New county ruling - A county in Oregon is exempting non-white people from a new order that requires facemasks be worn in public.
The reason? To prevent racial profiling.
Lincoln County health officials announced last week that all residents must wear face coverings when in public places in which they are likely to come within six feet of another person who is not from their own household.
“But people of color do not have to follow the new rule if they have ‘heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment’ over wearing the masks, officials said,” The New York Post reported.
Those exempted from wearing face masks, Lincoln County’s June 16 directive states, are “persons with health or medical conditions that preclude or are exacerbated by wearing a face covering,” “children under the age of 12,” persons with certain disabilities that do no allow them to wear one, and “people of color who have heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment due to wearing face coverings in public.”
“No person shall intimidate or harass people who do not comply,” health officials said.The Post cites ACLU Racial Justice Program Director ReNika Moore, who told CNN, “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.”
CNN quoted Trevon Logan, who is black, as saying a mandate to wear face coverings are “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,” said Logan, an economics professor at Ohio State“It looks like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety black suspect,” he said.”We have a lot of examples of the presumed criminality of black men in general. And then we have the advice to go out in public in something that … can certainly be read as being criminal or nefarious, particularly when applied to black men.” University.