The stated reason for why "colored" people need not wear face masks in Lincoln County while "white" people are told they have to is that officials supposedly want to avoid "racial profiling." Because black people could potentially be targeted by law enforcement for covering their mouths, officials claim, it is best to simply allow them to live normally while everyone else has to breathe in their own recycled carbon dioxide.
"No person shall intimidate or harass people who do not comply" with the new rules, area health officials said in a statement, adding that "people of color" have a skin color-based exemption due to "heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment" over their wearing of masks.
ReNika Moore from the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) "Racial Justice Program" is thrilled with the new double standard, having told CNN that segregation along the lines of face mask-wearing is an appropriate way to ensure that black people are treated equally during the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
"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," she is quoted as saying.
Trevon Logan, who is also black just like Moore, agrees. He told CNN that having to wear a face mask while black is "basically telling people to look dangerous given racial stereotypes that are out there."
"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," Logan, a professor of economics at Ohio State University, added. "It looks like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety black suspect."
How black does your skin have to be in Lincoln County to avoid having to wear a mask?
What Logan is basically saying is that black men basically all look the same whenever their noses and mouths are covered with cloth, which is why they cannot be expected to wear face masks like white people, who apparently all look different while wearing theirs.
Logan failed to address how white men who are forced to wear masks may also end up being unfairly targeted for looking "like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety" white suspect, which apparently does not matter because only black lives matter.
Meanwhile, Lincoln County has yet to issue a color chart showing just how black a person's skin needs to be in order to qualify for this skin color-based mask exemption. Will "mixed" people with some black ancestry still qualify, or does a person have to have near-pitch black skin in order to be considered black enough to not have to wear a mask?
While the details about all this remain vague, what we do know is that white people need not apply for any exemptions as they have already been sent to the back of the bus. If your skin is at all pale in Lincoln County, then you have to throw on that mask or face public persecution due to the color of your skin.
We anticipate that the tanning industry in Lincoln County is about to boom as area residents rush to become "black" in order to be afforded the same equal freedoms and protections under the law as actual black people living in and visiting Lincoln County.
To keep up with the latest news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be sure to check out Pandemic.news.
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