✨🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️📜🖋️✨👀🐲🐯❣️ #PenQuote #June9th #LoveIsLove #Unmask #ForYourself #BeYourTrueSelf #NotThatMask #Allies #Friends #ThankYou #ForYourSupport
#Unmask
The War on #Masks Has Taken on a New Meaning
This time, the masks have nothing to do with #COVID19.
By Henry Grabar
Feb 05, 20254:57 PM
"Last month, state legislators in New York introduced a bill that would create a new crime: 'masked harassment.'
"That, the law explains, is when you wear a mask 'for the primary purpose of menacing or threatening violence against another person' or 'placing another person or group of persons in reasonable fear for their physical safety.'
"If that seems like a bit of a niche offense—threatening violence is already a crime, after all—it’s because the language has been watered down to attract political support. It’s a sign of New York Democrats’ cautious new approach over masks in public life, and a retreat from last spring, when anti-Israel protests, on top of a widespread urban crime panic, pushed leaders from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to consider mask bans.
"In its original form, the New York bill would have banned masks at public assemblies entirely. But the outcry from #DisabilityRights advocates, #CriminalJustice reformers, #HealthCareWorkers, and #CivilLiberties groups was swift, and so New York wound up with this bill on 'masked harassment' instead.
"Elsewhere, the pandemic-era leniency on masking in public is over. #NorthCarolina Republicans overrode a gubernatorial veto last summer to once again #BanPublicFaceCoverings, except to stop the spread of contagious diseases. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost dusted off an old law to threaten #StudentProtesters with #felonies. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked the state’s Senate to consider a bill to #unmask #protesters this year.
"For Republicans, it’s a chance to kill two birds with one stone. They can strike back against the perceived overreach of pandemic-era #HealthDirectives and make it easier to arrest #demonstrators at the same time.
"In #Ohio and North Carolina, the original statutes were written in the 1950s to stop demonstrations by the #KuKluxKlan, but had been ignored or suspended during the #pandemic and the #GeorgeFloydProtests. Many lawmakers have cited the recent demonstrations in defense of #Gaza as a reason to crack down again. Defending the proposed mask ban in New York, Anti-Defamation League [#ADL] president Jonathan Greenblatt said the demonstrators were using '#KKK tactics' to intimidate Jewish New Yorkers.
"That instinct was bolstered by the sense among many city residents and elected leaders that widespread masking was a factor behind the pandemic-era crime spike. That led to #Philadelphia banning #SkiMasks in parks, on trains, and in public buildings. A more recent, high-profile example came in December with the Midtown Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO #BrianThompson by a #MaskedAssassin, which prompted New York Mayor Eric Adams to call for cab drivers and business owners to ask customers to remove their masks. The new New York bill has won over the liberal Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who endorsed the 'tailored' approach. As the police say: #NoFaceNoCase.
"For what it’s worth, there are too many confounding variables and too little data to be sure if mask-wearing is associated with crime, said Ernesto Lopez at the Council for Criminal Justice, which collects crime reporting statistics from various cities. 'From a theoretical statement it makes sense that could occur, but it has not been demonstrated that’s the case,' he told me.
"But if all that weighed in favor of more mask bans, there was also widespread resistance. Disability advocates mobilized to defend the right to mask; North Carolina had to write a medical exemption into their bill at the insistence of a GOP House member. #PoliceReformers observed that #MaskBans have often been used for pretextual #policing and racial profiling against #BlackAmericans. (#AtlantaGeorgia tabled a mask ban for that reason.)
"What looms largest, as the second Trump administration begins, is the role of protest. As Semafor’s Dave Weigel has noted, masks have become a badge of left-wing protest culture. That’s in part an extension of politicized COVID-era concerns about health and civility, but at this point it is mostly a tactic to preserve anonymity in an era of #FacialRecognition, streaming video, and #doxing. Last year, the anonymous #ProIsrael website the #CanaryMission posted photographs of hundreds of students and faculty at campus protests and posted their names and photos online, labeling some as supporters of terrorism.
"'The concern takes on new urgency as Donald Trump pledges to revoke the visas of pro-Palestine protesters, and the Trump-Musk GOP embraces the naming and shaming of otherwise private citizens. A conservative group called the American Accountability Foundation has begun circulating lists of federal workers, many of them Black, who should be
'targets' for their alleged involvement in #DEI initiatives at work.
"Clearly, the masked protest does not always sit well with an older generation, many of whom cut their teeth in the protests of the pre-internet age. As Georgetown professor Michael Kazin told the New York Times last year: 'I do think if you are going to demonstrate, and it’s something you feel deeply about, you should be willing to stand up and be counted.'"
Source:
https://slate.com/business/2025/02/mask-bans-new-york-los-angeles-crime-protests-criminalize-face-coverings.html?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
#Fascism #AuthoritarianRule #BigBrother #BigBrotherIsWatchingYou #SurveillanceState #SilencingDissent
Jun 09 Masked group displays Nazi flag in front of Pierre Capitol building (KITV NBC 4 Sioux City IA) -
http://www.ktiv.com/2024/06/09/masked-group-displays-nazi-flag-front-pierre-capitol-building/
"A group of more than a dozen masked individuals marched through the streets of Pierre before stopping at the front steps of the capitol building Saturday.The group wore all red clothes along with black face masks and posed alongside a nazi flag. Other news stations around the country have reported the group doing the same thing in their city."
May 09 2023 Ski-masked ding-dong ditchers, stolen car chase wake up Trailside Loop residents (KPCW Public Radio Park City UT) -
Apr 20 2023 Pleasanton police looking for 2 men in ski masks suspected of fatal stabbing (CBS News) -
Mar 04 Masked shooters kill 4, wound 7 at party in California (Honolulu Star-Advertiser) -
“A group of men in masks opened fire at an outdoor party in central California, killing four people and wounding seven others, police said.”
The Ghost-Busting ‘Girl Detective’ Who Awed Houdini
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rose-mackenberg-houdini-ghost-buster #undercover #investigator #RoseMackenberg #unmask #America’s #Fake #psychics #Spiritualists #Houdini
It's been just over six months since I self-realized that I am #actuallyautistic.
I've only begun to #unmask. A large part of being true to myself is setting firm #boundaries and purging anyone that is toxic to my #mentalhealth.
#Bye family who have revealed themselves to be truly shitty people.
#Bye friends who can't be bothered.
None of this has been easy, but necessary.
I'm looking forward to 2024 and a #newyear of positivity, hope and new beginnings.
@darrellpf @ActuallyAutistic Just like LGBT learn to fit in, we did this as a survival skill. It became part of us in ways we didn’t understand. All we knew was that to be noticed or called out was bad and sometimes dangerous.
Still my biggest challenge is being patient enough for people to finish being wordy and not cutting them off. Your words exhaust me. Stop it. But, no, cutting them off is worse… right?
So we need to be kind to ourselves and learn to #unmask.
@alexisbushnell this reasonates with me. The feelings I’m having while beginning to #unmask feel a lot like #ComingOut. We’re increasingly become aware of all the ways #masking inhibits/ed us and stumbling through how to express ourselves now that we know we just can’t live that way any more. Learning how to clarify our needs with people who mostly never realized how their behavior affected us. #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD @actuallyautistic
@EverBeyondReach I am trying to #unmask more. Yes I fall into my masks pretty easily. But I understand the harm it dies me now. I also have my son, who hasn’t learned the #masking, to measure my reaction against… at least in some situations.
My preference is to be with people I don’t have to mask with. If I must mask then I try to minimize it at all costs. Having to deal with the #aftermath of masking us exhausting.
Been seeking community and connection. I’m emerging from a dark period of the last few months, triggered by setbacks for my son at school. We’re on an upswing and better path now. I hope that it isn’t disrupted. I need it not to be. I’m learning that I need to #unmask more with school staff and clearly communicate the harm this BS causes. It’s too easy for them to gloss over and ignore. I simply won’t weather it any more. #ActuallyAutistic #ParentingWhileAutistic #AutisticAF #AutisticParenting
#AutismAdventCalendar #DaySeven
Wednesday 7th (sorry for the delay folks)
Do you often notice yourself masking your autistic symptoms as a way to fit in, almost subconsciously? When you do it, it can be really draining, so it is important to take breaks for masking. I recommend this every day, but especially today!
#autism #adhd #unmask #AdventCalendar #Christmas #Festive
@dyinglikeastar @peppernut I get to experience #autistictoautistic communication daily with my son. It can be frustrating for both of us, at times, but it’s also blissful too. He unwittingly helped me to discover my #autism and helps me #unmask as well. He similarly benefits from being in a #nonpublicschool with other #neurodivergent kids. It’s given him a #perspective on himself he’d never get from #gened. #actuallyautistic @actuallyautistic
Even when I am with someone like my friend Kenneth who encourages me to be myself and #unmask, after he leaves and the euphoria wears off, I still feel a bit of that shame. It is a small comfort to know that most people, including him, rarely think of me. I think of other people all the time. 5/13
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