Mask Up: how & why
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The importance of masking up and keeping our identities as anonymous as possible.
We think masking up and anonymizing ourselves at night and daytime actions is important to the ongoing ability to evade repression and continue resistance in the long term.
At daytime demos especially police are consistently present to take photos and begin the identification of individuals and networks. Covering our faces or aiming to anonymize our bodies and selves as much as possible is a way to prevent or reduce the likelihood of police from obtaining our identities and tracing our networks.
That said – and what is often lacking in discussions around masking up and anonymizing ourselves – is that masking or attempting to anonymize ourselves is a different experience for feminized bodies, or for those outside of the “average” body type/shape for their communities. Feminized bodies naturally have more identifiable features; waist, hips, breast sizes and ratios. As well, if someone is identifiably short, tall or fat for example, they are less anonymous even if they were to be in common bloc with others. We think it’s important to note this: Not to discourage individuals from attempting to anonymize themselves or take action in the first place, but to encourage communities and affinity groups at large to have frank conversations around this early on. Explore ways to help all your comrades become as anonymous as possible.
