Why Americans Are Having an Emotional Reaction to Masks
Opinion on wearing masks.
While Americans still have not adopted mask-wearing as a general norm, we’re wearing masks more than ever before. Mask-wearing is mandated in California, and in many counties masks are near-universal in public spaces.
Original link was behind a pay wall for me:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-27/coronavirus-why-won-t-americans-wear-masks
This one works:
http://extragoodshit.phlap.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Why-Americans-Are-Having-an-Emotional-Reaction-to-Masks.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Willful ignorance.
Noun. willful ignorance (uncountable) (idiomatic, law) A decision in bad faith to avoid becoming informed about something so as to avoid having to make undesirable decisions that such information might prompt. 
I learned to not smile. Eye contact is different.
This is a cultural thing that's more important than food and fashion and even folklore. It's how social interactions are structured, not what you eat.
Among people that didn't have much truck with Americans it actually fairly often prompted a bit of distrust. Sort of made them wonder what I was up to, what I knew that they didn't. I've been told that Americans smile too much. I feel vaguely uneasy shopping when everybody wears a mask. Regardless of what knee-jerk quasi-thinkers may want to say, and who think that cultural differences really boil down to food, fashion, folklore, and festivals. (They can go 4F themselves in their simplistic thinking.)
On a trolley in another country, you can wear the international garb of jeans and a t-shirt and blend in physically, but eye contact, smiling, other ways of holding your body will signal that you're not a local. I knew I was catching on when somebody would ask me a question like they would anybody else and act with surprise when I opened my mouth and American-accented whatever-the-language-was came out, and otherwise ignore me entirely.
Some cultures wear masks even without a face covering. Just like some people always have a fake, affected smile.
I think it's affected how I interact with students because there are cultural differences in the US. For example, the distance between people that you pass is different for different cultures and even depending on whether you're annoyed with them or not--and the way you react isn't really something you're necessarily aware of. So Southerners, when annoyed, will pass with much less distance when annoyed with you, intruding on your personal space when there's lots of room, than when they're happy with you. Northerners tend to not change that distance as much. Some cultures will keep an affectless face when a bearer of that culture is rebuked; others will smile; others will show remorse. If you're trying to get a kid to heed what you're saying and the facial expression is wrong, it sends a message--but what you perceive may not be what's intended. (Remember: "Intent doesn't matter."
One kid's "I'm listening" look may look like another kid's "fuck off, shithead" expression--or "keep talking, you're funny!" Mix and match.
