Given the urgent need to integrate anti-ableism into our radical left spaces, how can I design and implement event practices that genuinely prioritize inclusion and care for disabled and chronically ill comrades without relegating accessibility to an afterthought or optional add-on? Specifically, how can I balance the pragmatic demands of pandemic safety protocols with the necessity of creating truly accessible, hybrid, and participatory spaces that reflect our collective commitment to solidarity and systemic change?
Treat accessibility as the opening move, not the afterthought. Before a venue is booked or a poster drafted, convene a Care Council led by disabled comrades who wield veto power over every logistical choice. Their presence turns inclusion from charity into governance, a small act of prefigurative sovereignty.
Design the event as hybrid-by-default: every agenda item must work online first, then adapt to the room. Give remote participants equal procedural rights—moderate panels, call stack, vote—so physical presence stops conferring authority. Budget line one: HEPA units, free N95s, CO₂ monitors. Post real-time air-quality data on the livestream to prove you mean it.
Adopt a “care quorum”: if masks slip below 90 percent or the stream fails, the session pauses until the breach is fixed. This frames safety as collective discipline rather than personal preference. Publish an access rider alongside the programme that lists each barrier removed and invites crowdsourced audits; transparency breeds accountability.
Finally, ritualise care. Open with a communal masking gesture, close with feedback on access glitches, then archive both successes and failures for the next crew. Movements that codify care expand their capacity to fight capitalism because they refuse to reproduce its exclusions.
Which element of your next gathering will you place under the Care Council’s veto first?
Reflecting on the last exchange, I notice my tension lies in how to translate the ideal of radical inclusion into concrete practices that feel both revolutionary and practical. I worry that without clear accountability and structural commitments, accessibility risks becoming performative.
How can I create ongoing, enforceable mechanisms that embed anti-ableism and care into our organizing culture, so that accessibility is not just a checklist but a living, collective practice that challenges systemic neglect and rebuilds trust among disabled comrades?
Treat care like a union contract, not a courtesy. Write an “Access Covenant” that every working group signs before it can spend a cent. The covenant grants disabled comrades a permanent caucus, budget line and strike power: if protocols lapse, they can halt meetings or withdraw livestream infrastructure until repairs are made. That converts moral appeals into structural leverage.
Run quarterly “access audits” similar to financial audits. External disabled organisers score your spaces, publish the findings and recommend fixes. Pair each fix with a named steward who reports progress at every assembly; missed deadlines trigger automatic reallocations of funds toward remediation.
Institute rotating “care shifts” the way kitchens assign dish duty. Each organizer spends one month watching CO₂ monitors, moderating remote participation and enforcing the mask quorum. Doing care work demystifies it and spreads the skill set.
Finally, archive decisions in an open ledger: air quality graphs, mask compliance stats, accessibility expenditures. Transparency transforms trust from sentiment into data.
When the next big action heats up, will your covenant let disabled comrades call a time-out if their safety costs are being cut?
To embed anti-ableism into our culture, we’ve established a “Care Charter” with enforceable commitments—every group signs it before planning. We assign a disabled liaison with real veto power and budget control, ensuring accessibility isn't negotiable. Quarterly audits, transparent tracking, and care shifts help us hold ourselves accountable, turning care into a collective, ongoing practice rather than a checklist. This approach rebuilds trust and centers disabled voices in our movement’s fabric.
Brilliant: you just forged care into a constitutional power, not a courtesy. Now pressure test it. Stage a “flash audit” during your own headline action, unannounced, and let the liaison decide on the spot whether the march pauses, reroutes or livestreams instead. Everyone will feel the cost of negligence in real time. Bureaucracy calcifies; ritual keeps the covenant alive. Rotate that veto to fresh disabled comrades each cycle so the role does not ossify into tokenism. Earmark a percentage of every donation for access infrastructure and publish the ledger beside your political demands; donors love proof of praxis and it inoculates against austerity instincts when funds run low. When repression hits—raids, tear gas, power cuts—let the care team dictate the fallback plan: remote command centers, mutual-aid medicine drops, encrypted quiet channels. Revolutions win when they protect vulnerability at peak chaos.
Which cherished tactic will you risk modifying next to obey the Charter even under fire?
I believe integrating accountability into our organizing is crucial, so I’d push for regular “live audits” during actions, like you suggested, to ensure our commitments hold in real-time. Rotating disabled liaisons and transparent funding are vital, but I’d also focus on building a culture where everyone feels responsible for care—making it part of our collective discipline. When under pressure, I’d want our movement to prioritize trust and adaptability, not just protocols.
Turn care from a backstage duty into the performance itself. Begin every meeting with a “commons check-in”: CO₂ reading, mask count, livestream latency, wheelchair routes. Speaking rights only open once the room passes the test, so every participant links political voice to collective safety. Over time that reflex becomes muscle memory, not mandate.
Cultivate lore. After each action, publish a brief “Care Chronicle” alongside the victory report: what barriers we broke, which ones broke us, who stepped up mid-crisis. Storytelling infects newcomers faster than manuals and keeps old-timers honest.
Train for failure. Run tabletop simulations—power outage, sudden rain, police kettling—and task random affinity groups with safeguarding disabled comrades. Debrief ruthlessly. When everyone has felt the weight of that responsibility, care no longer feels optional.
Finally, celebrate guardianship. Award the loudest cheers not to the person who grabs the megaphone but to the comrade who quietly swaps out a clogged HEPA filter. Cultural capital shifts where applause flows.
If a stranger filmed your next action without context, would they instantly recognise that safeguarding every body is the heart of your revolutionary ritual?