First They Fought About Masks. Then Over the Soul of the City.
"First They Fought About Masks. Then Over the Soul of the City."
Sabrina Tavernise
Dec 26, 2021
NY Times (reprinted by Yahoo News -- 9 min read)
https://news.yahoo.com/first-fought-masks-then-over-161832247.html
The story begins sometime in July 2020, with Enid, OK city commissioner Jonathan Waddell, a retired military man, who attended a meeting for public comments on a proposed mask mandate, a mandate he favored as good for public health. A rowdy crowd of people dressed in red had other plans:
"--snip--
At the end of the night, the mask mandate failed, and the audience erupted in cheers. But for Waddell, who had spent seven years making Enid his home, it was only the beginning. He remembers driving home and watching his mirrors to make sure no one was following him. He called his father, a former police officer, and told him what had happened. He said that people were talking about masks but that it felt like something else. What, exactly, he did not know.
--snip--
From lockdowns to masks to vaccines to school curricula, the conflicts in America keep growing and morphing, even without Donald Trump, the leader who thrived on encouraging them, in the White House. But the fights are not simply about masks or schools or vaccines. They are, in many ways, all connected as part of a deeper rupture — one that is now about the most fundamental questions a society can ask itself: What does it mean to be an American? Who is in charge? And whose version of the country will prevail?
Social scientists who study conflict say the only way to understand it — and to begin to get out of it — is to look at the powerful currents of human emotions that are the real drivers. They include the fear of not belonging, the sting of humiliation, a sense of threat — real or perceived — and the strong pull of group behavior.
“If my American identity is an important part of who I am, and suddenly there’s a serious threat to that, in some ways that means I don’t know who I am anymore,” he said. “It’s an attack on the very core of how I see myself, of how I understand myself.” In Enid, both sides in the mask debate believed they were standing up for what was right. Both cared deeply for their city — and their country — and believed that, in their own way, they were working to save it....
--snip--"
--more at the link--
-----
A very interesting editorial worth reading in full, from the perspective of one man who was ostracized from his community to some extent for supporting mask mandates. The article tries to get to the heart of the matter, which seems to be a backlash from people who feel that their "group" is losing "control" in the USA, and are acting out to stop that. Mr. Waddell feels there is a conflict about who will write the next chapter of American history, and that there will be some kind of battle to decide it. The article ends with the statement that he is thinking of moving to AZ because Enid, OK no longer feels like home to him and his family.
