HISTORICAL ROOTS TO RESISTANCE ON MASKS
Recently, I tested positive for COVID-19. Despite following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines, everyone in my household is now working our way through a variety of symptoms.
Contrary to what some pandemic-deniers may think, this is not an indication that mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing are not effective. Rather, the plight of my diagnosis, as is the case for many who contract COVID-19, is a result of the inability of folks to follow even the most basic public health guidance.
I am no health care professional. What I recommend in regard to prevention measures is the advice of those with extensive medical backgrounds, like experts from the CDC. But as a political scientist with a background in analyzing social injustice, what I can offer is a lens with which to view pandemic spread — that lens being one of colonialism.
In “Anti-Asian Violence and US Imperialism,” UC San Diego history professor Simeon Man recounts how “days after U.S. President Donald Trump began referring to the coronavirus as the ‘Chinese virus,’ Asian American civil rights groups ... launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center to document the growing numbers of racist acts targeting Asian people in the [U.S.]. Within two weeks, the website reported over 1,100 incidents, including acts of verbal and physical assaults ... and other profanities linking Asian bodies to disease.”
Man defines this as a “feature of settler societies like the United States founded on Native dispossession and freedoms of property ownership.” It is this principle of being a settler society and maintaining freedom of ownership over property, speech or unrequited self-determination which defines why, despite millions of Americans following proper health and safety protocols, the United States has had the worst outbreak of COVID-19 to date.
Where colonizers of the pre-constitutional and “manifest destiny” eras spread disease, death and destruction, “covidizers” — folks who do not adhere to public health guidelines amidst a global pandemic — leave disease, death and destruction in their wake.
Like colonizers of the past, covidizers disregard the consequences of their behavior in pursuit of unrequited self-determination. Refusing to wear a mask in a store because “the government can’t tell me what to do,” attending parties because “I’m young and am ‘immune,’” or jet-setting to the beaches of Costa Rica because “pandemic fatigue is too much to handle” are all prime examples of covidizer behavior.
While it may be easy to poke fun at or ignore those who disregard pandemic prevention guidance, like colonizers, covidizers’ actions have consequences reaching far beyond the walls of their personal social bubbles.
This unrequited self-determination, maintained by covidizers and rooted in colonialism, is defined by researchers Edward Vargas and Gabriel Sanchez as “American individualism.” They write that “the number one reason given by Americans who are not wearing a mask is that it is their right as an American to not have to do so,” going on to state that “the core [principle] of individualism in American culture is leading to significant health consequences across the country.”
But individualism does not need to be the guiding principle for how we approach COVID-19 prevention. While the colonial spirit of self-determination has been an American hallmark for generations, so too has empathy. When President John F. Kennedy stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” he was not saying for Americans to aid their country when it is convenient for them; but rather to do what they can for the betterment of the country because it is the right thing to do.
Empathy is often regarded as incompatible with “American individualism.” As Kennedy noted, however, empathy in and of itself is an American principle with which we as individuals can and must use our constitutionally derived freedoms to pursue unabated.
Mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing have been weaponized by some within the political sphere as partisan issues, but the nature of these public health measures are rooted in the decolonial, and American, standard of empathy which seeks to right the wrongs of the past, whether those wrongs be committed by colonizers or covidizers.
This pandemic will not last forever. Three vaccines have already shown positive results, a signal that the end of this pandemic is near. But until a vaccine is available for free to every single person, it is our responsibility as good citizens to utilize our self-determination to reject “covidism” and pursue an empathy which recognizes that, by protecting ourselves, we are protecting our neighbors.