““Safety” is a key word used by people who mask and those who consider masking a criminal act. But it’s worth asking, who is kept safe by the state or by individual acts, and who is left out? “We keep us safe” is a phrase used by community organizers that view public safety as a collective endeavor. As Charis Hill, a disability activist, tells me, “I take medications that weaken my immune system, so I primarily wear a mask to protect myself, but I also wear it to protect others and to show that we are still in a pandemic. If mask bans become the reality, I have little hope that I'll ever be safe in public again.””
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