When leaders talk about banning masks for safety, they ignore the safety of many diverse communities. People who are higher risk, and Asian people have been attacked for wearing masks. Black and Brown communities are disproportionately targeted by police. Safety means EVERYONE.
@luckytran In Europe masks bans have been a thing before the Covid-19 pandemic, for similar "public order" reasons. In the case of Luxembourg, they are suspended since 2020.
Still, they were not systematically enforced before, rather they would probably be used to repress protesters arrested for something else (adding up infractions on top of each other).
It's typically the kind of law that (white) privilege allows you not to think about. There's no doubt they'll be used against BIPOC indeed.
There is zero evidence mask bans are effective against crime or hate. But there's a lot of evidence that shows banning masks will put everyone's health at risk, and increases harassment and targeting of higher risk people and communities of color. Mask bans make cities LESS safe.
@luckytran The incidence of COVID outbreaks immediately after maskless Trump campaign rallies compared to the lack of outbreaks following peaceful BLM/George Floyd protests in 2020 offer anecdotal evidence.
@luckytran This seems like a reflexive "do something now!" political response to the most recent protests, precisely targeting those that, for privacy reasons, are unlikely to push back publicly.
@luckytran We are told that gun bans cannot work because criminals will just obtain and use them anyway. Why do they think mask bans will work to deter crime?
A government that spreads SARS doesn't give a fig for your safety or mine. If you were going to prep an adversarial population for a biological attack, how would you do it any different?
Funny how these .#MAGA / #GOP / Libertarian / Rightwing arseholes who bang on about freedom of choice are very badly to take it away from other people.
And the rightwing #evangelica - pseudo #Democrats - pseudo #Christian - psuedo #ProLife - pseudo £patriotism arseholes who really don't give a fuck about their fellow citizens or anyone else, they just want to enforce their own dumb orejudices onto everyone else, because that's what fascists do.
@luckytran The obvious answer is to massively test the law, force cops to arrest people and make challenges in court. It is absurd. Make the law unenforceable.