I said, “Yes,” and he was like, “Your community has the highest rate of asthma in L.A., or like one of the highest rates of asthma in L.A.” Why? Because there’s a shit ton of factories in our area and because we’re in the valley. And, like, I’m on the foot of the valley – like the smog just kind of sits – so it’s really common. Historically, Pacoima was the first place in the San Fernando Valley where Black people could buy land due to redlining. So historically it’s a people of color community. Right now it’s mostly Latinx. It used to be predominantly Black, and then, you know, even folx of color displace each other. The Latinx community displace a lot of the Black community in Pacoima. It’s been Japanese.
But the term “vulnerable,” like, to my condition – like, my preexisting condition – is a result of environmental racism. I have asthma because of environmental racism – because I grew up in a community that is polluted due to capitalism and racism. There is a reason why I am more likely to die of this thing, you know? I struggle with the term “vulnerable” just in general because I was always seen as weak. Like, it’s forced me to to be strong and, you know, fuck you and everything. And I think it’s just such a way of washing off and getting rid – of watering down like any responsibility that comes from, like, the government and from folx in power. You know, folx who have that access to wealth and that power.
And then, I mean aside from that, they say “vulnerable populations” without, like, putting a face and a name to it. I forget what the percentage is, but I recently saw a tweet that Betsy Devos posted – what was, like, .4% of children will die if we reopen schools. And someone did the math, and it was like 12,000 children. Numbers have been and data has been used to erase people and to be like, “Oh, it’s just like one percent and it’s like out of millions of people.” And we’re talking about individual lives. Like, every individual life matters. Like, every individual life is important. We use logic and reason and numbers and facts to disconnect from humanity. It’s easier to say, like, “Oh, those with pre-existing conditions,” than, like, if you put a face to it. Like, this is your cousin, this is your mail person – those are human beings.
Those are lives who have connections to others. Those are members of our communities. Those are people that we care about. And, I mean, that’s what capitalism does. Capitalism disconnects you from the individual as much as possible, right?
That’s part of capitalism as a whole, and we’re seeing that same thing being applied to the way that the government and the media are responding to COVID. They are trying to disconnect people as much as possible from it so that they’ll go back to work and so that they’ll go back to the economy – so that the economy will continue when you’re risking people’s lives like mine.
And people don’t believe this is real until someone dies or someone they know was in the hospital. Capitalism has done such a good job of removing humanity from work and from the economy. And these terms and these percentages and numbers are used so much and people really believe it. They’re like, “Oh yeah, like, 4%? That’s nothing.” And I’m like, “Count the people that you know on one hand. Like if you know one hundred people, which I think, depending on where you live, but a majority of us know at least a hundred people, so that’s four people that you know.” It’s been a way of taking people’s humanity away. Classifying a vulnerable population and then people feel like, “Oh, I’m not vulnerable,” like, “What does that mean? I’m healthy. I’m fine.” Also, we’ve seen that people without pre-existing conditions have also died from COVID. Like, we’re seeing that literally everyone is vulnerable to COVID.
Are there people that have less resources because of racism because of all of this? Yes, but I personally think that everyone is vulnerable. I just think there are people who are marginalized and do not have access to the same resources. And then it’s also been used as a term to disconnect people from their humanity and to disconnect them from reality in order to have them continue working.
RR: During the pandemic, society has been able to accommodate the general public with accommodations, like work from home, that have been asked for previously by the disabled, chronically ill, immunocompromised, and neurodiverse communities, yet these communities were typically denied. Why do you think society has been able to accommodate the general public when these accommodations have been denied previously?
MM: I think right now they don’t have another option. Like schools need to shut down completely or move online. A lot of jobs either shut down completely or go online. I think the uprisings that we’ve seen have happened because we’ve seen this. We’ve seen how much of what we thought, like things are just kind of that way, is actually socially constructed when our whole world is socially constructed. Like, we as a society decide what is acceptable and what we’re willing to accept.
I think it’s fucked up that they were not willing to give these accommodations before and they’re willing to give them now. I think, again, capitalism is at the root of a lot of this. I think productivity and the idea that you’re not as “productive from home” is often one of the reasons that a lot of those requests are denied. I think disabled folx, I think chronically ill folx are often seen as less productive, right? Because capitalism unfortunately bases its value on humans, on how much you’re able to produce and how much you’re able to work in a traditional sense. Those accommodations have been denied in the past because it’s deemed that you’re not going to be as productive, which I call bullshit. I also don’t think that productivity and the amount of work that we can get done is important. I think maybe focusing more on the quality and allowing people to take their time and to do what they think is quality work.
But yeah, I mean, right now they don’t have an option and schools don’t have an option, you know? People are dropping out because they’re like, “Schools are still charging students the same amount of money to take an online class when they’re not using any of those in-person resources,” which is really fucked up. [Laughs]. I hope at least students can save on housing.
But even then, you know, like, people who were already signed leases and all kinds of other stuff. Again, capitalism is the reason why we were denied accommodations in the past and capitalism is the reason why now. I think before it was seen as something that didn’t benefit capitalism, and right now it is because it’s the only way to keep the economy going.
RR: Moving forward, how would you like to see the government and society start responding to the COVID-19 pandemic?
MM: In terms of society, it would be nice if everyone at least wore a mask. It’d be nice if folx stayed home. I personally have friends that have not been staying home, and it’s forced me to question my friendships with certain people and the way that they say their politics are versus what they actually practice. It’s a little different.
I’ve also tried to be compassionate towards certain people. Like, I have a friend who has a terrible home situation and she’s never home. And I’m like, “I understand why you’re not home, but I also wish society was able to provide you with the resources so that you could feel safe at home so you could be.” Because I understand that that’s just not realistic for everyone, right?
It’s like, my dad is an essential worker. So for a few months, my dad’s income was the only income my household had. For three months, while I couldn’t get unemployment and my brother was in school, that was the only income our entire household had. So we also just didn’t have another option, like, my dad had to expose himself.
But I really wish that society would listen to science a little bit more. Same as the government. I wish that we would care about each other and not just ourselves a little bit more. It has been beautiful to see a lot of mutual aid and a lot of response from people, but it’s also been really fucking annoying to see people who think they’re not a part of those “world populations,” right? Who think they’re not going to be affected by it. Like, not giving a shit and having all these anti-mask wearing protests, which are so ridiculous. I’m like, “It’s a piece of cloth over your face.”
And then the thing is, again – I was watching a video, and there’s this woman who was like, “I am not a terrorist,” and then she points to women in burkas and hijabs. It’s like, one, it’s not the same thing. And two, people, your Islamophobia and your racism is fucking showing, and what you associated a mask with is that. And that’s why you won’t wear it. You want to have your right to choose. And yes, I agree with the right to choice and what you do with your body, but like, some people don’t want to think about the way that they affect others.
We live in a very individualistic society in the United States, right? Like, we’re taught to screw each other over to compete. That everyone wants to be at the top of this fucking food chain. I am very grateful for my leftist politics that have taught me otherwise. That has taught me to live in community and to care for each other and not just myself. I do think a lot of times that that has to do with my illness. I have had to ask for help in the last year. I’ve had to ask people to help me clean my room. Like, I’ve had three different friends help me clean my room, which, for someone who was taught to be a strong independent person, that was really difficult. But it was so nice to receive that help and to accept it. I think that’s showing right now – that those super ingrained individualistic capitalistic competitive beliefs are showing the way that we’re responding to this. Like what do we care most about? The economy.
And the resources are there, we just have to take them from fucking Jeff Bezos and all the five other billionaires that own all this shit, right? The resources are there to be able to feed everyone, to be able to make sure everyone is taken care of and at home. Like they are there. In L.A., Mayor Garcetti, has been like, “Oh, we’re gonna commandeer the hotels,” and he hasn’t. There are still thousands of people living in the street without access to water and soap to wash their hands. You’re requiring masks when you know some of these folx don’t have a place to wash their stuff. Again, the resources are there, they’re just not being distributed for the people that are the most marginalized. Prison populations are the real vulnerable population because people are living super cramped up in those small spaces. Again, we’re not seeing the response and, it’s become, like, “You as an individual – you have to take care of yourself.” And a lot of the anti-mask stuff started when people found out that you wear a mask so that you don’t spread the virus, not so that you don’t contract it. Like, I personally saw a lot of shift, like, “Oh, like, I have to wear a mask for others? Fuck no I’m not wearing a mask.” Oh God I hate America. [Laughs].
And you see these old people who are like, “I am not going to get sick!” And I am like, “Yes, yes you are!” We’re losing people, like, left and right. And even one of my uncles who has diabetes was like, “Well you know us with pre-existing conditions,” but sometimes he won’t wear a mask. And I was like, ”Dude, if you know!” The disconnection from our words to our actions and just the individualistic culture in the United States I think is gonna make it really hard for us to actually move in the way that I personally would love to see. I would have loved to see that the response was a community response that we actually cared about each other. That we understood that some people have privileges and power that others don’t. And that those people who have those privileges and powers would have been willing to use those to help those that don’t. Unfortunately that’s not what’s happening, and that’s not what’s going to happen. And I’m very realistic, almost to the point of pessimism, where I’m like, “I’m gonna be in my room in my house probably for the next two years until I am vaccinated.” In my ideal world we would have taken care of each other. That’s sadly not the reality though.