The Backlash Against the Lesbian Bar That Eased its Mask Mandate for One Night a Week Just Keeps Getting Wilder
By now, you should be at least marginally aware of the lesbian bar in Greenfield, MA that created a firestorm among their clientele for the crime of reducing their mandatory Covid mask policy from seven nights a week, to the unthinkable six nights a week:
To clear up any confusion, The Last Ditch Bar didn't ban masking up. But they did make it optional. Because business has been hurt by the old - literally 6 1/2 years old - policy. And because one owner is a trying to pay for clown school, and another is trying to make ends meet as a drag queen. Which I imagine causes a lot of financial pressure on both. (I don't know for sure. Pretty much everyone has me at a disadvantage on both subjects.) Causing this reaction among their loyal customer base:
… "ableism," complicity in a "mass disabling event," and putting immunocompromised patrons at risk.
One of the owners broke down in tears at a community meeting, saying she's behind on rent and struggling to keep the business alive.
The two other owners stepped back from daily operations months ago, including one who had enrolled in clown school and another who is a drag performer using it/its pronouns.
Read how the dispute spiraled into chaos:
Source - "I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic]," one commenter wrote on the bar's social media post announcing the change.
"People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience," wrote another.
"Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with," a third said.
"When y'all close, let the record state it was ableism + complying in advance, because that's what it is," another wrote.
"Does COVlD not disable people on Saturday nights?" added another user, who had a picture of himself in a mask as his profile picture. …
The backlash came as the bar was already struggling financially under to the bar’s unusual business model that includes rules such as "Nobody will be barred from entry due to lack of funds." …
The bar’s owners began to fall behind on their bills and were unable to pay themselves or even their staff.
Jackie Matellian, the remaining owner involved in daily operations, lived in her truck for six months, working four jobs and carrying a $50,000 loan, according to The Boston Globe. …
The bar first attempted to ease tensions and apologize for its post, writing: "We are sorry for our passive and dismissive tone of our change to the norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional of us. We understand everyone faces different intersections and we are always working to consider all needs fully."
But that did little to lower the temperature, as critics said Last Ditch’s post failed to include written "alt text," a short written description of an image added to the HTML code of a webpage for visually impaired people.
"This is not an accessible post," one person commented. "It indicates the lack of care or interest in Disability intersectionality." …
Last Ditch again sought to address the controversy during its monthly community meeting on Sept. 11, according to The Boston Globe.
Outraged attendees who were joined by Zoom began flooding the chat with comments that were read aloud for the in-person group to hear.
The meeting took another twist when critics made an allegation of racism because the mediator, a licensed therapist, was white.
"A lot of people are calling for an acknowledgment of harm and I’m hearing a WHITE therapist … center[ing] the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff," one person said, the newspaper reported.
Attendees also took issue with a therapist being there at all and said it made them feel "widely unsafe" since that made the woman a mandated reporter, meaning she is required by law to report known or suspected abuse. …
Matellian broke down in tears when it was her turn to speak, saying she was only trying to help her friends with the bar … and the bar’s landlord wants $3,900 by the end of September.
But the bar's critics had no sympathy for the struggling business owner. …
"You chose to use your time to spill tears and center your feelings," one person responded.
"This is incredibly racist and deflecting behavior."
Annnddd … scene.
Let's review, shall we? The Last Ditch deserves to be firebombed because they're:
Ableist.
Eugenicist.
Killing the disabled.
Complicit in a mass disabling event.
Passive and dismissive.
Not considerate of all needs.
Inaccessible.
Lacking care or interest in Disability intersectionality.
Racist.
Center[ing] the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff.
Centering their own feelings.
Racist and deflecting.
And maybe worst of all, guilty of the crime of trying not to go out business. While they've been providing food and drinks to people who don't pay, the manager was living in her car, and the landlord wants their 4,000 bucks.
Have I missed anything? Oh, right. The reaction on Bluesky, which thankfully, still exists. It should. It has to. Just for moments such as this:
Great. So we can add:
Painting marginalized people as hysterical weirdos.
Lacking empathy.
Traumatizing them.
Making them laughingstocks.
Forcing them out of society.
Is that all? Nope. Wait for it …
Fascists. There it is! We just managed to run the entire Intersectionality Victimhood Jeopardy board. All thanks to that infamous hotbed of hatred and bigotry against marginalized groups, the lesbian clubs in Franklin County, MA. Yup, it's practically a Proud Boys rally in those places, night after night. How the FBI hasn't infiltrated those notorious groups of masked white supremacist eugenics monsters is beyond all understanding. Sure, they might advertise Puppet Sex 101 nights and Queer Comedy + Poetry Open Mic + Showcase. But when the rubber hits the road, they're all just trying to straight up wipe out entire populations with the Covid cooties.
I know I'm not the only one who immediately defaulted to that video from the DSA Convention in 2019:
I thought the crowd in that hall set a record for inventing things to be offended by that would never be broken. But the regulars at The Last Ditch lapped the field.
From Americans storming the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, to going to the moon and back in 1960s machinery, to building an industrial and technological economy that is the envy of the world, to this. All in the span of three generations. I hope like anything that before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I get to look back at this time in our history as just a case of temporary insanity. A mass psychosis that we all worked through and started changing the world in incredible ways once again.
But right now there seems to be no end in sight.
Pray for our future.