Why some people of color say they won't wear homemade masks

(CNN)The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending that all Americans wear homemade face coverings in public to help stem the spread of coronavirus.

But Trevor Logan, an economics professor at Ohio State University, will not be following this guidance.

"We have a lot of examples of the presumed criminality of black men in general," Logan, who is black, told CNN. "And then we have the advice to go out in public in something that ... can certainly be read as being criminal or nefarious, particularly when applied to black men."

Logan is not alone in his concerns. On social media and in interviews with CNN, a number of people of color — activists, academics and ordinary Americans — expressed fears that homemade masks could exacerbate racial profiling and place blacks and Latinos in danger.

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"I don't feel safe wearing a handkerchief or something else that isn't CLEARLY a protective mask covering my face to the store because I am a Black man living in this world," tweeted Aaron Thomas, an educator in Columbus, Ohio. "I want to stay alive but I also want to stay alive."

His tweet has more than 121,000 likes.

The CDC's recommendation on do-it-yourself face masks comes as the skyrocketing number of coronavirus cases and shortages of medical supplies have made professional-grade surgical masks all but unavailable to most Americans.

In an interview with CNN, Logan acknowledged that during a pandemic it makes sense to ask people to protect their faces in any way possible.

Protective masks for sale are displayed in a store in Brooklyn on April 2, 2020 in New York City.

But it also makes sense not to wear them if you're a person of color, he added.

"This (wearing a homemade mask) seems like a reasonable response unless you just sort of take American society out of it. When you can't do that, you're basically telling people to look dangerous given racial stereotypes that are out there," Logan said.

"This is in the larger context of black men fitting the description of a suspect who has a hood on, who has a face covering on," he added. "It looks like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety black suspect."