Masks mean mayhem — time to ban the Klan hood of our era

Who is that masked man?

Well, there’s some chance he’s an antisemitic rioter. 

New York City and other jurisdictions are debating mask bans after face coverings have become associated with acts of mayhem committed by people who hope to avoid recognition and evade criminal responsibility. 

The most iconic image of the Los Angeles riots involves a man on a dirt bike waving a Mexican flag . . . in a mask. 

It’s not surprising that he was wearing a mask.

At this point, failing to wear a mask when engaging in lawless activity is a major faux pas — like wearing white before Memorial Day, or showing up at LA’s upscale restaurant, 71Above, in flip-flops.

Embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been emphatic that there needs to be a return to the broad ban on masks that was repealed during the pandemic (the state just passed a more limited measure creating enhanced penalties for people wearing masks to conceal their identities while committing crimes). 

The meaning of the mask has changed in recent years.

Prior to COVID, wearing a surgical mask in public likely meant someone had a compromised immune system; during COVID, it usually meant someone was complying with the pandemic rules and associated social pressure.

After COVID, it tends to indicate either someone is too neurotic to give up pandemic-era practices — or wants to harass Jews or throw rocks at the cops.

In an era of ubiquitous facial-recognition technology, a face mask is a bid to foil efforts by police to track down lawless acts after the fact.

It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card — masked rioters are sometimes arrested on the spot — but it’s a layer of protection for the person hoping to break or burn something and melt away without consequence. 

This is why, prior to COVID, masks outside of a medical context tended to have a negative connotation in the popular imagination.

The Lone Ranger was the exception that proved the rule.

Otherwise, the masked man was going to hold up the stagecoach, rob a bank or burn a cross on someone’s lawn. 

A 1990 Georgia Supreme Court ruling upholding that state’s mask ban said, “A nameless, faceless figure strikes terror in the human heart.” 

Certainly, after seeing what’s gone down on the streets after the killing of George Floyd and on college campuses since Oct. 7, everyone should be on edge when encountering masked protesters.

If nothing else, it’s not a good sign when people are afraid of being associated with their own cause, or the means with which they are going to agitate for it. 

New York first banned masks in the 1840s in response to protesters harassing landlords.

Later, in the 20th century, states prohibited face coverings to address the depredations of the KKK. 

The bans either went unenforced or were repealed during COVID. Masks went from being a symbol of outlaw behavior to the sine qua non of good citizenship, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public-health authorities.

The snugly fitted N-95, or even better an elastomeric respirator with replaceable filters, showed a heroic commitment to your own health and the well-being of others. 

The clashing perspective of New York’s last two governors indicates how the debate on masks has turned.

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2020 urged protesters to mask up.

“You have a right to demonstrate,” he declared, “You don’t have a right to infect other people.”

Cuomo’s successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, went in the opposite direction after seeing masked agitators menace Jewish riders on the subway last year.

She came out in favor of restricting masks, and supported the watered-down change recently passed by the Legislature. 

The issue won’t go away in New York, or elsewhere.

The mask is now part of the kit of rioters, for whom the convenient concealment is as indispensable as a Klansman’s white hood.

Twitter: @RichLowry