This past November, Buffalo was fortunate to host the Court of Appeals for the first time since 2005. As I sat observing questioning from the outstanding jurists on our state’s highest court – and enjoying the arguments in which I was not required to make any decision—I could not help but reflect that three years ago this type of historic visit seemed unthinkable. Although today we are already defining ourselves as living in a post-pandemic world—or perhaps more accurately, we would like to stop discussing the world in relation to the pandemic—we are still feeling the reverberations of that difficult time.
For example, we might see someone wearing a face mask in the grocery store today and think “probably oversensitive,” or, conversely, hear someone cough in an elevator and think “irresponsible for not wearing a mask.” Such visceral snap judgments are grounded in how we individually carry the shared experience of the pandemic. The person who is quick to label the mask-wearer as “oversensitive” may be carrying a desire to move on from the uncertainty of the pandemic that upended our lives in new and unimaginable ways. Conversely, the person who labels the non-mask-wearer as irresponsible may have emerged from the pandemic more attuned to health risks and how those risks impact the community. Indeed, one person may hold both these contradictory views depending on the vulnerability they feel from moment to moment.
