Uncompensated Labour, Individualism, and Ableist Practices

To be honest, I don't have a lot of energy or brain capacity to put to this post this week because this week has been a whole bunch of a lot, as most weeks are now, so this is probably going to be way less articulate than I would like it to be and I apologize. The semester is about to beginning, people are trying to prep for yet another unknown semester, and the institutions and governments are simply not listening to people. We speak from the heart and mention concerns and they are glossed over by "yes I really hear what you are saying, here's more work you need to do in the next weeks that ignores what you just said." Folk are fed up of not being acknowledged or heard when they mention an issue. We are fed up of being the disposable object in a war for credential and PR. 

So basically with this in mind I want to address what has been seen a whole whole lot on the social media in these last weeks. Individualism. This individualism as I mentioned before on this blog, comes out in a lot of different ways. It also gets wrapped up in a whole bunch of other things, like pedagogy, like health, like access. It can sound like "I don't owe you my free labour" which is often what disabled folks are told when they ask for access to something. It is also something that should be said by BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ folk or in some cases women when they are asked to be on yet another committee, to organize yet another thing- "I don't owe you my free labour." But is often not said because you know systems. 

The thing is at the root of this is that marginalized folk are often the ones thrown all the asks. If you don't believe me just look this up. I am too tired to get you the sources. I don't owe you that labour- see, it's easy to say.  If I did that to an instructor request I would probably get fired, because that labour is actually part of my job in fact. But if a person on the internet that I don't really know asks me about alt-texts or some kind of accessibility question or issue they may have encountered I would certainly see how I could support them. Because community and ethics are important to me. I will put in that labour because I see it as supporting the greater good. I see it as creating spaces that are more inclusive, spaces where the knowledge exchange is facilitated. This is what ideally educators should do. It is why I get upset when folk say it about alt text because alt texts should be part of the process of posting something on Twitter for example. (Sidebar isn't it super great that some folk have time for alt texts when they use it a way it is not supposed like to increase SEO or to add comments that could be hurtful). I know some don't do that work because again everyone is maxxed out right now and folk that may have put that inclusion work in in the before times simply cannot do it right now. And that is very fair and super understandable. 

But here's the thing, we are digging ourselves one hell of a hole with this. Marginalized folk are getting more asks and they are doing more things and they are more tired than ever before. People are trying to put their health and wellness first but the asks keep coming and are poorly sugar coated with, here have some yoga, here is a mental health workshop to support your "thriving." Be resilient but we won't change any of the systems that cause you to have to be resilient in the first place (which is why resiliency discourse is so harmful). We are isolating ourselves not just physically because of COVID, but mentally and emotionally because it is all too too much. The more asks, the more silos; the more asks, the less information and knowledge circulation. Why? Because WE ARE NOT CHANGING THE SYSTEMS. 

So the tweet size TL;DR is: Folk are calling it in because they're tired/ have no support/ are not being compensated. When folks call it in they don't meaningfully engage with the thing they support. When they don't meaningfully engage it builds barriers to access. When fewer folk have access silos continue (individualism and ableism).

If you need a tangible example: more silos means more people thinking it's super okay to walk around without a mask, for example, because me me me is all that matters. More people get hurt. More people die. More people are forgotten. This is not just some sort of butterfly effect; it is real. 

When you are doing your prep for fall think about how what you are designing may promote individualism instead of community building and try to have more community building opportunities because we so need this right now for so many reasons. Okay that's all I have in the tank for this right now. I hope it makes sense.