The Interconnectedness of Race, Class, Gender and Mask
Wearing
By Kimberly Harris, M.Ed.
Distinctive Voice Consulting
Because
of the current pandemic, I don’t do large crowds. However, I did make an
exception to attend the funeral for my friends’ baby who tragically passed away
this past spring. I attended the funeral fully vaccinated and wore a mask. At
the funeral I made an observation. It was an observation that I had
subconsciously made before but it became a conscious observation that day. The
funeral was for a child from a family of color. At this funeral I observed a
trend, that most of the entire family wore masks as did I and my husband. The
other guests of color also predominantly wore masks. Most women from all racial
backgrounds also predominantly wore masks. Who wasn’t wearing masks?
Predominantly, white men.
When
I go shopping, I notice the same trend. When I look at the news and see
protests against mask mandates, it’s predominately white folks. I then began to
ponder, is there a correlation between mask wearing and privilege? Do folks
from the dominant culture feel offended by being made to do something in a society
that has historically privileged them? Are people from marginalized groups
really that compliant and ready to do what they are told in a society where
there exists a racial hierarchical structure that places them at the bottom?
Why is politics being superimposed over this global health crisis?
I then searched the web for anything I could find on this
matter and came across a study titled, “Understanding How Race, Ethnicity, and
Gender Shape Mask-Wearing Adherence During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from
the COVID Impact Survey.” The study was funded by the Data Foundation, a
non-profit Washington D.C. based think tank that seeks to improve the
government and society by using data to inform public policymaking. The study
can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348609940_Understanding_How_Race_Ethnicity_and_Gender_Shape_Mask-Wearing_Adherence_During_the_COVID-19_Pandemic_Evidence_from_the_COVID_Impact_Survey
This brief study was
conducted in the United States from late April to early June of 2020 and
substantiated my general observations. It also named patterns of mask wearing
by finding that mask wearing is shaped by racial and ethnic background as well
as gender.
Based on race and gender,
this study found mask wearing probability in the following order from highest usage
to lowest usage:
1.
Asian men
2.
Black women
3.
Black men
4.
Latin women
5.
Latin men
6.
White women
7.
Asian women
8.
White men
Other trends revealed
that: people over 60 years of age were more likely to wear masks than their
below 60 year old counterparts, people who earn more than $75K per year are
more likely to wear masks than folks who earn less than $40K per year, folks
with a college degree are more likely to mask up than those with a high school
degree, folks in the Northeast were more likely to mask up than their Midwest
counterparts, and folks in the Western and Southern regions were less likely to
report mask wearing.
I
often theorized why folks don’t mask up. I posited theories such as thinking
Covid is only a threat to people of color, selfishness, adhering to bad
information or simply burn out. This article found four mechanisms that may
explain White folks’ reluctance to masking up. Reasons such as: the fact that
Covid-19 disproportionately affects people of color (I was right on this one),
by comparison white folks have fewer underlying health conditions that impact
the severity of Covid if contracted, white folks are less likely to work in
jobs that increase the risk of exposure to Covid, and in the U.S. as a whole,
white folks have greater access to social and economic resources to help
mitigate the effects of contracting Covid-19. All of these reasons point to
racial inequalities that were designed in the United States by systemic racism,
broad racialized socialized structures, policies and laws that have
historically resulted in different outcomes for people based on race. Systemic
racism is also a structured system of domination created to perpetuate racial
hierarchy resulting in white folks’ ability to amass resources such as power,
prestige and wealth at a disproportionate rate to people of color.
Wearing a mask and getting vaccinated have recently
become a hot topic particularly with employers mandating the use of the vaccine.
Freedom of choice is the argument cited for people who do not wish to be forced
to vaccinate or wear a mask. And I agree. People should have a choice. The
irony here is that some of these same folks espousing freedom of choice fall on
the other side of the argument for a woman’s right to choose but that is a
whole other blog. My question here is where does one’s personal rights eclipse
what is for the greater good of society? At some point society decided that a
person’s right to smoke does not surpass a non-smoker’s rights to receive
second hand smoke and potentially get cancer. At another time society agreed
that drivers needed to forego their freedom in the car and wear seat belts when
driving. Then society agreed that a person’s right to get drunk and drive was
not acceptable. These are all rights that individuals had to release for the
greater good. And though I do not agree that one should put anything in their
body that they do not want to, I also agree that an employer has a right to not
employ a person who may bring a deadly disease to work and infect their
co-workers thus shutting down business.
All this to say,
anti-vaccers can’t have it both ways. Anti-vacciners and anti-maskers can’t
push their right to choose while taking away others’ safety.
If you are a departmental
or organizational leader who would like to disrupt systemic and/or organizational
inequality, contact Distinctive Voice Consulting for a diversity audit at
DistinctiveVoiceConsulting@gmail.com
Kim Harris, M.Ed. is a
diversity, equity, bias-awareness and inclusiveness trainer and consult who
runs Distinctive Voice Consulting. For more information about DVC visit
www.DistinctiveVoiceConsulting.com
