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Speaker 1: You're listening to Disinformed, a mini series from There Are

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Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. Did you

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Speaker 1: watch Saturday Night Live last week? If you did, you

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Speaker 1: probably saw a skit a lot of people are criticizing

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Speaker 1: for unfairly portraying Black folks and our hesitancy around the

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine. In the skit, Daniel Caluya plays a

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Speaker 1: black doctor trying to take evinced as a black cousins,

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Speaker 1: aunties and uncles to get the COVID nineteen vaccine by

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Speaker 1: offering the money, and none of them will do it.

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Speaker 1: What about you? You know I can't take that vaccine.

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Speaker 1: I am a Christian who told you Christians can't take

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Speaker 1: the vaccine Facebook. Okay. So here's the problem. If we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about vaccine hesitancy in the black community,

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Speaker 1: we also need to be putting it in context. Our

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Speaker 1: country has a deep and lasting legacy of medical racism

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Speaker 1: where black folks were ignored or actively mistreated, and that

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Speaker 1: still has far reaching impacts today. So it's not difficult

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Speaker 1: to understand why some black folks might be hesitant about

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Speaker 1: vaccines and the medical field in general, and any conversation

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Speaker 1: that does not include that reality as a necessary context

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Speaker 1: is incomplete, and Furthermore, making black communities the face of

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Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy is not actually borne out by the data.

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Speaker 1: Black folks are actually enthusiastic about the COVID nineteen vaccine.

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Speaker 1: We're the fastest growing demographic to say that we would

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Speaker 1: like to get vaccinated. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that

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Speaker 1: Black adults saw the largest increase in vaccine enthusiasm, with

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Speaker 1: the portion of those who have gotten or say they

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Speaker 1: will get the vaccine jumping to from just in December.

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Speaker 1: And what about white vaccine hesitancy? According to Pew, white

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Speaker 1: evangelicals are the least likely demographic to say they'll get

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Speaker 1: vaccinated of the year round forty one million white evangelical

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Speaker 1: adults in the United States, Around of them say they

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Speaker 1: will not get vaccinated against COVID nineteen. And yet we

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Speaker 1: still make black folks the face of vaccine hesitancy. Despite

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Speaker 1: COVID dispreport ortionately impact in the Black community and our

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Speaker 1: enthusiasm for getting vaccinated, black folks are still getting vaccinated less.

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Speaker 1: Black folks and Latinos are only about six as likely

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Speaker 1: to have had the COVID nineteen vaccine. As their white counterparts,

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Speaker 1: according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. That's because

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Speaker 1: right now, the real issue isn't hesitancy, it's equal access.

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Speaker 1: An NPR study that you can find a link to

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Speaker 1: in the show description found deep disparities in black communities

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Speaker 1: when it comes to accessing the COVID nineteen vaccine. They

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Speaker 1: found that in some states with lots of black folks,

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Speaker 1: states like Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama, black and brown neighborhoods

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Speaker 1: had fewer vaccine distribution sites, while few wider neighborhoods were

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Speaker 1: without one. Not to mention the fact that many vaccine

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Speaker 1: registration portals require internet access, and Pew found that black

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Speaker 1: households are less likely to own a computer. We've also

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Speaker 1: seen white, wealthier folks jumping the vaccine line and misusing

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Speaker 1: programs meant to vaccinate black, brown, and low income communities.

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Speaker 1: I know here in d C where I live, people

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Speaker 1: looking for vaccines had to get up early and keep

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Speaker 1: refreshing the city's website in the hopes of getting an

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Speaker 1: open slot. And what if you had to work or

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Speaker 1: deal with childcare. Not everybody has the ability to spend

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Speaker 1: a few hours refreshing a website and the hopes of

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Speaker 1: getting an open vaccine slot. The bottom line is blaming

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Speaker 1: black hesitancy without any context for the black community's low

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Speaker 1: vaccination rates is actually really harmful because it minimizes the

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Speaker 1: importance of equal access to healthcare and instead shift the

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Speaker 1: onus away from our medical institutions and puts it on

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Speaker 1: the choices of individual black people instead. I'm happy to

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Speaker 1: say that I got my first dose of the Maderna vaccine.

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Speaker 1: I was even happier to learn that it was developed

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Speaker 1: by a team led by thirty four year old doctor

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Speaker 1: Kismika Corbett, a black woman scientist who leads a team

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Speaker 1: at the National Institute of Health. Here's what she told

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Speaker 1: CNN's Abbey Philip. There is a subset of people who

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Speaker 1: just hasn't been listened to around their health issues and

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Speaker 1: around you know, technology, really and at this point, I

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Speaker 1: just I just felt like it was time for me

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Speaker 1: to sit down and empathize with an entire group of

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Speaker 1: people who had been ignored. And I know it may

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Speaker 1: not make for the most hilarious SNL skit, but when

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Speaker 1: we talk about black folks and vaccines, I hope we

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Speaker 1: can also make room to amplify the fact that this

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Speaker 1: amazing black woman is a big part of the reason

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Speaker 1: why we have one of the vaccines in the first place.

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Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing.

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Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or

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Speaker 1: just want to say Hi. We'd love to hear from

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Speaker 1: you at Hello at tangoi dot com. Dis Informed is

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Speaker 1: brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unbust creative Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Strickland as our executive producer. Tary Harrison is our supervising

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Speaker 1: producer and engineer. Michaelamato is our contributing producer. I'm your

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Speaker 1: host bridgetad. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: M m HM