As the ongoing reality of a deadly and mass disabling pandemic continues to be individually, socially, and systemically downplayed across the U.S., local activists, artists, punk show organizers and community members who are part of the Corvallis DIY scene have been actively reminding and urging folks on social media to practice community care and harm reduction in their day-to-day lives by normalizing the conscious decisions to continue wearing face masks and testing regularly for COVID. This has emerged as local case numbers, including the number of individuals who are suffering from Long COVID, a debilitating condition with wide-ranging physical and neurological symptoms that persist for months or years after initial infection, are rising.
In a Corvallis DIY Instagram story that came out last week, organizers recommended people to educate themselves about Long COVID and the danger it poses to folks with marginalized identities, and to act accordingly.
“COVID might not kill you, but it is seriously disabling millions of people for months/years,” they wrote. “The majority of our community is at a higher risk for Long COVID (queer and trans people, BIPOC, low-income workers, people 18-24), so if you are in one or more of those groups and/or care about people in those groups, you should be taking steps to protect yourself [and others].”
These messages have also emerged, as local mutual aid groups like the Corvallis Really Really Free Market (RRFM) have been emphasizing all throughout the pandemic, in response to the irony that phrases like “We protect us” and “We keep us safe” that are common in many activist/leftist movements and spaces throughout the U.S. have not centered or applied to disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised people’s experiences and needs – people who are often already made to feel disposable, unsafe, unwelcome, and unsupported at many events and organizing spaces, which is exacerbated (and further exposed) when COVID safety protocols are discarded or not taken seriously. Walela Nehanda, a Los Angeles-based Black, disabled, nonbinary cultural worker, educator, and facilitator of Octavia’s Chariot, expanded on this more in an Instagram post.
“If we consider ourselves dedicated to the liberation of all oppressed people – this includes disabled people. We are presently in a pandemic. Not past tense. Not post pandemic,” they wrote. “If we consider ourselves anything close to radical, then our politics must be reflective of the world we wish to see. This must include the protection of disabled people, especially disabled people who are most marginalized.”
Nehanda also noted that a majority of COVID deaths in the U.S. have consisted of “colonized people, essential workers, elders, working-class people, houseless folks, and disabled people,” and that there are many folks who have become disabled or chronically ill as a direct result of COVID. They emphasized that this is something that shouldn’t be ignored – especially in spaces and communities that claim to value collective care, liberation, and justice.
“If we all agree with: ‘Nobody gets free, until everybody gets free,’ why are disabled people not included in so many visions of liberation?” they wrote. “Often, as a community, we are devalued and invisibilized. Many people have decided to move on from the pandemic as if it’s not still happening, as if case numbers are not rising, as if people are not dying every day… To turn around and demand we, as disabled people, who are already made to especially struggle through the pandemic, create those spaces for ourselves separately goes directly against any effort to build community and reinforces our isolation.”
Bitter Half Booking, a radical queer and punk duo of show organizers in the Corvallis DIY scene committed to building safer, accessible show spaces for folks who have been historically marginalized and excluded from mainstream music scenes, extend these values of cultivating greater safety and accessibility to include COVID safety protocols, such as by requiring show attendees to wear masks. They recently posted that drive-up COVID PCR tests are free and available in Corvallis at the local Rize Laboratory – located on 366 SW Washington Ave. – and strongly encourage people who have attended crowded or indoor events to get tested, even if they aren’t showing any COVID symptoms. People can sign up for appointments here, and expect results within 24-36 hours of testing.
Corvallis Against Facism Field Guide & History: Corvallis Against Fascism – CVAntifa for short – is a local antifascist collective that began in 2018 in response to “an extreme increase in local and regional far-right activity, and neo-Nazi attacks on minority and left-wing groups.” CVAntifa organizers aim to serve both Corvallis and the Willamette Valley by providing accurate and ongoing information of fascist and far-right organizing, disrupting these activities, and helping to strengthen community defense against them.
One of these efforts includes creating and distributing annual field guides that document fascist, racist, and white nationalist individuals and groups that have been active in and around Corvallis within the last few years, as well as propaganda – stickers, graffiti, runes, etc. – that have surfaced around town. Distinct from previous iterations, the 2023 guide, which was released earlier this year, leads with some local and regional histories.
“Corvallis, like the rest of Oregon, has a long history of white supremacy,” it reads. “In this [edition], and future editions, of this zine, we want to unpack some of our city’s troubled history. One lesser known aspect of this history is the residence and radicalization of William Luther Pierce, one of America’s most notorious White Supremacists.”
In the 1960s, Pierce was a physics professor at Oregon State University who claimed to be radicalized by witnessing Black OSU students protesting for civil rights during his time teaching.
“Shortly after leaving OSU in 1965, Pierce became involved with the American Nazi Party, after deciding the John Birch Society wasn’t racist enough,” reads the guide. “He wrote for the ANP’s political newspaper until George Lincoln Rockwell, the head of the party, was assassinated. In the mid ‘70s he went on to form the National Alliance. He published The Turner Diaries in the group’s paper. The book is an explicitly racist and anti-Semitic power fantasy that takes place during a violent, white supremacist revolution in the United States. It is considered one of the most foundational pieces of American Nazi propaganda.”
The guide then briefly delves into the racist foundations of Oregon more broadly.
“As individuals working to oppose Fascism, it is important for us to understand the historical context in which our organizing takes place,” it reads. “While Oregon has a reputation for being lefty and progressive, it has been a haven for white supremacists since before its charter as a state. We’re not just talking about stolen, colonized and the riches generated by enslaved workers.”
Some of these histories that are cited in the guide include the founding of Oregon as a racist whites-only utopia with a series of Black exclusion laws that brutally criminalized Black people for entering and residing in the state, violent white mobs that forcibly drove out and murdered Chinese immigrants and workers, and the state’s rise of white nationalism and the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
“So make no mistake: Oregon is no refuge from the racist, fascist currents showing up all over this country. White supremacists have been both systemic and direct in their violence here. We must be organized in our response.”
Most recently, CVAntifa organizers created a new zine, Five Years of Nazi Tears, that details more of the group’s organizing history, as well as a list of helpful Do’s and Don’ts for local antifascist organizers – both emerging and experienced – to consider and take inspiration from that have been learned through the group’s experiences with both successes and errors.
Physical copies of both the field guide and the zine are available at the Corvallis Zine Library, located in the red room of Interzone. If you would like more copies to distribute locally, you can reach out to CVAntifa at cvantifa@riseup.net.
By Emilie Ratclif
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