Speaker 1: You're listening to Disinformed, a mini series from There Are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. Did you
Speaker 1: watch Saturday Night Live last week? If you did, you
Speaker 1: probably saw a skit a lot of people are criticizing
Speaker 1: for unfairly portraying Black folks and our hesitancy around the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine. In the skit, Daniel Caluya plays a
Speaker 1: black doctor trying to take evinced as a black cousins,
Speaker 1: aunties and uncles to get the COVID nineteen vaccine by
Speaker 1: offering the money, and none of them will do it.
Speaker 1: What about you? You know I can't take that vaccine.
Speaker 1: I am a Christian who told you Christians can't take
Speaker 1: the vaccine Facebook. Okay. So here's the problem. If we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about vaccine hesitancy in the black community,
Speaker 1: we also need to be putting it in context. Our
Speaker 1: country has a deep and lasting legacy of medical racism
Speaker 1: where black folks were ignored or actively mistreated, and that
Speaker 1: still has far reaching impacts today. So it's not difficult
Speaker 1: to understand why some black folks might be hesitant about
Speaker 1: vaccines and the medical field in general, and any conversation
Speaker 1: that does not include that reality as a necessary context
Speaker 1: is incomplete, and Furthermore, making black communities the face of
Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy is not actually borne out by the data.
Speaker 1: Black folks are actually enthusiastic about the COVID nineteen vaccine.
Speaker 1: We're the fastest growing demographic to say that we would
Speaker 1: like to get vaccinated. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that
Speaker 1: Black adults saw the largest increase in vaccine enthusiasm, with
Speaker 1: the portion of those who have gotten or say they
Speaker 1: will get the vaccine jumping to from just in December.
Speaker 1: And what about white vaccine hesitancy? According to Pew, white
Speaker 1: evangelicals are the least likely demographic to say they'll get
Speaker 1: vaccinated of the year round forty one million white evangelical
Speaker 1: adults in the United States, Around of them say they
Speaker 1: will not get vaccinated against COVID nineteen. And yet we
Speaker 1: still make black folks the face of vaccine hesitancy. Despite
Speaker 1: COVID dispreport ortionately impact in the Black community and our
Speaker 1: enthusiasm for getting vaccinated, black folks are still getting vaccinated less.
Speaker 1: Black folks and Latinos are only about six as likely
Speaker 1: to have had the COVID nineteen vaccine. As their white counterparts,
Speaker 1: according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. That's because
Speaker 1: right now, the real issue isn't hesitancy, it's equal access.
Speaker 1: An NPR study that you can find a link to
Speaker 1: in the show description found deep disparities in black communities
Speaker 1: when it comes to accessing the COVID nineteen vaccine. They
Speaker 1: found that in some states with lots of black folks,
Speaker 1: states like Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama, black and brown neighborhoods
Speaker 1: had fewer vaccine distribution sites, while few wider neighborhoods were
Speaker 1: without one. Not to mention the fact that many vaccine
Speaker 1: registration portals require internet access, and Pew found that black
Speaker 1: households are less likely to own a computer. We've also
Speaker 1: seen white, wealthier folks jumping the vaccine line and misusing
Speaker 1: programs meant to vaccinate black, brown, and low income communities.
Speaker 1: I know here in d C where I live, people
Speaker 1: looking for vaccines had to get up early and keep
Speaker 1: refreshing the city's website in the hopes of getting an
Speaker 1: open slot. And what if you had to work or
Speaker 1: deal with childcare. Not everybody has the ability to spend
Speaker 1: a few hours refreshing a website and the hopes of
Speaker 1: getting an open vaccine slot. The bottom line is blaming
Speaker 1: black hesitancy without any context for the black community's low
Speaker 1: vaccination rates is actually really harmful because it minimizes the
Speaker 1: importance of equal access to healthcare and instead shift the
Speaker 1: onus away from our medical institutions and puts it on
Speaker 1: the choices of individual black people instead. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: say that I got my first dose of the Maderna vaccine.
Speaker 1: I was even happier to learn that it was developed
Speaker 1: by a team led by thirty four year old doctor
Speaker 1: Kismika Corbett, a black woman scientist who leads a team
Speaker 1: at the National Institute of Health. Here's what she told
Speaker 1: CNN's Abbey Philip. There is a subset of people who
Speaker 1: just hasn't been listened to around their health issues and
Speaker 1: around you know, technology, really and at this point, I
Speaker 1: just I just felt like it was time for me
Speaker 1: to sit down and empathize with an entire group of
Speaker 1: people who had been ignored. And I know it may
Speaker 1: not make for the most hilarious SNL skit, but when
Speaker 1: we talk about black folks and vaccines, I hope we
Speaker 1: can also make room to amplify the fact that this
Speaker 1: amazing black woman is a big part of the reason
Speaker 1: why we have one of the vaccines in the first place.
Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say Hi. We'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: you at Hello at tangoi dot com. Dis Informed is
Speaker 1: brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unbust creative Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland as our executive producer. Tary Harrison is our supervising
Speaker 1: producer and engineer. Michaelamato is our contributing producer. I'm your
Speaker 1: host bridgetad. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeart
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