I don't know who needs to hear this, but if we criminalize not wearing a face mask rn, the law will not be used to punish the people who you think "deserve it"

I get the anger, everyone in my house is high risk and so are most of my friends tbh

But a carceral solution is not going to help

1. Say the punishment is "just a fine", but someone can't pay the fine. What then? Do we put that person in a crowded prison during a pandemic, when we should be working on getting people out of prison?

2. If not wearing a mask is punishable with a fine, that just means it's legal for rich people.

https://fedorasaurus.tumblr.com/post/181236664358/an-action-being-punishable-by-a-fine-basically/amp

3. There are other solutions, like we could make masks free. Hand them out to people who are not wearing one. Do more education on mask wearing. I know, I know: this country.

But I don't think choosing to criminalize not wearing a mask is going to topple Fox news.

4. I know we all hate the people who think the ADA is some sort of "gotcha", but there are legitimately disabled people who can't wear a mask. Sometimes there are other options, like a face shield. Here's a v good thread about that. https://twitter.com/allylovespono/status/1275905774875627521?s=19

5. Do we really want to give cops another tool to harass Black people? Because you know they will, right? You know that even if a Black person is wearing a mask...cops lie. Right?

6. Plus some white woman is definitely going to say she felt "threatened" because a Black man was wearing a mask in her vicinity. And call 911. You know this, right?

7. We already tried criminalizing people for exposing others, and it didn't actually help. There are a lot of folks more directly affected already talking about this, you can read more here. https://www.thebody.com/article/policing-pandemics-criminalization-hiv-coronavirus-covid-19-webinar

8. Those photos of crowded beaches pissed me off, too. But there's a narrative that the rise in COVID cases is due to "selfish individuals" rather than a government that is prioritizing "the economy" over human lives.

8b. We could have just stayed closed, given individuals a lot of stimulus money to pay them so they don't have to go to work, provided free masks, etc.

Reopening was a choice our government made. Let's stay mad about that.

8c. I'm also staying mad about being lied to that masks helped.

9. If you know individuals who are not wearing masks, have you tried...talking to them about it? Like I know that some people are not going to listen. But maybe someone has a barrier to wearing a mask that you don't know about. Or they're working on misinformation.

If you learned something from this thread, please thank an abolitionist and support #8ToAbolition

Also here's some reading on abolition

http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/ 

Addendum: also I get the impulse in thinking people not wearing a mask "deserve" to get COVID, but (a) it will spread, (b) this is just reinforcing the idea that sickness/disability is some kind of moral punishment. Which is a v toxic idea.

This https://twitter.com/lasrina/status/1276137471542165507?s=19