Oregon county orders whites to wear masks but says black people can be exempt
June 24, 2020
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Face mask for me, but not for thee. That’s the backward mantra of Lincoln County, Oregon, which requires all white people to wear face masks in public but exempts “people of color” from wearing them.
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In a directive last week, health officials in Lincoln County — which is 90% white — said all white people must wear face masks in public in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
However, the health officials said “people of color” don’t have to wear masks because of “heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment due to wearing face coverings in public.”
“People of color” is a blanket euphemism for black people. The ACLU’s ReNika Moore confirmed that face masks are a sensitive issue for the black community.
“For many black people, deciding whether or not to wear a bandanna in public to protect themselves and others from contracting coronavirus is a lose-lose situation that can result in life-threatening consequences either way,” Moore claimed.
Trevon Logan, a black professor at Ohio State University, claimed that orders to wear face coverings are “basically telling people to look dangerous, given racial stereotypes that are out there.”
Logan added: “This is in the larger context of black men fitting the description of a suspect who has a hood on, who has a face covering on. It looks like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety black suspect.”
It’s unclear what Logan is talking about, since we’ve rarely seen black crime suspects wearing face masks (see example below). That is not a racial stereotype of blacks who commit crimes. Why? Because face masks only became trendy during the past three months because of the coronavirus.
moar:
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/06/24/oregon-county-orders-whites-to-wear-masks-but-says-black-people-can-be-exempt-938443