Why I resisted wearing a mask — and why I gave in

Raj Mankad says we need to put public health, and the lives of many vulnerable people, above our fears and egos.

In London last year, at the end of a grueling week-long work trip, I took a walk around the old city. When I crossed Tower Bridge, the famed path was lined by activists shouting in solidarity with those in Hong Kong resisting the encroaching Chinese security state.

Nearly all in the crowd wore face masks in direct protest of the Chinese ban against them in public assemblies. Bits of fabric covering noses and mouths can be literally the only shreds of protection some have against Chinese government surveillance, including facial recognition tools used against Uighurs and the Hong Kong protesters.

“Give me liberty!” one young man called through his mask. A piercing chorus responded, “Or give me death!”

That phrase, for them, was no slogan from an American history book. Their readiness to die for freedom was as palpable as the chill it sent down my spine.

A few months after that London protest, the Chinese government encouraged or required its citizens to wear masks to contain the novel coronavirus. Now, U.S. states and local governments are making similar requirements. Harris County is joining the list.

My own feelings about masks remain complicated. I resisted wearing one my whole life — until this week.

So why is it so hard to put a piece of fabric on my face? It feels embarrassing and absurd. I suddenly look how I feel. All the fear bottled up inside is displayed on my face. It also feels transgressive. Reading each other’s faces is so basic to the trust that undergirds society.

In some parts of the United States, laws written to curb the Ku Klux Klan ban the wearing of masks in public. Black Lives Matter organizer Ashton P Woods points out a mask, especially a homemade one, only adds to the way black people are perceived as threatening. Among other troubling incidents of racial profiling, an African-American physician in a mask was handcuffed outside his own home in Miami. Despite my slight build, I already get stopped by neighborhood constables. With my brown skin, even I can seem threatening.

Back when I was a student protester leading calls and responses, I decided early on to follow the law and, if need be, sign permit requests. Someone has to use their name. I didn’t join friends who wore bandannas around their faces. Not wearing a mask is part of my identity.

I avoided wearing a mask until this week by not going to any stores. Finally, though, I had to buy something I could not wait to have delivered — a propane tank for the grill my father-in-law uses for most of his cooking. My wife and I drove to the Quick Food Mart, a family-owned business with a little Buddhist shrine tucked in the corner.

The only other customer also wore a mask, a simple cloth one. Mine was the respirator type used by cleanup crews to filter toxic dust and mold spores. I looked like a Doctor Who character while he resembled an executive-turned-bandit. His simple, “hey buddy,” carried a note of solidarity. Masks can feel transgressive but also, it seems, unifying.

Part of me hopes all the laws, and the internalized sense of transgression and fear, around mask wearing are permanently eroded by the COVID-19 crisis. For the sake of the Hong Kong protesters, and for our own. The United States has its own problems with surveillance.

I protested the Patriot Act in the early 2000s. Passed with bipartisan support and signed by President George W. Bush, it expanded U.S. surveillance on its own citizens. In 2015, the Patriot Act saw a major revision thanks to a coalition across party lines in the Senate and House, but I was dismayed by the storage of huge amounts of private data under the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, Americans increasingly track ourselves with more and more devices allowing private companies to collect vast amounts of data to sell to whomever might pay. Law enforcement pushes to access these troves too, with legitimate aims in many cases, but not enough oversight.

Here in Houston, it’s not unusual to see cute little cars mounted with cameras, not just the Google ones, but with logos of companies I know nothing about — Numo? — collecting data on our streets, and perhaps the faces and identities of passersby. Doorbell and security cameras are everywhere. You can’t escape the cameras. Privacy is impossible, at least without a mask.

Will America get to the same point as the Chinese — where we rely on strips of fabric to shield us from the prying eyes of Big Brother? Crazy thought. But maybe not for long.

This pandemic has become one long set of object lessons in freedoms. Donning a mask drags in more issues of psychology, race and rights.

If you have a hard time putting on a mask, I’m with you.

In this case, though, we need to put public health, and the lives of many vulnerable people, above our fears and egos. Put on a mask if you go to the store or any public place outside your house. It may protect you and your neighbor from infection.

And, in the long run, a mask may protect your freedom.