The "Palatability Tax" on Survival for the Marginalized
Must a smile be a prerequisite for mercy?
I want to take a moment to talk about something that came onto my radar earlier this year, and have since seen it come up a few more times.
A friend recently confided in me their significant struggle and asked for help. I said that I would share their request with my communities/networks.
I shared their plea as-is because I didn’t have time to really do a lot of editing. The plea was urgent, and pretty desperate, so i’ve come to refer to this sort of thing as a ‘desperation plea’.
What is a desperation plea?
It would be something like this:
“I’m going to be out on the street in 3 days if I don’t find some money RIGHT NOW. I have been out of work for over a year, i’ve eaten through all of my savings, I can’t get any interviews, I have no family to help me, I am desperate and I don’t know what else to do. I will do just about anything for some money so please let me know if you have any work or know someone who does”
It’s always tough to read things like that.
If someone says ‘I need help’, I’m sure a lot of us would have the initial thoughts of ‘do you have family to turn to? do you want some help with your resume? do you have a car? (to do uber or food delivery)’
It’s all well-meaning but when someone makes a desperation plea like the above - it’s clearly because they have tried everything else that they can think of.
When I shared that desperation plea from my friend into a group chat, someone private messaged me and asked ‘are you open to suggestions on how to re-write and re-frame that ask?’
Of course I wanted to help my friend so I said sure.
What came back was exactly that - a re-frame - but while it took the desperation out, it also kind of created a sort of forced smile effect.
Instead of
‘I’m about to be out on the street and I don’t know what else to do’
it became
‘I’m having a tough time but I’m not giving up. I’m great at X, Y, Z and i’ve got some spare capacity so if you or someone you know needs those skills, reach out and we can help each other’
With my friend’s permission, I re-framed their desperation message in this manner, and it did get a few responses.
But here’s the problem.
A month or so later, someone else that I know (but not as well) posted a desperation plea on LinkedIn, and I sent them a DM to suggest the same kind of re-frame.
The message that came back to me was raw and basically amounted to ‘I am well beyond the capacity to simplify my situation like that, I’m so stressed I can barely function’.
And that’s totally fair. I’ve been there.
When your nervous system is completely overloaded and you have no one to help you regulate, when it feels like the world is closing in on you… It’s entirely reasonable to flail and not be able to express your needs in a ‘palatable’ way.
The tragic part is that I also understand how those desperation posts tend to make people uncomfortable, tend to make people back away and shut down. Maybe they themselves are stressed and they don’t have the capacity to directly engage with someone who is completely disregulated.
And the people who ARE well-regulated might just feel uncomfortable engaging because they want to maintain their own balance.
I know for myself - having learned some self-regulation skills over the years - if I perceive that the person doing the asking is not or will not be able to regulate themselves again once help comes, I am leery of ‘jumping into the water’ with them so to speak. I want to help, but I can’t drown with them.
As a member of the disability community, and having several friends who are chronically ill to varying degrees - the ‘desperation plea’ is very common. It doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as I think it makes a lot of people who haven’t struggled like that.
When you’ve spent months or even years suffering, being slowly ground down, being ignored, or being screwed over by the systems that are supposedly there to help, and you can’t rely on family or friends, people get exasperated.
This is part of why some disability activists seem permanently angry and like they never have anything positive to say. There certainly are no shortage of social and structural issues to point out.
People don’t make those desperation posts to try and gain extra sympathy.
They make them because they truly are at their wits end and they are losing their ability to continue to think, problem solve, and regulate. By that point, they have tried to save themselves, and likely feel they’ve failed.
The ugly truth is that between the haves and have nots - the people who ‘have’ often don’t want to be charitable to people who seem bitter, angry, volatile, etc.
It’s basically a form of ‘tone policing’.
In political activism, it would be called ‘respectability politics’.
If you’re pushing for change, if you’re pushing for concessions, for accommodations - you have to do it with a smile and an unreasonable amount of patience. Because the moment you break your composure the people with the ultimate power can pull back and say ‘you’re not asking nicely anymore so I’m not going to help you’.
Since I feel like somewhat of a middle-person between the disability/DEIA/’have not’ community, and the abled/normative/‘have’ community - this blog is for both sides.
As unfair and unjust as it is, my fellow disabled, marginalized, ‘have not’ peers - we do need to ‘play nice’ to a degree. As the saying goes - you catch more flies with honey.
What I try to do is keep my deepest anger and resentment about injustices in private chats with trusted friends, family, and peers. And when I speak out publicly, I try to do so more measuredly. (Until I have enough of a platform/sway to call out more prominent powers that be).
And to my abled, privileged peers - please take this moment to reflect, to consider when and where you may have withheld from someone because they didn’t ask with a big enough smile or a palatable enough tone in their desperation plea.
If the systems that were supposed to help us actually did so reliably - fewer people would be on social media begging. Heck, people in the United States have been funding their medical costs via GoFundMe for years now. Since well before the pandemic even started.
If you are one of the fortunate ones who is making more than enough to be comfortable - please consider giving some of that to reputable charities for the disabled and marginalized.
Boost the posts of people who are asking for help (and not only the ‘upbeat tone’ ones), and boost the posts of artists and creators - especially disabled and marginalized ones. If you’re a white person and you don’t have any BIPOC people in your feeds, that’s something you would do well to try and change.
If you’re not part of a mutual aid network, that’s another thing to strive to change. Whenever there might be a natural, ecological, or economic disaster, public systems and governments won’t be able to support you and your neighbours like you will.
And let’s all remember at the end of the day - it’s the millionaires and billionaires who are essentially responsible for most of this. They are hoarding ungodly amounts of wealth and resources.
I did some quick research and it is estimated that the average person only needs to earn $100,000-200,000 per year to live entirely ‘comfortably’. That includes vacations, and a retirement fund.
A multi-billionaire has over 2,000x that much. Just for bragging rights. While people struggle and starve. There is just absolutely no valid excuse for any person to own and maintain that much of any resource.
Just as average citizens ceasing to use plastic straws is only a drop in the ocean of saving the environment, likewise disabled and marginalized people utilizing social supports to survive and take care of themselves is a drop in the ocean of people ‘mooching off a system’.
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. That’s capitalism.
We need Universal Basic Income, yesterday. And we need to look out for each other. ‘Rugged individualism’ is a destructive lie we’ve been sold.
Thanks for [coming to my anti-capitalist TED Talk] listening, let’s look out for each other better.
Lacey Artemis (she/they) is a neurodivergent speaker, consultant, and media producer. She is the founder of Neuromix Consulting which provides sensory comfort and accessibility consulting, as well as facilitation and anti-burnout play workshops. You can find out more at www.neuromixconstulting.com.
LinkedIn • YouTube • RedBubble • Buy Me A Coffee • IG • FB • BSKY