It’s time to boycott the Kennedy Center.

Trump has taken a great American arts institution and started destroying it (like he does with everything he touches)

The Center announced an employee mask ban today, putting the lives of staff and patrons at risk.

Employees must obtain a doctor’s note if they feel their disability merits wearing a mask. They will be forced to divulge medical information to their employer.

Even if they successfully jump through all the hoops, they will be removed from a public facing role.

Everyone needs the right to protect their health. You shouldn’t need to already be disabled to be “allowed” to avoid COVID.

This is about optics and control. They want to promote the narrative that COVID is over, even though they know it’s not true.

This is an inevitable consequence of failure to normalize masks. Please if you can wear a mask, wear one now.

It won’t be long before the fascists ban them altogether.

New York Governor Hochul is trying to sneak a mask ban into the budget, despite the opposition of many disabled & high risk people who NEED masks to safely access public spaces.

Criminalizing masks during an airborne pandemic, while measles is on the rise, is dangerous, ableist & eugenicist.

Call and email elected officials and tell them you oppose mask bans and that medical exemptions are NOT sufficient

https://gothamist.com/news/gov-hochul-is-pushing-a-last-minute-subway-mask-ban-in-state-budget-talks

If you think mask bans are “no big deal” because there’s medical exemptions, please consider the following:

Police are not doctors
Many disabilities are invisible
Disabled people don’t live in a bubble. I need my friends and caregivers to mask to protect me Everyone should have the right to protect their health, you shouldn’t have to already be sick to be permitted to mask
Criminalizing masks sends a message that maskers are “bad”. It emboldens anti-maskers and increases odds of aggression

The reality is that mask bans are discriminatory, ableist and eugenicist. They push disabled people out of public spaces. They put marginalized and POC at increased risk of police profiling.

There’s no official policy for a medical exemption either, it’s at police discretion.

If you’re stopped and questioned, you will have to prove you’re masking for the “right reasons”

I’m more than willing to admit that if I were stopped by a cop for masking, I would appear nervous, shaky, tachycardic and probably “suspicious”.

Not because I’m doing anything wrong, but because my illnesses do not respond well to stress and the police are stressful.

It’s not right to put the onus on the masker to defend their right to mask. We’re still in a global pandemic. Texas has a measles outbreak. There’s tuberculosis in Kansas. Bird flu is spreading and it’s the worst year for influenza A in over a decade.

Masks are a public health tool. They’re a disability accommodation. They should NOT be criminalized.

For more on mask bans and medical exemptions, I wrote an article on the Nassau County ban here: https://www.disabledginger.com/p/nassau-county-ny-makes-masking-illegal

North Dakota becomes the latest state to try & enact a mask ban

Pay particular attention to this part of the bill

“With intent to conceal the identity of individual while congregating in a public place with any other individual wearing a mask”

Being masked with other maskers should NOT be a crime

https://ndlegis.gov/content/application-template

Graphic by virgoakahater

As many other observers have noted, I think the increasing appetite for mask bans by conservative governments (regardless of which political party they ostensibly represent) in America sits at an odious junction between a eugenicist approach to Covid policy, a desire to impede anti-genocide protestors under the guise of fighting "antisemitism," and appeasing the anti-vax and Covid-denying fascists those right wing government bodies rely on for political support. Unfortunately however, unless you're extremely plugged in to the experiences of the various groups being targeted by these mask bans (people with disabilities, Covid-cautious maskers, anti-genocide protestors, antifascists, etc) it can be very difficult for the average person to understand the sheer reactionary animus and fascist motivations behind these policies. As such, I think this eye-witness account by Jews for Mask Rights of the Nassau County, NY mask ban meeting is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to understand how this intersection of horrifying reactionary goals leads to the adoption of disastrous policies like a county-wide mask ban.

https://www.jewsformaskrights.com/resources/anti-mask-harassment-nassau-countys-mask-ban-hearing

Anti-Mask Harassment at Nassau County’s Mask Ban Hearing

"The public comment period devolved into a spectacle of intolerance. Masked individuals were not called to speak until 5:30 PM, nearly five hours after the start time. By then, some would-be speakers had to leave before they could testify, and the bill's proponents in the legislature had spent hours hearing arguments from Democratic legislators about the bill’s unconstitutionality and the waste of taxpayer money to defend it. Yet, they still were insistent on pushing this problematic bill through.

Former Mayor Wayne Hall, an immunocompromised kidney transplant recipient, was the first to speak against the mask ban. The crowd loudly booed the elected official at the mere mention of COVID-19 remaining a threat to his health.

One co-writer of our Jews for Mask Rights open letter was booed during her testimony about her concerns about the bill and her struggle with Long COVID. The crowd yelled obscenities when she shared her fears about harassment – a valid fear, considering another co-writer had been harassed for masking in NYC just that morning. The irony of a group allegedly “opposing hate speech” and ”concerned with Jewish safety” mocking a disabled Jewish speaker was not lost on us."

To be frank, I don't think anyone will be surprised to learn that a public meeting about an anti-mask law in a New York suburb that ultimately passed the ban along party lines (12 Republicans vote for it, 7 Democrats voted against) was a reactionary clusterfuck, but even by the standards of winger politics on the local level, this gathering was a fascist nightmare. Opponents of the ban were forced to wait five hours to speak, and even when they were allowed to do so suffered under the clearly biased interpretations of the meeting rules by the presiding official, Howard J. Kopel. Pro-ban supporters harassed, attempted to intimidate, and even coughed on mask wearers, including immune compromised individuals, while local police stood idly by; although they were happy to physically assault one anti-ban speaker for the crime of asking for more speaking time when her allotted three minutes were up.

On the surface, all of this may sound excessively authoritarian for a public meeting about a county policy, but as the authors of this piece note, the oppression is indeed the whole point of the so-called Mask Transparency Act in the first place, and why the vague wording of the law effectively empowers police in the county to selectively enforce it against what amount to political enemies of the conservative government that passed it. Quite frankly, the fascists in Nassau County wouldn't have it any other way.

From Alice Wong:

"Mask Bans Insult Disabled People, Endanger Our Health, and Threaten Our Ability to Protest"

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/mask-bans-disabled-people-protest

I urge everyone to read this post from Lucky Tran about a proposed mask ban in Nassau County that would see people fined $1000 for wearing a mask. As soon as North Carolina passed their mask ban - we began seeing other cities and states follow suit.

Mask bans are wrong. Period. We are in an airborne pandemic where one of our best and only tools remains a well fitted respirator. The idea that people should have to carry around a medical exemption (which not everyone can obtain) or face fines and/or arrest is ableist and discriminatory. These bans force disabled people out of society because they don’t allow us to exist safely in public spaces - and they will increase the spread of Covid.

Call, email, post… speak out against these bans. Let lawmakers know you won’t visit any city or state that doesn’t allow people to wear a medical device for personal protection and community care.

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidCautious #CovidIsNotOver #MaskBan #BoycottNC #CleanAir #WearaMask #Disability #LongCovid #Ableism #Denial #CleanAir #Pandemic #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #N95 #Respirators #MasksWork #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #NorthCarolina #NewYork #UglyLaws #NewJersey

https://med-mastodon.com/@luckytran/112771681051933740

North Carolina just made medical masks illegal - the Republicans overrode the Governor’s veto. Protecting your health & the health of others is now a crime & people can demand you unmask in public.

The “exemption” is vague & problematic. This will lead to arrests & infections. It further isolates disabled people from society. It will disproportionately harm marginalized individuals and people of colour.

Also can we stop calling people in masks “sheep” yet? They’ve been in the overwhelming minority for years - and now they will literally be committing a crime while trying to protect their health. Masking has become an act of resistance - it’s simply laughable to lambast people as “sheep” for wearing a mask in 2024.

https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/republican-led-nc-house-overrides-gubernatorial-vetoes/

I’ve been predominantly bedridden for the last few weeks. My long covid symptoms continue to worsen. The fact that many abled folx refuse to do the simplest steps to ensure disabled survival is a celebration of eugenics and abled supremacy. I have to care for and keep my disabled child alive. Yet, I can barely care for myself. Simple tasks like eating, brushing my teeth, and getting dressed have become a chore. Whenever I mention that I have LC to non-Covid cautious folx they always find it “ironic” since I’ve been home isolating, wearing N95 masks, and only going out when necessary since the beginning of the ongoing pandemic. It’s as if it’s a way for folx to affirm their “survival of the fittest” ableist values. As mask bans become celebrated who can we count on? At this point, we can’t even receive safe medically necessary care. I’m grateful for having home medical suction, oxygen and seizure rescue meds to save my child’s life, and avoid reinfection from another traumatic AMR/ER experience. This is disabled life, this is abandonment.
I’m searching for community and collective care. If others have resources or suggestions I’d love to hear. As a yt, cis, housed disabled family, I realize we have a huge amount of privilege to dismantle. #maskban #ableism #AbledSupremacy #disabled #LongCovid #stillCOVIDing #MaskUp #eugenics #MedicalIndustrialComplex #isolation #COVID19

New Cybersecurity Roundup -- with very important cat pics!

Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cybersecurity-25-106839643

Assange cuts a deal to avoid the US, the upcoming SANS Neurodiversity in Cybersecurity Summit 2024, new info on Jake Appelbaum’s trail of terror, Biden WH bans Kaspersky software in the US, New Zealand’s government goes spyware shopping after dumping its US-Israeli bestie, and much more.