In today’s episode of That Glorious Blue on Blue Backlash, the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue in Massachusetts faced scathing backlash after ending its mask mandate.
No, this story is not from 2020.
It gets better…
- This is a lesbian bar.
- The mask mandate required N95 masks.
- This change in the masking policy was only for one night a week — Saturday night.
“It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional,” The Last Ditch announced in an Instagram post at the end of last month.
The result?
Lesbian karens lost their freaken minds…
“Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with
“people like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience”
“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists.”
More:
[A]s an immunocompromised person i am honestly pretty jaded when it comes to people’s decisions and attitudes around not masking because i am so fatigued by it, but it always hurts the most when it comes from people i have aligned values with. so, more so than you guys making this decision, i am hurt and upset by your glib and flippant attitude around it ESPECIALLY given your entire mission and foundation was based on creating a masked space for the immunocompromised community and advocating for safer covid practices for the community at large. to so quickly turn around and frame this policy change in the patronizing way that you have here makes the entire ethos of your space feel hollow.
Does COVlD not disable people on Saturday nights? Very confused by the disregard for community care and ex post facto justification as “supporting accessibility.” A venue wouldn’t run a “hatred and discrimination night” to ensure that prejudiced people have a night where they feel included.
If u wanna pander to capitalism and white supremacy go right ahead, you wouldn’t be the first white and white adjacent people in history to do so. But don’t fucking say accessibility is important to your mission while fucking over disabled people and nuking your masking requirement. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. How performative and grotesque.
It is with an aching heart, and echos of “the vulnerable will fall by the wayside”, that this immunocompromised babe receives the message.
It just goes on and on and on and on like this, proving once again that capitalism has solved so many of our society’s problems that people actually have time to worry and obsess over utter nonsense.
A few days later came the predictable cave:
“We are sorry for our passive and dismissive tone of our change to the norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional of us,” read the updated Instagram post. “We understand everyone faces different intersections and we are always working to consider all needs fully.”
Today, the venue’s House Rules make clear that “Wearing a well-fitted KN-95 respirator mask (or better) is required at all times.” Ah, but if you refuse to wear one, you will have the choice of leaving or be given the “opportunity to engage in an accountability process if deemed appropriate.”
The Last Ditch Bar also offers “accountability processes” to bigots:
Racism, Misogynoir, Transmisogyny, Ableism, Transphobia, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and any other discrimination will not be tolerated. Anyone who doesn’t abide will be asked to leave the space if necessary and provided with an opportunity to engage in an accountability process if deemed appropriate by those harmed.
It really says “any other discrimination will not be tolerated.” Really? Betcha you can smear Christians all day long at the Last Ditch Bar. Betcha. Who wants to bet?
How can anyone live like this? Why would any Normal Person want to spend an evening at a place filled with tripwires and landmines? Why would someone launch a business with all these tripwires and landmines? Why not just post a sign that says No Fun Allowed? Oh, wait, this might explain it…
Three housemates in their mid-20s opened it together, hoping to fill the void left by two local queer bars that had shuttered. One of the trio, Asa Rosario, a drag performer who uses it/its pronouns, envisioned a venue where it and its friends could perform.
As of today, two of the three founders have stepped away from daily operations, and one “enrolled in clown school.”
Clown school.
Gay guys brag about having unprotected sex in the age of AIDS while lesbians run around in N95 masks.
Tell me again how there’s no difference between men and women.
Read the full article here