Genuinely despicable to force people to choose between protecting themselves from disease transmission and protesting for causes they care about
The cruelty is the point. It only affects those protesting for good causes anyway – those protesting in support of their orange Jesus won’t have masks anyway.
A disabled and chronically ill writer, who goes by @broadwaybabyto on social media, views masking as community care, saying she wears a “mask to protect others and show solidarity with all disabled and vulnerable people.… Many of us have sacrificed four and a half years of our lives, going to great lengths to preserve whatever health we have left.… As more and more COVID restrictions were dropped, masks remained as the single best accessibility tool disabled people had.… Taking that away…tells us you want us dead.… You don’t want us in your world. And it hurts.”
This part.
If you don’t show your face in a political protest in a free country, then you don’t actually believe in the cause.
This is obviously different in countries that are not free.
If you don’t have the freedom to cover your face at a political protest, the country you are protesting in is not free.
If you don’t show your face in a political protest in a free country
OP sure did.
Why is it cowardly? What do you think the purpose of a protest is? Your face does not lend a protest additional credibility, it just makes it easier to target you. The purpose of a protest is to show that people support a cause. Who those people are is irrelevant unless you plan to target them.
Oh, and which countries are “free”? I’d like to know which state has liberated all its people. I’ll wait.
There is an ongoing pandemic and the global capitalist efforts to downgrade, downplay, and minimise this pandemic for " the economy" mean that it’s even more important to mask, not least to challenge the health supremacy and ableism of this current capitalist culture. Masking is one of the most easy yet powerful ways we can promote safety and engage in intersectional anticapitalism (in times of universal deceit, and all that).
Protests are not about “being seen” as individuals to gain clout or appear cool and edgy, not least with the increased assault on the right to protest.
To truly “believe in the cause” is to act, not attract recognition. Besides, if you want a revolution, you’d better start dressing for the occasion.
I am talking about countries where you don’t get punnished for protesting orderly.
Tell me, what does showing your face add to the protest, other than making it easier for opposing groups to target you?
No, numbers make people take a protest seriously.
If you are discounting a cause based on whether the supporters show their faces or not, that’s just you looking for an excuse.
This is obviously different in countries that are not free.
So… the US? People are regularly arrested for perfectly legal, not even a shadow of a doubt, activity at protests. And protesters are vulnerable to not just cops, but dangerous actors who support the thing they’re protesting against. Whether it’s doxing, billionaire-funded slander, your boss not liking the cause, or actual violence, there’s plenty of reason not to want your face to be easily identifiable, even while orderly protesting for a just cause. Never mind health concerns like not wanting to catch COVID (or breath tear gas).
The idea that orderly protesting is safe in the United States is incredibly naïve.
At this point in time, I do not see the US as a free country in this context.
I was here. There is no fucking way that I would have shown my face at a Nazi rally. That very night in Eugene the Nazi’s were going door to door looking for people to arrest. Of course, the article is saying that it was antifa who instigated… As if a literal Nazi rally isn’t instigative of itself.
I kindly disagree that showing your face makes people take you seriously. All it makes you is a target. I think the key factor is what is the protest for, as whether or not I wear a mask depends on what I am protesting. If I’m protesting a hate group or hateful ideology, I am going to keep myself safe. If I am protesting social and environmental issues I generally do not feel the need to.
Also, going to protests is inherently dangerous because peaceful protesters are not treated with peace. In that article I linked, tear gas was fired at us, the peaceful protesters, when the Nazi’s were the ones crossing the police lines. Also the police had their back to them the entire time, facing us with their riot shields. I wonder why the cops were protecting the Nazi’s at the “far-right” rally. Peaceful protesters against being treated with excessive force being met with excessive force… So honestly, no. Wearing a mask is necessary because you will be targeted and will be followed home.
The thing about peaceful protests is that they are almost impossible, because a peaceful protest is inherently the peaceful protesters dying for their cause by not retaliating. No, I don’t think we should allow Nazi’s to assault people in walking aides and attempt to stop on them. No, I don’t think peaceful protesters who are being attacked by police should just let the cops beat them to death. And even if we did, they would still label us as anything but peaceful protests.
FFS, there’s so much evidence of planted and instigated protests, like bricks being thrown by people not part of the protest but claiming that they were. Basically, there’s no such thing as a peaceful protest and so wearing a mask should be prioritize for the protesters safety.
Note: any right-wing or conservative protesters disregard this. Show the world who you really are! It’s the right thing to do!
As I have repeatedly stated, the US is not a free country in this regard.
So mask away!
Haha I did happen to see one of those comments, it just ended up being after I posted all this lol. But, I would have probably posted it anyway because it’s been on my mind a lot lately.
Thank you for hearing me :)
You are partly correct, plenty of rights have been won through negotiation
And what do you think the negotiators are negotiating about? Why do you think anyone took Martin Luther King serious? They were fucking scared of Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey. “We make a deal with you so the scarier people don’t get any scarier than they are right now”
And Martin Luther King STILL got killed for speaking out. You’ve shown some really ignorant and privileged views in this thread. I’m glad Sweden’s been so kind to you, but maybe don’t chirp about shit you don’t know about if you don’t want people to say you sound like a tool for oppressors, especially when your nations wealth comes from the fossil fuels that’s killing everyone else. You are a beneficiary of colonialism even if you’re not the beneficiary of colonialism.
