Disability Activist Calls Out GOP Bill That Would Ban Masks Being Worn In Public In North Carolina

TikToker Caroline Hardin, who has an autoimmune condition, went viral for speaking out on TikTok about the "Unmasking Mobs and Criminals" bill that recently passed the North Carolina state Senate, and what impact it could have on people who need masks for safety, as well as people of color.

The bill proposes a ban on wearing medical masks in public. This bill, still requiring approval from the House before it can be signed into law, would prohibit even immunocompromised cancer patients from wearing medical masks in public spaces.

Proponents of the bill aim to curtail protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, but critics argue the mask ban could have broader harmful implications.

Republican bill sponsor Buck Newton claimed the bill isn't intended to "prosecute granny for wearing a mask in the Walmart." Yet past experiences with ambiguous laws, such as abortion bans in states like Florida and Texas, have shown that vague legal language can be wielded against vulnerable populations.

Hardin has been vocal about the potential dangers of this bill. As a wife and mother, she fears how the ban could confine her to her home. Hardin's husband and child typically wear masks in public to protect her. If the ban passes, she would be forced to mask at home if her family members go out, which she describes as "a massive inconvenience and just not a way to live as a family."

You can hear what she said in the video below.

Hardin said:

"If you're paying attention to the news around COVID safety, around mask wearing and news about North Carolina, then you might be aware of House Bill 237, also known as the hoodies and masks bill. It is an attempt to increase the penalties for wearing a mask and/or a hood while committing a crime."

"During COVID, there has been a health and safety exemption. They are attempting to strike that. They are saying that masks for air quality that a lot of us use for health and safety reasons are being used with the intent to conceal your identity."

"On paper, yes, this does apply only if you're committing a crime. However, laws like this, laws that go after something that you wear are never applied evenly across the population. This opens up the doors for a lot of deputized citizens and a lot of law enforcement to do a lot of things that are not okay."

Many concurred and were quick to express their own concerns about the legislation.

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In an interview with Buzzfeed, Hardin said the bill "would effectively imprison me inside my home, being not able to go anywhere, and that's literally impossible because that would include doctors' offices, pharmacies, anything that I personally would have to go to rather than having things delivered."

Because her husband and child wear masks in public to protect her, she said, she would "have to constantly mask at home if they were going out, which is a massive inconvenience and just not a way to live as a family."

She also explained how the bill would disproportionately impact people of color:

"I immediately became concerned about the overarching implications of that with how crimes, in general, are prosecuted unevenly across the state depending on different communities, different neighborhoods, law enforcement's mood that day..."

"The wording of this bill allowed it to be so vague that lawmakers could claim 'it's going to be fine,' but it was vague enough to be used as a blunt instrument of inflicting violence on communities. And that to me, was completely unconscionable."

She added:

"We don't live in a pre-2020 world anymore. We live right now where masks have been heavily politicized, where they have been connected to different political ideologies, and where people get harassed, even now, for wearing a mask."

The Republican-controlled North Carolina state Senate rejected amendments that would have "reinstated a health reason exemption and allowed mask-wearing unless the wearer was using the mask for criminal purposes," according to NC Newsline.

Wake County Democratic Senator Sydney Batch opposes provisions that make it more difficult for those with health concerns to wear masks, explaining that she was at one point immunocompromised during medical treatment.

Batch said that "some of us are wondering what the real motivations are of folks on the other side of the house, scaring the bejesus out of everybody and making them feel like if they have a need at times to wear masks because they’re immunocompromised somehow, they’re going to get arrested.”