Sai Kulkarni ‘23
Culture Editor
It seems like any other day in class during the 2021 Fall Semester. Everyone is exhausted from the usual pressures of law school and last night’s bad decisions. Textbooks are opened to a random page by those who have them, others are already pounding on their Macs, doing something that is definitely not texting their friends in the same classroom. Some people are wearing unique masks, others are wearing the simple blue medical masks (lacking any creativity). You take all this in, when, to your shock, you notice that the guy at the end of your row is doing something that can be barely called wearing his mask. It hangs loosely over his mouth and doesn’t even bother covering his nose. You stare with your mouth agape, although, since you are a good member of society, no one can see that through your properly donned mask. You can’t believe that, in a class when you should be worried about whether you remember what breach of contract is and if it is relevant, you are instead worried about this offender. At the end of the day, his personal choice to be lazy and not move that mask two inches up is affecting those around him.
What does that sound like to you? For me, and two concerned members of our esteemed Class of ’22, it brings up similarities to another such nuisance: manspreading.[1] Stay with me, folks. Think back to your consulting jobs, time on Wall Street, or unpaid internships in D.C. that you mention every time there’s a lull in the conversation. In those pre-COVID times, I am sure most of us had to take public transportation. Whether it was buses, the metro, or other rail service, you undoubtedly had to struggle to find a seat at times. Pushing through tightly packed crowds to find some respite from your long walk to the station so you could slow your heart just a bit before you get to your stressful job. Only to find that there’s a man[2] deciding to lounge on the seats and taking up more real estate than he has paid for with his Metro/Subway pass.
This kind of behavior is common and a nuisance to the general public. There is limited space already on these transports even though they are essential to the general public. While it may provide more comfort for the person in question, it simply puts a barrier on everyone else who is similarly trying to catch a break. Everyone is going through it on the morning commute, and this block on the one comfort you can count on is ridiculous. Now, mask-wearing is not similar in that it gives us all a tangible, immediate benefit. Rather, it protects us from potential future pain and accidentally harming of your family members.[3] The accurate comparison remains though, because, like the morning commute, wearing a mask indoors is something that everyone in the Law School has to do. We are all equally uncomfortable; so someone not taking part in that is a profound betrayal of the collective attitude we all have as law students. Similar to how we commiserate over o*****g season, we should all have to go through the same degree of discomfort.
That one student not wearing his mask appropriately may give himself some brief comfort in the moment, but it hurts those around him, both in breaking solidarity and (more importantly) in putting other people at risk. Like that manspreader in the metro, this mask-misuser is causing slight harm to those around him and generally being a nuisance. So, this is both an informative piece, telling you about this latest collective harm[4] and to a call out to those mask-misusers amongst us to get it together. Yes, people are talking about you behind your back for this. Do better, or the public shaming will get worse.
So how do you do your part in fighting this problem? Well, it’s simple. If you are able to get vaccinated, do so. Get the booster if you can, a lot of places are offering it to everyone. Tell your more conservative family members that the vaccine would actually prevent the government from tracking them. At the end of the day, dear reader, you and I both know that despite this public shaming in the form of this article, those mask-misusers won’t stop. Their comfort is more important to them than the risk they are causing to others. So I end this, my last article of the semester, with a plea for all of us to do our part and fight both the pandemic and the nuisances it has caused.
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omk6cg@virginia.edu