New York State lawmakers have been forced to pass another stopgap measure to extend funding for the state past last week’s statutory deadline, as Governor Kathy Hochul continues to push for a ban on masks in public. The measure has reportedly caused a rift in the state Democratic party amid concerns over racially motivated enforcement, as well as civil liberties and the right to protest.
At the Hands Off! protest on Saturday in Madison Square Park, protesters wearing masks were not uncommon. Rochelle, a doctoral student and college instructor, told La Voce she was wearing a mask out of concern for the possibility of authoritarian retaliation: “I don’t know that we’re necessarily there yet, but if we do get there and the data’s out there, security footage is out there, you know… It can’t hurt, right?” Her friend Liz, who is a population health researcher and is working on a postgraduate degree, said she was not a fan of Hochul’s push for the ban when informed by La Voce about it. “That’s crazy,” she said, “I’ll wear it as long as I can.”
Jenny, an older native New Yorker who, like Rochelle and Liz, was masked at the Hands Off! rally said, “I’m actually immunocompromised, so I’m one of those people where it’s like, what are they gonna do with me?” “And how are they gonna know? I have prednisone in my pocket, but how would they know otherwise?”
All three women stated, unprompted, that the anti-mask measure was a solution in search of a problem, arguing that it does nothing to address criminal activity.
Jenny also shared Rochelle’s concerns of creeping authoritarianism, pointing to the Trump administration’s summary deportations and detentions of political opponents who are not full-fledged citizens over their opposition to United States material support for Israel in Gaza war. “There are a lot of people who are just afraid, they just don’t want to be identified,” she said. “Who would want to be identified, with what’s going on? Who knows what they’re gonna do later with all these pictures. So there’s that too, which I’m sympathetic to.”
A number of states, including New York, had mask bans on their books from the era of racial segregation, as a way to prevent racial intimidation from groups that wore masks, most notably the Ku Klux Klan. New York’s ban was repealed during the Coronavirus pandemic in order to accommodate public masking for health reasons, and was not commonly enforced beforehand beyond the scope for which it was originally passed. Some have speculated the Hochul’s push for a mask ban is an effort to curry favor with the Trump administration, which continues to threaten withholding federal funds to the state, having already clawed back $80 million from New York City coffers meant to aid in services for migrants.
Much has been made of the fact that pro-Palestine protesters have worn masks at their rallies, with pro-Israel activists saying that they fear for their safety. Pro-Palestine protesters have been charged with wearing masks in public where such statutes exist. A bill was introduced in January in the New York State Senate and Assembly that “establishes masked harassment when a person wears a mask or other face covering that intentionally hides or conceals their face for the primary purpose of menacing or threatening another person or placing another person or group of persons in reasonable fear for their physical safety.” The bill remains in committee.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has opposed the bill, saying that it “will open the floodgates to disproportionate enforcement, penalize individuals for what they are wearing rather than unlawful conduct, fail to protect the right to anonymous political protest and shield individuals from doxing, undermine health and safety, inevitably discriminate against people with disabilities and those they associate with, and foment antisemitism.” Assembly speaker Carl Heastie also voiced his opposition to the bill when speaking with reporters last week. “A lot of members who represent the Jewish community, this is important to them, and the members understand that,” he said. “But we also have [Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative] caucus members who feel that anytime you introduce another thing, this oftentimes could allow people of color another reason to be potentially over targeted and over policed.”
