FILE – A masked ICE agent at Federal Plaza
Photograph by Dean Moses
Until you’re sick or have an underlying well being situation that makes you susceptible to nearly each virus, there’s merely no motive for somebody to put on a face masks in public.
Greater than 5 years faraway from the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re long gone the purpose of necessity for public mask-wearing. The masks ban that was lifted through the outbreak to guard New Yorkers was by no means reinstated in full, and present occasions ought to compel New York state, together with Gov. Kathy Hochul, to lastly make sure the masks come off for good for anybody who doesn’t really want them.
At this time, we see individuals sporting masks for the fee of mischief and mayhem on either side of the legislation.
On one aspect are protesters who’ve marched via the streets and congregated on faculty campuses, sporting masks to guard themselves from being recognized by anybody, together with legislation enforcement. Many of those masked protesters have dedicated crimes from trespassing onto non-public property to hate-motivated harassment, vandalism, and even assault.
Protesters in Columbia College on the bottom, with their arms up, as police transfer in to interrupt up the Hamilton Corridor siege on April 30, 2024.Screenshot from bodycam video courtesy of NYPD
On the opposite aspect are ICE brokers who roam the halls of Federal Plaza’s immigration court docket, and now the streets of town, to apprehend immigrants. They’re masked up, the federal Division of Homeland Safety claims, to protect themselves from being “doxxed” — the apply of people combing the web to seek out the true identities of people and expose their backgrounds, together with delicate info equivalent to dwelling addresses.
What the masked protesters and ICE brokers have in frequent is a mutual perception that masks present anonymity to do no matter they need, and a simultaneous worry of being held accountable for something flawed or unlawful they could do.
It additionally means that they acknowledge their actions could also be morally flawed and presumably unlawful, but they search the safety of the masks to defend themselves from accountability.
That’s not the way it ought to ever work.
Public demonstrations have lengthy been part of New York’s historical past, and generations of unmasked New Yorkers have marched peacefully with out incident — even on the danger of being recognized with causes which may appear, on the time, unpopular. The NYPD and different legislation enforcement brokers have all the time saved town secure with out ever needing to put on masks to take action.
It’s time for individuals to cease hiding behind the masks and present themselves for who they’re and what they really imagine. If you’re not courageous sufficient to point out your face, then don’t do something that will expose you to the detrimental penalties of unhealthy actions.
Both manner, Governor Hochul and the state Legislature should act to ban public mask-wearing, with applicable medical exemptions to those that really must put on them.
