Photo via @therecount/Twitter
August 26, 2021, 10:11 am
A grown man in Texas stripped down to his underwear at a school board meeting on Monday, but the real surprise was that it was not an anti-masker move, but a pro-masker demonstrating that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. The man, James Akers, is a father of a local high school student and decided to make quite a sacrifice in order to try and protect his kid from a virus that is becoming increasingly dangerous to young people, including children.
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“I do not like government or any other entity — just ask my wife — telling me what to do,” Akers said as he began removing his jacket and shirt. “At work, they make me wear this jacket. I hate it. They make me wear this shirt and tie. I hate it. On the way over here, I ran three stop signs and four red lights, almost killed somebody out there. But by God, it’s my roads, too, so I have every right to drive as fast as I want to, make the turns that I want to.”
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The point he was making is that there are many aspects of everyday life in which people tell you what to do, and even if you don’t like it, there’s often a good reason behind it and you do the thing anyway. If everybody decided to ignore all the rules because we don’t like being told what to do, society would collapse in a day. Akers brought up traffic laws such as stopping at red lights and not parking in disabled parking spaces if you don’t have permission to.
“It’s simple protocol, people,” Akers said as he unzipped and dropped his pants. “We follow certain rules for a very good reason.”
The removal of the undershirt and pants led to some excitement among the crowd, including some applause, a few whistles, and some people shouting, possibly to object, although Akers had a swimsuit bottom on under his pants that covered everything just fine.
Akers was stripping for what many believed was a good cause. The Dripping Springs Independent School District had recently published health protocols making masks in schools optional, with the school board doubling down on this position 10 days later, saying that they would recommend that students and staff mask up but stopping short of requiring this. Kids were scheduled to be back in school the next day.
Akers’ protest was not unappreciated, but the school board did ask him to get dressed to continue.
“Mr. Akers, I understand — I believe you’re a swimmer. But if you wouldn’t mind putting your pants back on for a comment, that would be appreciated,” said board President Barbara Stroud.
After a year of online learning and mask mandates, many heavily conservative states are ditching pretty much any and all safety protocols for schools in spite of a more infectious variant more likely to get kids sick causing a new surge in the pandemic that for these states is as bad as or worse than the last one. Texas is up to over 300,000 active COVID-19 cases, with counties reporting that hospitals are filling up again, with an alarming number of youth cases this time.
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In spite of this, Governor Greg Abbott attempted to ban mask mandates in school entirely, but legal challenges forced him to announce that the state will not be enforcing this ban for the time being.
“There’s too many voices out there that I think are digging in for political reasons and absolutely just not thinking about the common-sense decisions we make every day to comply with everything from driving down the road and being safe and courteous to other drivers to not parking in handicapped spots — all these rules that we’re given every day that we follow because they make sense,” Akers said to local media.
*First Published: August 26, 2021, 10:11 am
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