Let me make sure that I start this post of right: I believe the highly anticipated coronavirus vaccine, should be welcomed, should be available to EVERY American and should be taken by EVERY American. For the first time in human history, a vaccine has been developed to stop a pandemic that has set this nation ablaze in sickness, suffering and death. I, the same as many of you, I’m sure, am tired of mask wearing, quarantines, virtual church, empty stadium football, sickness and death counts. So, yes, I will take the vaccine when its available…
All that being said, let me be clear, black and brown people in particular, have every reason to be skeptical as discussions about vaccine distribution are planned and mapped out. Will the vaccine be free? Where will people without health insurance go to get the vaccine? If its the two shot vaccine, how do you make sure that people receiving the first shot come back for the second – particularly if they don’t have the technology? What are the side-effects? How severe are the side-effects? Like flu vaccines – where some who take the ‘flu shot’ sometimes get the flu; can some who get the COVID vaccine, expect to experience symptoms of COVID 19? Will our children need the vaccine? Will we still need to ‘mask up’ and socially distance, after we receive the vaccine? Which vaccine is most expensive – and will the vaccine that black and brown people – particularly those living in ‘poor’ communities receive the ‘cheap’ vaccine?
All of these, in my mind, are legitimate questions and MUST be answered if black people are to have confidence in these vaccines. But for black people, suspicions about the vaccine go far beyond the vaccines themselves. They go to the legacy of racism and maltreatment of black people for at least a century and more by the medical industry.
One of the most well documented and oft recounted incidents is the infamous ‘Tuskegee Syphilis Study‘. In that ‘study’ was a 40-year study (1932 to 1972) which purported Black men who had contracted syphilis with penicillin. They were offered free medical exams, free meals and burial insurance. However, they were not provided with the drug, and 28 of the original 399 Black men died of syphilis, 100 died from related complications, 40 of their wives were infected, and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis. Stories of this study have been told throughout black communities for years. The story was more widely told in the 1997 movie ‘Miss Evers Boys‘. But this is only source of the Black communities distrust of the health care industry.
The American Medical Association (AMA), has not been untouched by our country’s complex and tragic racial dance – not just philosophically but practically. For more than 100 years, the AMA actively reinforced or passively accepted racial inequalities and the exclusion of African-American physicians.
On July 30, 2008, Ronald M. Davis, MD, then the AMA’s immediate past president, at a meeting of the National Medical Association (NMA the national Black corollary to the AMA) actually apologized for more than a century of AMA policies (PDF) that excluded African-Americans from the AMA, in addition to policies that also barred them from some state and local medical societies.
What was the practical out-workings of this heinous racist position? There are myths associated with patient care that are a result of this type of racist thinking, apologies not withstanding. If there is a history of not treating black people with dignity, compassion and concern, why should the suddenly believe that suddenly a vaccine shot is in their best interest?
A study, conducted in part by the NAACP, found that although 55 percent of Black people know someone who has been diagnosed with COVID and 48 percent know of someone who has been hospitalized with COVID, only 14 percent trust the safety of the vaccine; only 18 percent trust its effectiveness and only 28 percent trust its cultural safety and effectiveness.
There is a pervasive attitude of distrust of the federal government, in particular, with Black people. Whether it stems from the horrendous mistreatment of Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black President; whether it’s COINTELPRO or this current administration’s sickening track record of ‘dog-whistle’ and ‘bullhorn’ racists language tweets, practices and policies.
“I’ve just been conditioned not to trust,” said Rahmell Peebles, a 30 year old Black New Yorker, who though previously skeptical started obeying the state’s stay home order and keeping his distance from others when he goes out. Peebles is among roughly 40 million black Americans deciding minute by minute whether to put their faith in government and the medical community during the coronavirus pandemic.
So how do we overcome this. COVID-19 has ravaged the black community for nine months. Initially, black folk were blamed for that by the BLACK Surgeon General! He pointed to our lifestyle, smoking, drinking, taking drugs as the reason why we were so susceptible to coronavirus. But actually, what has happened, is that white America, in some corners, has actually been confronted and heard what we have been telling them for decades: the absence of affordable, healthy food – fruits, vegetables, lean meat choices – in actually grocery stores, is killing us! When the most affordable food you can get are chips, soda and fried foods, you are more likely to have hypertension and diabetes – two of the comorbidities that make it likely that you will contract coronavirus.
Our service economy, which proliferates in our communities with low wage part time employment, the only jobs which teens and even some college graduates can get during hard economic times, and are now classified as ‘essential workers’. This doesn’t just mean that our economy can’t get along with out them, it means that they are workers who have to go to work, no matter how they feel! So they go to work sick and running the risk of infecting others, not just at work, but at home – for $10-$12 an hour!
So what do we do. We’re going to understand that ‘myth busting’ on the COVID vaccine is a responsibility that all of us share. Racism does not absolve Black and Latinx people from doing their homework. We’ve got to read, we’ve got to ask questions from our most trusted, knowledgeable sources.
But the medical community and the government – at every level – must spend time over communicating and overeducating us, on literally every platform that exists, social media and otherwise. Government has a particularly tough job, because President Trump and the GOP Party is responsible for this conflagration that is torching our country, not just medically, but economically. They have done nothing for months but put out lies and misinformation and put up roadblocks to getting truth and putting in place effective processes, for testing, contract tracing and treatment. The President didn’t start COVID-19, but he is responsible for sacrificing his oath to protect on his perverse need to be seen as being ‘the best President in history.
And by the way, if the government and the medical industry want effective outreach DO NOT refer to this as vaccine as the ‘Trump Vaccine‘ – it’s not the ‘Trump Vaccine’ its the ‘Trump Virus’ for which we have discovered a vaccine!
So, yes, I’m going to take the vaccine. But, this will be a studied, reflective exercise of self care and other concern. I will advise others to do the same. But we’re America is going to need to learn that history has consequences and one of those consequences is going to be convincing people who have been wronged to take life saving measures, even as simple as taking a ‘shot’, even when its what good for the country.
A Cup of Black Coffee 