Portside

Dean Spade is a trans activist, writer and teacher. Stephanie Luce interviewed him about his recent book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (And the Next).

Perhaps this pandemic’s devastation will promote a debate on the failures of our ragged social safety net.

Healing the dual miseries of COVID-19 and economic insecurity requires relief sufficient to ensure that all individuals, their families and their loved ones can live through this pandemic. The time to go big is now.

Researchers worry the pandemic may have severe after-effects, with deaths of despair impacting more distressed and newly-vulnerable populations. Only a serious reform of American capitalism can address the kind of distress and insecurity that kills.

The demand is still, more than ever, #DefundThePolice, #FundThePeople #DefendBlackLives.

It’s urgent not to return to the previous status quo. It’s time for creative thinking and bold action. This is a time for a true pandemic pivot.

Ultimately it is crisis-ravaged real estate where Blackstone seeks to continue to find a goldmine while anchored by generous political contributions and fueled by desperation capital pouring out of central banks and governmental treasuries.

The news is filled with “uplifting” human interest tales of workers walking six miles and nurses scrounging up sick leave. Injustice is so normalized that stories that should be enraging indictments of the system pass for heartwarming vignettes.