Masking Up: The Damage of Toxic Individualism in a Compassion Starved Era

Never has a piece of cloth been so undeservingly controversial quite the way face coverings have in 2020. Due to a wealth of misinformation readily available at anybody’s fingertips coupled with an overinflated sense of self importance, American culture notoriously politicizes the very social issues that should be the most divorced from politics—in this instance the usage of face masks to protect ourselves and our communities from the rampant spread of the pandemic. The most simple act of care and compassion people can do for their communities during a pandemic became wildly skewed and misconstrued as many Americans chose their own liberties and freedoms over trusting science and helping others. This self-centered attitude that many people embody towards the usage of masks is a product of the individualistically minded culture Americans are conditioned in. A nation planted in the refusal to surrender personal rights for the wellbeing of others is the hallmark characteristic of white supremacy, and this form of toxic individualism is exacerbated through the lens of having to wear facial coverings to protect the most vulnerable people—notably Black, Latinx and Indigenous groups, who have disproportionately suffered from the negative effects of the pandemic. Those who resist wearing masks because they mistake it for oppression actively partake in the larger systemic oppression of communities of color, who are at much greater risk of viral contraction due to systemic and racial inequalities which existed long before the emergence of the pandemic. 

Unsurprisingly, when the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, it did not take long for collective data to show that communities of color all across the nation were being hit much harder by the effects of the pandemic as compared to white communities. These racial disparities in the impact of the pandemic are the result of pre-existing realities—namely, structural discrimination severely limiting access to health resources for people of color. Systemic racism is the glaring reason behind the very disproportionate impacts regarding rates of infection, hospitalization and deaths among Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities from the virus. There are a myriad of contributing factors that have impacted the statistics, like income inequality, population density, incarceration, inability to be at home to work as an essential worker, and many more. In proportion to population, there is an overrepresentation of people of color in frontline jobs, like the service industry, public transit, social services, postal work, agriculture, cleaning services, grocers, and others—which put them at greater risk of contraction than those who have the luxury and ability to work from home, often in higher paying and less physically demanding jobs. Many communities of color are vastly overrepresented in the arena of essential and frontline work, proving they have singlehandedly kept America going while the government, with little regard to human life, did the absolute bare minimum to protect its most vulnerable people. As a result of their more frequent exposure to the public due to systemic inequalities, the hospitalization rates among people of color are significantly higher in comparison to white populations. 

There also exists a glaringly disproportionate ratio of uninsured people of color, especially in Latinx and Indigenous communities, in comparison to white communities. For Black and Latinx communities, poverty impacts access to education and then consequently access to well-paying jobs that offer health insurance. Oftentimes Black and Latinx people are relegated to service and manual labor jobs which are lower income earning, but also pay just enough not to qualify for public assistance. Citizenship is also a contributing factor, as those who are immigrants or undocumented do not have the ability to enroll in public health plans and receive coverage. There are also often language barriers, preventing recent immigrants from enrolling in health programs, and oftentimes higher rates of insurance loss due to the instability of low-income jobs. Many Asian, Black and Latinx people go decades without any health insurance, reducing their capacity to claim control of their health and limit their access to resources when they most urgently need them. As a result, they are less likely to frequent doctor’s offices, receive annual check-ups, and are at higher risk of contracting a myriad of diseases and illnesses they cannot afford to recover from. 

While the Black, Latinx, Asian and Indigenous communities of America continue to suffer at the grip of the pandemic, many white communities have decided that wearing a mask to protect others is too great of an inconvenience to impose on themselves. Some even go so far as to believe that being required to wear a mask is a form of oppression, which so blatantly demonstrates how far removed white Americans are from the concept of oppression that they would find this minor inconvenience to be stripping them of their human rights. The reality is that communities of color are more vulnerable to the various negative impacts of COVID-19 than are white people due to the long standing impacts of systemic racism—born out of white supremacy. By choosing to not wear a mask, the person is subjecting marginalized communities to further racist oppression—which can be potentially fatal, heightened especially during the era of the current and ongoing pandemic. Several conducted studies have concluded that most Black communities think controlling the virus is a higher priority than restarting the economy, meanwhile only about half of white people agree with that sentiment—proving that in communities free of oppression, the virus is consequently less rampant and other priorities can take hold. It also demonstrates that white Americans view the pandemic as less of a problem than it actually is because they and their families and communities are less likely to be afflicted by the pandemic—and accustomed to their white privilege are quicker to view wearing masks as an unnecessary inconvenience.   

What too many individualistically minded Americans fail to accept is the power of a collectivist mindset—if we all do our part to wear masks and slow the spread, our communities are all safer and healthier, and thus we are all better off in every way. When we mask up, we are not only protecting ourselves and others, but we are also employing a powerful and visible tool that goes beyond protecting our collective health—masks are also a symbolic representation of our compassion, care and commitment to our communities, especially our most vulnerable populations and people of color who have been most severely affected by the ongoing viral spread. It is crucial for white Americans to have the discussion regarding how their actions can impact the larger issues of systemic and racial inequalities that they fail to consider when putting their individual desires before the needs of others, especially those who are more vulnerable than them. The conditioning of American society to favor an individualistic mindset over a collectivist one has proven to be fatal in regards to the pandemic—especially when compared to other countries who embody a more collectivist attitude towards health and community wellness. Looking to other nations that favor a collective mindset and possess cultural presets that center the importance of community care over self-importance can reveal a lot of productive ideas on how to change the general American mindset, but acknowledging the role of white privilege and supremacy in the ongoing pandemic is the most crucial component. Dismantling the devastating impacts of the omnipresence of white supremacy within the confines of the pandemic begins with individual actions that collectively add up—wearing a mask in public and critically thinking about our privileges as white individuals is an effective place to start.

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