I'm (hopefully) entering a new org soon. Only a few comrades there mask. At my workplace, or anywhere else really, nobody masks. The only people I see mask are like goldfish, and I only see them occasionally in public transit. It's disheartening by the day to see Covid trivialized, and AES like even China not care anymore, in spite of their good policies beforehand.
Just makes me feel like I cannot relate to people anymore, they all look at me like I'm supremely weird for masking, so it's even harder to convince people of anything politically, especially when I'm discriminated all the time and receive verbal abuse for masking. I really dont get how to talk to people when they wont understand the concept of masking to protect themselves/others and it makes me feel stuck politically, to the point I feel I have a one sided view of many social issues, through the POV of Covid consciousness and masking, and I dont see how a movement can be built if no one acknowledges this. I feel like I've become more disconnected from everyone, including comrades, especially them, because they wont listen or want to mask in the first place, and I dont know what to do. I use an N95 every day when going outside, and so does my partner. We dont eat out, etc. I get the fact many wont do this choice to sacrifice their lifestyle or whatever.. but :(
I remember before masking I was taken seriously, now it's impeding me in all my life's aspects just cause we live in an extremely ableist society. It's hard and alienating from others, and no one irl seemingly understands. It's very hard to see how to build a mass movement in these conditions, or to even socialize with others (and I'm very sociable!) when you're instantly labeled as weird. I'm so dissapointed in people sometimes I give up on interacting because of this.
Even among comrades, the moment I mention masking, everyone is suddenly awkward and tries to move on. I'm tired to act like it's a secret or such
I wish things were different. I wish I could connect with people again. And that comrades would take this seriously, because I feel alienated even from those I share the most with, and its painful. I dont want to create a struggle session or whatever, just wanted to feel heard, I hope most people here mask anyways. It's bad enough for my mental healtg to give up on all social stuff cause of masking, and other activities like swimming, it's just tough. Thanks for reading
That is the part angers me the most, and then extra angry when I found out nurses deemed to need the money more were offered less pay for the same shifts.
I concede. Yours is a better formed description and surely more accurate.
No, I think people have always liked seeing faces. I think people who grew up kissing cheeks as a greeting kept doing it until a younger generation insisted on air kisses (this wasn't much of a U.S. thing except in certain immigrant families keeping it alive at family gatherings). I remember the generation that would not buckle their seat belts until it was criminalized because that's how they grew up (similar story for drunk driving). If we'd gotten rid of seat belt laws, I expect that now-old generation would have stopped belting up just like the current generations stopped masking up.
For covid, I expect the vast majority of people over 30ish will never see masks as proper etiquette because they grew up with people coughing and spreading germs at work. I suspect U.S. people who started working in the 1990s or earlier think it better to go to work sick and infect everyone than to stay home because it showed The Boss they are dedicated and they don't know how to unlearn that.
I also think people have always been bad at risk assessment. If we were better at it, lotteries and casinos couldn't exist because people would see it as throwing money away despite the thrill of an intermittent reward system. Years back, I read studies showing how we get much better at seeing risk after our teen years, but stop caring as much after... I think it was entering our 60s or so -- I've forgotten when that starts.
All that said, I do agree that moneyed interests pushed HARD for an end to the lock downs despite on-going risk and I like your framing of it better than mine. Thank you for the well described perspective!