Pardon My Face

One of the downsides to moving to that bastion of liberality, Austin, is that you have to put up with a little bit of bullshit now and then. Nonetheless, I am still amazed that in a town where the cops won't cite a woman for walking around topless (which would be gender-based discrimination, since men don't have to cover their breasts), you apparently can't wear a ski mask into a convenience store.

I think what's most telling here is the crime he was charged with. "Making a terrorist threat"? Ah, the Patriot Act, very nice. Does this mean that citizens may no longer cover their faces in public if they so choose? Have we completely given up any presumptive right of privacy in this country? Can a Muslim woman wear her hijab into a convenience store? Is a ski mask a terrorist threat, but a Halloween mask is not? How about one of those Zorro masks that only covers your eyes? What about blackface?

And I won't even touch the irony that a clerk named "Atif Akhlaque" thought that a skinny white guy in a ski mask was a terrorist.