In this blog post, I discuss how do groups, specifically Christianity, gain power. As I mentioned in the last post, folks have created ingroups and outgroups for millennia. I look at ways that Christianity has moved toward the discrimination of bodies. We also recognize that this is not new—the particular brand of discrimination—white, Eurocentric bodies and discourses dictating trends, expectations, and physical expectations for non-White bodies—goes back before the start of our country.

For now, it seems like enough folks (at least in Massachusetts) have bought into the idea that wearing a mask is a sign of public health and compassion toward others.

But regardless of what value you put on wearing a mask (such as “I’m doing this to flatten the curve and help out hospital workers”), when I am wearing a mask, I am othering the folks that walk by me:

I am safe. I don’t know if you’re safe, so I assume that you’re not.

Schrodinger’s Effect.

This process, especially when played out over a long time, has devastating relational consequences. These relational consequences are actually the result of complex physiological processes that impact how we engage with other people.