No masks for you!
So, you may have heard of the anti-mask bill making its way through the North Carolina legislature. Basically, it’s repealing a health exemption to an existing anti-masking law on the books. And, to be fair, North Carolina isn’t the only state that has (or had) anti-masking laws on the books—many were created long ago in response to hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan who would hide their identities behind hoods.
But this bill is unconscionable, because this reversal isn’t about going back to protecting the public. It’s about having a new way to go after protestors and to marginalize people wearing masks to protect their health.
There have always been exemptions for certain jobs (surgeons, people who need to protect against inhaling toxins, etc.) and for Halloween costumes. But there are no exemptions for personal health reasons in this new bill. And the justification has been that “people doing it for health reasons won’t be affected because law enforcement has discretion on enforcement.”
Bullshit.
Plenty of people wearing masks against infectious disease are targeted for ridicule, verbal assault, physical assault, shame, marginalization and more. And police are not known for their compassion or understanding or—to be honest—respect for any behavior largely carried out by people anywhere to the left of conservative.
More and more, people wearing masks to protect their health are seen as the problem because people want to forget about COVID and pretend it isn’t still a problem. Repealing the health exemption to the existing mask law isn’t about public safety. If it was, the new bill would simply clarify what masks are acceptable for the general public.
Now, this bill arose from recent student protests, because some protestors were wearing masks. But, again, that doesn’t require a draconian “no masks ever” rule for the public that doesn’t distinguish between types of masks or reason for wearing them.
Because, let’s be honest: An N-95 mask isn’t going to hide your identity very well.
And differentiating between a balaclava kind of mask and a mask for your mouth and nose is really freaking easy to do. The lack of willingness to do so shows that it isn’t just masked protestors or the KKK that legislators have in mind.
As Democratic NC Sen. Natasha Marcus was quoted in an NBC news article: “They are clearly trying to feed red meat to their anti-vax, anti-science, anti-mask base with this bill. I do think it was initially sparked by student protests on various campuses across our state. But the fact is if they just wanted to address those student protests, they did not need to ban masks for everyone.” Three Democratic senators proposed various amendments to protect health usage while still covering the need to address truly criminal use of masks, but the Republicans blocked all three from even being considered for vote.
I’ve become a bit more lax about my own mask wearing in public recently. I’m more intentional now about wearing one in certain spaces that are riskier and less so at other times. The truth is that COVID isn’t as deadly or as dangerous as it was when it first emerged. But it is still much more dangerous than influenza, and we’ve had flu vaccines for years because the flu is actually a pretty dangerous disease. And with COVID, evidence continues to mount about its long-term (and potentially debilitating) secondary effects on the body and how long it can linger and cause harm.
No, the anti-masking law got traction because of masked protestors. But to be honest, I think the bigger target is people who remind naysayers and deniers and ignorant people that there is still a nasty disease out there and maybe we should take it seriously. People who are uncomfortable seeing masked faces but not comfortable with respecting people’s rights to manage their own health and safety in their own way.
You know, personal liberties?
But why let personal liberty get in the way of authoritarian rulemaking?