The City Council of Philadelphia passed a ban in December on ski masks as a purported crime-fighting measure. According to the ordinance, wearing ski masks will be prohibited in parks, schools, public transit and other city-owned buildings, carrying with it a fine of $250 for each offense, and up to $2,000 if a mask is worn during the commission of a crime. The council bill was passed with a 13-2 vote.
Cited in the passed bill were violent crimes committed by ski mask wearers as well as the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s recent decision to ban ski masks on trains, trolleys, buses and subways. The policy is part of a familiar playbook where governments enact racist fashion bans in the name of “curtailing crime” — including municipal bans of saggy pants and hoodies — that actually work to criminalize communities of color. Such examples include towns in New Jersey, Tennessee and Louisiana.
As Ernest Owens correctly points out in Philadelphia Magazine, it’s a form of respectability politics, which exists throughout numerous communities of color. Such race-based policing dates back to the policing of Zoot Suits.
Philly’s “new” law is undoubtedly the city’s attempt to preemptively strike against purported crime in the city. It says to residents that the city is being proactive — answering the call expressed in a recent Pew Charitable Trust 2023 poll, in which Philadelphians from all backgrounds said they wanted elected leaders to prioritize reducing the city’s crime rate in the coming years.
But the ban communicates another message; a message about who we fear versus who we forgive.
As a teenager, I knew that society was scared of me — with every clutched purse, suspicious store attendant and police stop. None of those times was I wearing a........