So… here we are in a strange moment in history. One year ago, going around with your face covered would have gotten you stared at, approached by cops, etc. Today, not covering your face in public gets you stared at, ostracized, refused service. Heck… according to some news reports, even shot, which is simply, utterly beyond stupid.(1)
Ok… now put yourself in Europe during the Black Plague. 1347 – 1352 or so. During these years, and occasionally here and there for a time after, Europe experienced perhaps a total of 200 million deaths from plague. A very fast and painful death 2 to 3 days after exposure. Estimates are actually between 60 million and 200+ million — fact is, no one knows. Naturally enough. We do know, though that entire towns were wiped out and it was truly massive. Having no medical science to speak of(2), and people always wanting an explanation even if it doesn’t actually explain anything, it became common to blame the Jews for all this. (Don’t try to understand it; there comes a point where the actions of “the mob” can not be understood, only accepted, particularly in times of mass hysteria.)
Now put yourself there. Put yourself there as a Jew. Spend a day in Black Plague Europe in your imagination. For something you are not in any way responsible, over which you have no more control or information than any one else, you are being blamed, killed, ostracized, robbed, burned, drowned, accused of witchcraft… a legacy already old and still continuing to this day.
There: that’s how Unreasoning Prejudice feels — in case you didn’t already know(3). It is certainly nothing new. It’s long (long, long!) past time to remove it from our world.
Here’s the catch: that means removing it from yourself. Every last bit of it. Yourself alone because if you try removing it from others you are acting in a prejudicial fashion toward those people, assuming what is/was true for them. Assuming you know their story. Therefore, accusing some one of prejudice is an act of prejudice in itself.
Besides there’s only person you have any real control over anyway: yourself. As it should be.
(1) Wearing or not wearing a mask isn’t going to spread a plague, nor prevent one. It will have only a tiny effect overall — though one could say that even a tiny positive effect is nothing to sneeze at. However, a recent study examining the “cloud” exhaled while wearing various types of mask [study used a laser to light up air-borne particles around the subject] found that some masks work better than others (naturally), but a bandanna was sometimes actually worse than wearing no mask at all. The researchers were as surprised as anyone else, though when you think about it, is it not obvious once pointed out? Single layer of smooth fabric. — If you’re interested you can find the article on the internet; look around DDN News and other publishers who do the daily research letters from the world-wide CoVid research effort. I want to add that free bits of the virus itself [i.e., if the virus is actually air-borne, not just droplet borne] would not have shown up in the laser light, so that this might not be a complete picture — meaning it could be worse than they said. A virus would pass through most masks without even slowing down. We just don’t know. There’s a lot times a lot that we don’t know about viruses period.
(2) There was a healing practice most certainly, but no medical science as we understand it today. However, that healing practice was often equated with Witchcraft… go figure.
(3) No, I am not a Jew. Prejudice has no favorites, however, and I have certainly had my share directed at me, for other reasons, equally silly.