Black woman shuts down white guy's rant comparing face masks to slave muzzles

Face masks have been helping limit the spread of the virus and saving lives, and CDC has been saying so forever. The Anti-vaxxers and anti-mask crowd have been coming up with new narratives to outrage against mask mandates ranging from difficulty in breathing to being a tool used by the government to exercise control over the people. The narratives keep getting more dramatic than ever with some even having the audacity to comparing it to slavery and Nazi persecution of Jews. A white man who goes by the username @pharaoh_nefertiti on TikTok, posted a video comparing mask mandates to muzzles enslaved people were forced to wear as punishment.

"Did you know that in the 1800s when slaves would misbehave, slave owners would put cloths over their face and make them go work in the hot fields till they passed out?" said the man in a TikTok video, before adding, "So, don't forget to put on your mask before you go to work like a good little slave of the government." For perspective, here is a white man comparing the use to face masks to save lives during a pandemic to the cruel punishment of enslaved people.

He was immediately called out by a Black woman for making the comparison. She first pointed out that the muzzles enslaved people wore were actually harmful and obtrusive. "You mean the metal muzzles that they would use?" asked the woman. "You mean the ones that would cover their entire face where they could barely talk much less eat? They most certainly could not remove them." 

She then called him out for making the comparison. "So slave masters would put that on them as a form of punishment that they couldn't take off, and you have all of the PWC nerve and gall to compare that to a mask that you can remove during the middle of a goddamn pandemic?" she said, before adding, "Keep Black people out of your f**ked up narrative." The comments were filled with support for the woman, with many calling out the white privilege of the man and his audacity to compare even the smallest inconvenience to the oppression faced by others. The person who posted the original video reportedly took down his account after he was handed a history lesson.

GOP congresswoman Greene Marjorie Taylor, who's known for subscribing to QAnon conspiracy theories, recently compared mask mandates to Jews being forced to wear gold stars during the Nazi regime. "They were definitely treated like second-class citizens — so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about,” said Green, reported LA Times.

The importance of mask mandates has become more evident as schools are reopening. States that have been resisting mask and vaccination mandates at workplaces and schools have seen a sharp rise in Coronavirus cases. School districts are being forced to go against the state governor's orders to enforce mask mandates to protect students. Ten Flordia school districts said they were enforcing mask mandates against governor De Santis' orders to protect the children, reported Forbes. 

The call to get vaccinated and wear masks has been framed as a battle for freedom, by anti-vaxxers, conservatives, and the right-wing media. While conservatives and right-wing media have often cited mask and vaccination mandates as constitutional, they would do well to remember that smallpox was eradicated thanks to the implementation of a smallpox vaccine mandate in Boston in 1901. The program helped eradicate the disease stood the legal challenge in the Supreme Court, reported MSNBC. The people were warned they would be fined $5 (the equivalent of $150 today) and also brought to court. 

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