Thread by @hondanhon

1/ Hey, I have a story about wearing masks.

Couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were in our regular couples counseling. We're fine -- and I recommend seeing a good counsellor regularly for all long-term couples. Anyway:

2/ K, our therapist was talking about reading that it would take at least 5 years for things to "get back to normal" after a pandemic like this.

3/ I said: 5 years?! The next pandemic will have already started by then.

Very funny ha ha, right?

4/ We talked together about the difference between last March & the transition we were in then, with so many scary unknowns, compared to the transition we’re in now, with mass vaccinations speeding up in the U.S.

5/ I had my last flight on February 29 2020, coming back from a workshop at Berkeley.

I haven’t flown for a year now.

I’ve pretty much flown every year for the last 20 years (I am a terrible person)

6/ From a mental health pov, last march was horrific. Constant alert, stress all the time, scanning for threats the whole time. If you’re like us, it was: is that man too close in the supermarket? Should we be sanitizing everything? Are we sanitizing enough? Is this mask right?

7/ Some of us, we never stopped being on alert, right?

What we were on alert for just changed with each transition & with time.

Summer became: should we be opening back up? (ha no) Should children be going back to school? Should we go back to the office?

8/ Fall/Autumn in the U.S. brought Thanksgiving and the holidays in December.

Definitely got worse then. Bubbles. Who’s doing what. Do we trust them?

Am I judging people for whether they’re wearing their mask right, if they’re traveling or not? (Yes, I am)

9/ Living with constant adrenaline and cortisol, changing fears, uncertainty for over a year now.

And then now a new transition and new fear with the prospect just the tiniest cracked open door of hope and of positive change.

10/ Parents and older family members starting to get vaccinated. We'll get through this someday. It's starting to turn. We can do it.

11/ So our counsellor K shares that she went on a trip out to central Oregon in Feb.

Should be safer now with the vaccine starting, right? An expedition out from blue dot Portland Metro out to generally purple/red rest-of-Oregon to see family.

12/ K’s high risk, and super conscientious. So, diligent mask wearing. Distancing. Cleaning.

Lots of being responsible. Even though hope looks near, got to stay the course. Don’t let our guard down when we’re so close.

13/ So K and her party get to the town.

Suddenly, they’re surrounded by people who’re not wearing masks.

Outside *or* inside.

K starts getting anxious, even though she knows the answer: why aren’t these people taking precautions, being safe for themselves & others?

14/ Of course the answer is because a lot of these people see not wearing a mask as a point of pride. Can't tell me what to do. Gonna make my own decisions. The whole thing's a lie. All that stuff.

Not really a surprise to K, she has family there.

15/ But now it's scary.

First time she’d been surrounded by so many people openly *not* taking precautions or being responsible.

16/ Now she's in the midst of people behaving like there’s no pandemic going on, as if everything’s normal or back to normal.

Only…

17/

Only... everywhere K went, it felt like people were staring at her and her group.

Judging them. Some people actively angry & derisive:

Oh you’re one of *those* mask wearers. Believing all those lies.

18/ Everywhere, contempt for K and her group.

19/ It was worst indoors, right?

20/ Now the trip turned into something else.

On top of usual scanning for threat, like “is that person wearing their mask right, should I move further away etc”

... now K & her group were facing *pervasive and persistent scorn*.

Judgment.

Hatred.

Contempt.

21/ So my wife and I say: that sounds horrible.

Sympathizing. It does sound horrible, right? It *would* be horrible.

22/ Then I think a little and then I caught myself.

I said: See, this is like racism.

23/

They say: Like racism? What? How?

Not, like, defensively. More: "I don't understand", right?

24/ If you can't see my profile pic or don't know me, I'm British-born Chinese, OK? Parents born in Hong Kong.

I live in America now.

25/

So I say: It's like racism because people were judging you because of how you looked. They didn’t know anything about you, your history, what you love or care about, how you treat people.

All they saw was you wearing a mask.

26/ Everyone around you saw a mask and treated you differently.

And you're telling me you were in & experienced *constant fear of any interaction in public*

26/ People called you names.

They made fun of you.

You felt like they were talking about you behind your back.

27/

sure, you weren’t physically assaulted but maybe you were worried you could be.

There's all the videos of people being spat on and coughed at on purpose. Anyone could be a threat to you.

28/ you felt you were outnumbered, right?

Like you were sticking out.

Marked.

29/

so I said:

Imagine *growing up like tha*t.

Imagine *the whole world being like* that *from the moment you’re born*. Every single day.

Imagine only feeling safer when you’re around other people like you.

Imagine never knowing when or if someone’s going to explode on you.

30/

and then I said:

The difference was, you could leave.

The difference is, when this is over, you can take your mask off.

If you're white & ever felt judged for wearing a mask this last year, please think about this.

I got consent from everyone I mentioned in this story.

If this made you think, please consider sharing the thread.

I also wrote it up at newsletter.danhon.com/archive/1ef31d…

I'm 41 years old.

I still haven't forgotten & won't ever forget the first time I realized another kid was treating me differently just because of my race, when I was *five years old*.

If you have kids, *talk to them*.