Rant #2,585: Black and White

I hate the snow, and we received plenty the past two days.
 
In fact, we got at least an inch more overnight, adding to our totals of about 16 inches or so that came down on us on Sunday and Monday.
 
So after digging ourselves out yesterday, we have to do it again this morning … and by the way, when I went outside to get the newspaper at about 6:05 a.m., it was still snowing.
 
Well, that is certainly a snow job that I hate, but it ranks right up there with the snow job that we are getting from the media and many of our elected officials related to the racial disparities that are supposedly prevalent in the dispersal of coronavirus vaccines to the public.
 
According to the media, there are great disparities among the races, in particular between blacks getting the vaccine and whites getting the vaccine, and that this is a problem that needs to be dealt with.
 
For instance, the Associated Press has come out with its own analysis of the situation, using North Carolina as a gauge for what is happening.
 
In a recent AP story, the wire service said that blacks make up 22 percent of the state’s population and 28 percent of the state’s workforce, but only 11 percent of blacks have received the vaccine as of January 30.
 
On the other hand, whites are 69 percent of the state’s population, but 82 percent of the vaccinations have been given to this group.
 
Of course, the numbers are skewered by the fact that the AP admits that “whites” in the state are not just caucasians, but  also Hispanics, since the state includes Hispanics in its “white” category, and thus, the numbers are off to begin with.
 
But you see, it doesn’t matter. Even if “whites” in the state included people with green or purple skin, the number don’t mean anything because they do not tell the true story of why so many more “whites” are getting vaccinated than “blacks,”
 
The real reason is that although millions of blacks have already been vaccinated, as a group, blacks simply do not want to get the vaccine.
 
According to a poll that was done last summer by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 70 percent of blacks believe that people are treated unfairly based on race or ethnicity when they seek medical care, and thus, when the coronavirus vaccine became available, blacks as a group hesitated to get it, even though it was as available or unavailable to this group as it was to any ethnic group.
 
Evidently, long-held beliefs based on inequities that happened generations ago have been passed down from generation to generation, and unlike other ethnic groups—which have experienced their own medical inequities from generations past yet have overcome them, not forgotten them but overcame them to more forward—blacks as a group can’t possibly forget the past, or at least move past it for the current good, because this past is constantly rammed down their throats by some politicians and the media.
 
The federal, state and local governments have bent over backwards to try to get this group to buy into the vaccinations, but the plan simply is not working too well.
 
They have set up vaccination sites right at the seat of the black community—in churches—and they have set up sites in specific neighborhoods, but blacks as a group still hesitate to get inoculated.
 
They have had leaders in the black community participate in ads and events to get blacks vaccinated, but it has not worked.
 
Heck, even the very first person to get vaccinated in the United States was a nurse in a New York City hospital, a woman with Caribbean and black background, and the shot was administered by a black doctor—you don’t think that this was done for a reason?—and this hasn’t even worked.
 
It is making officials leading inner cities like New York City crazy, because the population that they are doing everything to get vaccinated simply does not want to be vaccinated, and they have made this into a racial cataclysm that it really isn’t … but it fits the narrative of total and complete oppression that the news media and many of our elected officials are riding right now …
 
And you know what? As a citizen of this country, I am sick of hearing about it.
 
I am sick of hearing about how “unfair” it all is, when whites are taking vaccination slots directly created for blacks because blacks don’t want to take these shots.
 
The rhetoric counter-programs what we have been told for the past year—“we are in this together”—and makes whatever racial divide some people think we have even wider.
 
People—white, black, yellow and brown—have brains in their heads, and if they choose to not be vaccinated, how is that adding another brick to the oppression bandwagon?
 
Here is what I said on Facebook yesterday, and I stand by it 100 percent:
 
“As far as the disparity of coronavirus vaccinations between the black community and other communities, a story that local and national media are trumpeting right now ...
This is utter media nonsense, of course. The plan is not working because blacks disproportionately do not want to take the vaccine compared to other groups.
It has nothing to do with availability--it is equally available or unavailable to all groups--the disparity is that blacks simply do not want to get vaccinated.
This media nonsense about whites getting vaccinated and its availability to them, compared to blacks, simply buys into the current narrative, and it simply is untrue.
Everyone can get, or can't get, the vaccine in equality. Just something else to stir up the racial pot.
State and local governments have gone out of their way to vaccinated this population, with vaccination spots being set up right in their communities, in churches and other logistically targeted sites.
I have not heard of any such spots being set up in other communities, nor in other religious institutions, such as mosques and synagogues.
And of course, I am not talking about all people of color, black, brown or yellow. Millions of Americans have been lucky enough to get vaccinated, and that includes millions of people of color.
The media is not reporting the real story about what is happening, and what is worse, they are not doing this during Black History Month, further insulting the minority community.
We are all in this together, we are all human beings, and we make our own decisions. Not wanting to get vaccinated is your own choice, and it has nothing to do with race or availability/unavailability to people by race.
Funny, my white, Jewish nearly 90 year old mother wanted to be vaccinated, and it took me about two weeks of constant checking to get her an appointment.
I would have met up with the same resistance and bad luck if I was a person of color.
And when she did get asked her race at the vaccination spot, how many people simply refuse to answer such a question, further throwing off the percentages?
The bottom line is this: do not fully believe anything you are reading about such disparities.
The media and our public officials who push this imbecilic narrative should be held accountable for their actions. They are simply expanding whatever rift exists between the races, and it is just plain irresponsible, the ultimate brown nosing that benefits no one and hurts everyone.”
If there is racism in this country, it is being perpetuated by those who believe that everything, and I mean everything, has to do with race.
 
It is fractured thinking, it is a belief that will drive a further stake between the races that perhaps isn’t as wide as some people would have you believe.

"Blacks are shunning the vaccinations so it makes whites 'demons' for 'taking their places' and getting the shot."

Hogwash!
 
If “we are all in this together,” let’s act like it, and stop driving wedges between all of us, no matter what our color or our background.
 
Let’s really “all be in this together,” and let’s stop all the rhetoric and nonsense to the contrary. Let’s get everyone inoculated who wants to get inoculated, and stop basing who wants the shot and who doesn’t want the shot on anything other than what it really is:

Personal choice.