Especially for people of color, the enforcement of new public health requirements on transit systems and other spaces presents an additional safety risk. For two weeks in March, Black people accounted for 35 of 40 NYPD arrests for breaking “social distancing” rules in Brooklyn. And a history of disproportionate and excessive policing of Black communities sheds a worrying light on other new safety rules.
“I am concerned with my safety when I have to don a mask to go outside,” said Charles Brown, a transportation researcher and professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University, echoing an uneasiness that other Black Americans have expressed since the pandemic began.