Speaker 1: You're listening to your waiting on reparations the production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Yeah, yeah, all I gotta stress, baby,
Speaker 1: I can't even find all I really got is reparations
Speaker 1: on my mind. I've been sitting waiting. Now I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the time. I don't want it. All. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to get with my All I got is stress, baby,
Speaker 1: I can't even find all I got is all these
Speaker 1: reparations on my mind. I've been fucking waiting. Now I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the time. I don't want it all. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to get with my Yeo, hey yo, I
Speaker 1: spill what I have to say. Still gonna cross the
Speaker 1: name style so ill that you will get your back
Speaker 1: today drowning the trenches. You sound so ridiculous, act disturbed
Speaker 1: like you're down with the sickness, and I fucking get up.
Speaker 1: They just want clicks to make a quick buck. They'll
Speaker 1: post on Facebook talking about they want to shipped up
Speaker 1: you fucking microchips. Yeah yeah, that's my cycle ship that
Speaker 1: I don't like a bit. They read memes and never
Speaker 1: recite a quick They're gonna mess around in this COVID
Speaker 1: ship going ignite again. A swamp certified to beating us
Speaker 1: just like I'm psycho lest Stope Knife, homie, you might
Speaker 1: guess what's up? What's going on? My name is Dope Knife.
Speaker 1: We are waiting on reparations. So what is what is
Speaker 1: going on in the world? I mean, obviously fucking white
Speaker 1: men are killing everyone again? Are we did they find
Speaker 1: they find the person who did the Colorado That one
Speaker 1: white guy killed a bunch of Asian people and other
Speaker 1: people in Atlanta? And I actually do not know the
Speaker 1: details of the shooting that happened on Monday me neither
Speaker 1: the one in Colorado. Yeah, I haven't. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: too much about the suspect or or anything. It's it's
Speaker 1: really fucked up that whenever the ship happens, we're kind
Speaker 1: of waiting to hear what the suspect was before we
Speaker 1: formulate what our opinion of the whole thing is. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, what, like what pattern does it fit into?
Speaker 1: Does it fit into the lone wolf? Uh? You know
Speaker 1: an evangelical Christian who with mental health problems who had
Speaker 1: a bad day? Or is it like some scary brown
Speaker 1: person for whom we should then then close the borders
Speaker 1: and the band Islam or you know whatever, Like depending
Speaker 1: on whose narrative, Like both sides, you know, of the
Speaker 1: left and right are waiting for it to confirm the
Speaker 1: pattern that that furthers their agenda. I feel. So we
Speaker 1: had it was ten people that were killed at the
Speaker 1: Colorado grocery store. Um, I mean, you know, it's again
Speaker 1: just going back to what you were just saying. It's
Speaker 1: like depending on what the what the details of the
Speaker 1: suspect are. It's like, depending on your political your plitical persuasion,
Speaker 1: you have an opinion of the whole incident. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's fucking that's eighteen people
Speaker 1: in like a week. Yeah, just gone over some stupid
Speaker 1: ship in the common denominator. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the motivation is, is like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's more guns than people in the country. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: you know, something that I wanted to talk on this
Speaker 1: topic about briefly before we get into the meetup today's
Speaker 1: episode is um pushback from the left about the rights
Speaker 1: uh quick seizure of the narrative of mental illness and
Speaker 1: the importance of mental health in scenarios like these, and
Speaker 1: folks saying that, oh, you know, to to claim that
Speaker 1: these are you know, these are that mental health is
Speaker 1: to blame and not gun control. Fur their stigmatized as
Speaker 1: mental health. But I kind of like, like, as I
Speaker 1: come to understand mental health care is also like behavioral health,
Speaker 1: like are you doing are you you like, do you
Speaker 1: have healthy coping mechanisms? Are you doing healthy behaviors? Are
Speaker 1: you doing health behaviors that hurt you and other people?
Speaker 1: And whine and like you know, health they like connecting
Speaker 1: people to health care that supports them in in like
Speaker 1: healthy behaviors as a part of the of the mental
Speaker 1: health um uh picture. I like, I don't really have
Speaker 1: a problem with as much of anything. I think that
Speaker 1: like we need to just digmatize mental health and and
Speaker 1: behavioral health and think more like holistically about the ways
Speaker 1: this influences crime and and myriad um instances. Um you know,
Speaker 1: like if somebody's stealing slim gems from seven eleven, like
Speaker 1: they ain't acting right and maybe there's some systemic and
Speaker 1: environmental factors like maybe they're hungry, maybe they're just acting
Speaker 1: a fool, and like connecting someone with mentorship or a
Speaker 1: doctor or who ever to talk through like you know,
Speaker 1: why are you doing? Function? Can prevent all kinds of
Speaker 1: crime from happening. I believe as a part of like,
Speaker 1: you know, an abolitionist framework of how we stop these
Speaker 1: things from happening. And I wanted to get your take
Speaker 1: on on like the whole like the seizure of like
Speaker 1: the mental health angle for explaining why this happens, and
Speaker 1: like how you feel about it. Yeah, no, I I
Speaker 1: really don't like it, honestly. I mean, it's weird because
Speaker 1: I agree with everything you just said, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think I'm about to contradict that you
Speaker 1: let me know. But um, I don't understand why there's
Speaker 1: a rush to associate somebody's willingness or ability to kill
Speaker 1: another person with mental illness. Like I think I think
Speaker 1: somebody can be completely sound of mind and take a life. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would disagree, but like, respectfully, like I feel that
Speaker 1: I understand. I feel like, if you want to take
Speaker 1: a life, you ain't right man, like, and I'm not
Speaker 1: and I'm not just say that. And I want to
Speaker 1: make clear that I am separating this from like people
Speaker 1: who might say, like, oh, racism is mental illness or
Speaker 1: something like that. Like, I mean, I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of education to be done that is in line
Speaker 1: with other preventative practices, akin to access to mental health
Speaker 1: care that helped I guess in a sense, d program
Speaker 1: folks from racist, misogynistic, otherwise hateful um ideologies that then
Speaker 1: drive this violence. But at the same time, I feel
Speaker 1: like if you could, if you can look at another
Speaker 1: person to just take their life, like without coercion, not
Speaker 1: like you're in the military or something. I mean, in
Speaker 1: in the overwhelming majority of circumstances, I would definitely agree.
Speaker 1: But I just like you said, I mean, people jump
Speaker 1: on it so quickly that for me personally, I feel
Speaker 1: hesitant to just immediately jump into that because like if
Speaker 1: I don't know, if if somebody has like some fully
Speaker 1: written thought out manifesto before they do some horrible act,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not quick to say that, oh,
Speaker 1: that person is mentally disturbed because like they had a plan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand. I guess perhaps the way another way to
Speaker 1: look at it, it's like therapy is a form of education,
Speaker 1: and like counseling and the form of education, it's teaches
Speaker 1: you about yourself, teaches you how to deal with the world,
Speaker 1: and so like educate, like people also self educate through
Speaker 1: YouTube videos about why should hit Jews or like as
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, like why vaccines aren't real and
Speaker 1: so like underpinning a lot of this violence is like
Speaker 1: bad bad things people learn, they learn to hate, they
Speaker 1: learn to hate people, They learn to hate you know,
Speaker 1: women or Asian women or Asian people or or people,
Speaker 1: and um that can be unlearned as well. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and so like I think this is a longer you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the conversation for a different day. We can delve into
Speaker 1: a more topic that are more and more in depth,
Speaker 1: and like I'd love to you know, if anyone listening
Speaker 1: has readings to recommend around either side of this issue,
Speaker 1: I would love to read them to become more informed.
Speaker 1: But just like my feeling is that yeah, like you
Speaker 1: ain't like yeah, pretty much you ain't right if you
Speaker 1: shave be able to take about people's lives without coercion,
Speaker 1: um and either like d programming of some sort, be
Speaker 1: it like you need to learn some different ship or
Speaker 1: you're you have unhealthy coping mechanisms that could be classified
Speaker 1: as a mental disorder that you need like medical help
Speaker 1: with on learning. Like ultimately that is probably I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say a quicker way to stop this from happening, but
Speaker 1: like maybe more realistic than taking your abode guns away. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you know, I'm not advocating taking anybody
Speaker 1: guns guns away. I don't think anybody who is like
Speaker 1: an advocate of gun control. It's actually now in a
Speaker 1: post Trump era, even like the most fucking milk toast
Speaker 1: isn't that hyperbolic. No one is advocated or taking people's
Speaker 1: guns away. All I'm saying is this, and this is
Speaker 1: just some I mean, just keeping a reel with you,
Speaker 1: Like it should be harder to get a gun than
Speaker 1: a PlayStation, y'all, And it's not. You can get a gun.
Speaker 1: You can get a gun and go kill eight people
Speaker 1: in the same day. You can't register to vote and
Speaker 1: vote exactly. Like, Yo, this ship is just all it's
Speaker 1: all backwards. It's completely backwards. I agree. But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: get let's get into the what we're gonna or at
Speaker 1: leasta serve them up. What we got going on today.
Speaker 1: This is the second to last episode of season one
Speaker 1: of the Waiting on Reparations podcasts, and we got a
Speaker 1: good one for you today. So, the early indications are
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration is comming along with their vaccination program.
Speaker 1: So far they've got a hundred and twenty seven million
Speaker 1: people have been given at least a ghosts and over
Speaker 1: forty million people have been fully vaccinated with the two doses,
Speaker 1: and you know they'll be good to go and some
Speaker 1: weeks and months um. And this also included close to
Speaker 1: three million people getting a shot in a one day
Speaker 1: earlier this month, so you know it's it's it's moving
Speaker 1: along at a quick pace. Earlier this week, the Georgia
Speaker 1: Governor Brian Kemp announced that everyone under the age or
Speaker 1: everyone over the age of sixteen will be eligible to
Speaker 1: get their jabs starting today, so Thursday, when you guys
Speaker 1: are listening to this. The US has ordered, optioned, or
Speaker 1: procured enough doses to immunize every single member of the
Speaker 1: population more than five times over, and all adults will
Speaker 1: be eligible for a shot by May one. By invoking
Speaker 1: the Korean War era Defense Production Act, Biden and Men's
Speaker 1: have forced the important Johnson and Johnson subcontractor into round
Speaker 1: the clock operations, so it's a variety of the vacs
Speaker 1: got boasted faster. However, with all that, the scenari area
Speaker 1: has further inflamed vaccine debate, perhaps this time more passionate
Speaker 1: than it's been in the modern times. So today we're
Speaker 1: going to dig into that debate ourselves. Why do people
Speaker 1: feared vaccines, how do people why do people support vaccines?
Speaker 1: How prevalent is either sentiment in the black community, and
Speaker 1: how has this polarizing the subject been dealt with in
Speaker 1: the world of hip hop. We got all that and
Speaker 1: more coming up after the jump. So we've seen how
Speaker 1: COVID has had the power to freeze the world in
Speaker 1: abstracts as of now, killing about two point seven three
Speaker 1: million people worldwide. One thing about smallpox. It was a
Speaker 1: disease that existed for three thousand years and was estimated
Speaker 1: to have killed three million people in the nine hundreds
Speaker 1: alone and have at death rate in people who got it.
Speaker 1: It was truly discourage of people's entire lives for generations
Speaker 1: and generations, which is wild to me because I feel
Speaker 1: like we have no collective generational men marine for fear
Speaker 1: of the scenario. Like I really just feel like people
Speaker 1: don't understand how like before vaccines infectious to tea just
Speaker 1: like walked your shoot up and as a community disrupting
Speaker 1: the economy just like devastated, devastated populations. You know, when
Speaker 1: people here are like talking about like, oh, how age
Speaker 1: expectancy has gone out, you know with times, so it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: back in the day, people used to live to be
Speaker 1: like thirty and ship like that. That's not like it's
Speaker 1: not like motherfucker's just got to be like thirty. And
Speaker 1: then it was like, oh, my heart's going out. It
Speaker 1: was disease was lifted off by pterodactyls and Yo had
Speaker 1: smallpox and ship. And the thing I wonder is if
Speaker 1: people's treatment of COVID would be different if it killed
Speaker 1: one third of the infected today, or if Maga chads
Speaker 1: and Wall Street folks would just shrog and insists we
Speaker 1: reopened chilis. I think it's just a matter of how
Speaker 1: scary it was. I don't think COVID was scary enough
Speaker 1: to produce this efficient fear to not get people to
Speaker 1: do stupid ship. It was for a while, like the
Speaker 1: first two months to three months of COVID, like when
Speaker 1: we thought it was gonna be like that movie Contagion
Speaker 1: for real, for real. Yeah, everybody was scared. Everybody was
Speaker 1: doing whatever the fuck, you know, medical professionals were suggesting,
Speaker 1: and then as it was like, Okay, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be that bad, that's when the dumb ship started.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I feel like there was a small
Speaker 1: contingent who, like you know, who cloned to the former
Speaker 1: president's words like its gargols balls so deeply that they
Speaker 1: were like, oh, he says it's not gonna be a
Speaker 1: big deal. You know, they were doing rallies like reopened, reopen.
Speaker 1: You know, it's state capitals, guns and ships. We also
Speaker 1: can't forget that, like almost it was like literally the
Speaker 1: day that it was announced, Hey, this COVID ship is
Speaker 1: affecting Latino and black people disproportion in Italy, like instantly, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're good, we don't we don't need mass We're fine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not that big deal. Back to smallpox. So
Speaker 1: smallpox was the first vaccine to be developed against a
Speaker 1: contagious disease after the British doctor Edward Jenner's experiments with
Speaker 1: cowpox material showed a way to immunity against the deadly
Speaker 1: smallpox virus in seventeen As with all of history, there
Speaker 1: can tend to be a bi slant towards the white dude,
Speaker 1: but there are actually you know a few accounts of
Speaker 1: the smallpox inoculations in the fifteen hundreds, and this was
Speaker 1: practiced in Africa, China, and India since they started doing
Speaker 1: mass vaccinations of small packs back in the early eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: It was met with opposition for various reasons ranging from sanitary, religious, scientific,
Speaker 1: or political. According to very well health dot com, describing
Speaker 1: the discourse around vaccines at the time, pronoculators tended to
Speaker 1: write in the cool and factual tones encouraged by the
Speaker 1: royal society, with frequent appeals to reason, modern aggressive science,
Speaker 1: and the courtesy subsisting among gentlemen. Anti inoculators purposely wrote
Speaker 1: like demagogues, using heated tones and lowered scare stories to
Speaker 1: promote paranoia and the process of the smallpox vaccine itself
Speaker 1: too was I mean, would involved was scoring flesh on
Speaker 1: a child's arm and then inserting the lymph from a
Speaker 1: blister of a person who had gotten the vaccine a
Speaker 1: week earlier. So you know, you hear or maybe you
Speaker 1: see that ship, and naturally, as you know, parents aren't
Speaker 1: really going to be like, oh that's dope, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to do that ship. You know, back in the
Speaker 1: eight hundreds and ships, and this to me, I think
Speaker 1: echoes today in my own at least, uh sense of
Speaker 1: vaccine hasidency. I have my own reasons for like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait a little bit, but um, I am gonna
Speaker 1: get the jab at at some point. But as with
Speaker 1: the smallpoxes, smallpox vaccines kind of ekey procedure. When I
Speaker 1: hear about the side effect the cup of job, it
Speaker 1: does make me feel kind of like, oh, like I
Speaker 1: gotta pick a good day and ago just kidd get sick.
Speaker 1: Some people have like weakness in an arm or like
Speaker 1: they're just laid out for a day, which does make
Speaker 1: a little bit harder. Like I had a friend who
Speaker 1: was like shopping in a Kroger and they announced over
Speaker 1: the speaker that they had left everdoses that anyone could
Speaker 1: come in, come get in line and get the job.
Speaker 1: And she just like walked over to the pharmacy and
Speaker 1: just got one randomly. And I feel like I couldn't
Speaker 1: do it so nonchalantly, to be honest, But I feel
Speaker 1: like this this um, this reaction, this public reaction to
Speaker 1: like what the vaccine can do to you, like in
Speaker 1: the like in the very real terms, like you know,
Speaker 1: knowing what the procedure was for getting smallpox at the
Speaker 1: time in the eighteen hundreds, or like hearing what the
Speaker 1: side effects are today. It makes me think of the
Speaker 1: recent controversy over am I coming out as anti vaccine.
Speaker 1: I think she tweeted out, if I had to choose
Speaker 1: the vaccine or chip, I'm going to choose death um
Speaker 1: And in response to Twitter backlash, she explained in America
Speaker 1: then to be vaccinate my child before the school, before
Speaker 1: the school admission. It was the hardest thing to not
Speaker 1: have that choice over this as a mother. I never
Speaker 1: want to feel that again. He was so sick for
Speaker 1: three weeks then docs had to pump up with antibiotics
Speaker 1: to reduce the fever from the three vaccines. So like
Speaker 1: seeing like real side effects that vaccines do you have,
Speaker 1: turning people off to their usage, I think is like
Speaker 1: a real source of vaccine hesitancy that we can't just
Speaker 1: brush off. It was like, oh, paranoia or you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you can't appeal to reason, like the larger
Speaker 1: purpose of you know, well, it's better you're sick for
Speaker 1: a couple of like for a day, and then you're
Speaker 1: fucking dead, right and your families to burrow you with
Speaker 1: the money they don't have because four doesn't pay for
Speaker 1: ship um, like you know, I mean, I guess my
Speaker 1: thing is like I don't. I don't hold it against
Speaker 1: anybody for being scared of the notion of vat vaccines
Speaker 1: and vaccinations. I mean I have like queasiness and worries
Speaker 1: and fears and the same thoughts that any of the
Speaker 1: those people have to For me. Where it gets over
Speaker 1: the pale is when in order to rationalize that, you
Speaker 1: start coming up with like stupid ship like microchips in
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like if just be scared,
Speaker 1: even if like yo, I don't trust doctors or I
Speaker 1: don't trust modern medicine or whatever, like, even that to
Speaker 1: me is a whether I agree with it or not,
Speaker 1: it's a it's an argument that is like based it's
Speaker 1: you know, some reasoning I can understand, you know, I
Speaker 1: just don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I think
Speaker 1: there's tangible things to be worried about that you don't
Speaker 1: have to stretch. Yeah, I was curious. So when we
Speaker 1: when we hear this description of during the smallpox era,
Speaker 1: of the types of red rick used by pro inoculators
Speaker 1: versus anti inoculators. Um, how how have you seen folks
Speaker 1: on both sides communicate their perspectives? I feel I feel
Speaker 1: like impressionistically, I have seen somewhat of the same pattern
Speaker 1: of like actually a lot of people just like spitting
Speaker 1: facts if they're like I'm gonna go get the vaccine
Speaker 1: and this is the data on whye and like, you know,
Speaker 1: appeals to reason about you know, the good of man
Speaker 1: kind versus like yeah, yeah, kind of like just you know,
Speaker 1: demagoguery like scare stories or really more so than that,
Speaker 1: just like dumbass ship that I kind of can't tell
Speaker 1: what people are joking, Like when I see people like
Speaker 1: posting about like yeah I ain't getting the micro chip,
Speaker 1: like I have. My initial reaction I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this nik playing around. It's funny, like, you know, laughing
Speaker 1: at whatever. Somebody has to write l O L at
Speaker 1: the end of some ship like that in yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta write l O L at the end of that
Speaker 1: for me to be like all right, you know, otherwise
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna just gonna assume because people believe all
Speaker 1: type of ship. Now, the of courts that I've seen
Speaker 1: is like I don't want to say surprising, but just
Speaker 1: like I think personally, I feel like I've encountered more
Speaker 1: people that are hesitant to get the vaccine at least
Speaker 1: this early. And these are like people who wear their
Speaker 1: masks all the time and do all the things, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, and that's how they feel, and
Speaker 1: I was it kind of makes me want to ask you.
Speaker 1: I hate to answer a question with a question, but
Speaker 1: do you think that the vaccine would be coming out
Speaker 1: this soon if people were more um, if people were
Speaker 1: following COVID protocol more and longer, like if like, just
Speaker 1: imagine if the whole political divide on the issue was
Speaker 1: non existent and everybody was socially distancing and wearing the
Speaker 1: masks and taking the whole taking it seriously, you know,
Speaker 1: like a life or death issue. Do you think that
Speaker 1: that would have kind of not made the immediate urgency
Speaker 1: to like get the vaccine out at an unprecedented I
Speaker 1: think that, Like, we are very greedy country. Even if
Speaker 1: we had had like fucking six deaths this whole time,
Speaker 1: we would have still bought up five times the amount
Speaker 1: of vaccine we needed to inoculate the entire population, just
Speaker 1: because we have the resources to do it. And like
Speaker 1: we don't give a shit about anybody else. Honestly, that's
Speaker 1: how I feel. I feel you on that, so, gentleman. Smallpox.
Speaker 1: Once again. In that era, clergy thought that the vaccine
Speaker 1: was Unchristian because it came from animals. Some believe it
Speaker 1: would make you stick because it contained poisonous chemicals, namely
Speaker 1: carbolic acid. Though sound in the vaccine, just like now,
Speaker 1: there was a general distrust in medicine and people weren't
Speaker 1: totally sold on generous ideas and methods. A section of
Speaker 1: people believe smallpox had something to do with atmosphere, but mainly,
Speaker 1: and this will sounds familiar, they felt that it was
Speaker 1: by halting their personal liberty. It's like today. Government mandates
Speaker 1: and rolledouts only hated up the tension. The Vaccination app
Speaker 1: ordered mandatory vaccination for entrance up to three months, all
Speaker 1: which would have Piste m I a off a great deal.
Speaker 1: The the Anti Vaccination Society of America started in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, and then the New England Anti Compulsory Vaccination
Speaker 1: League of them Nigga's got a league at the end
Speaker 1: of their ship, and also the Anti Vaccination League of
Speaker 1: New York City came shortly after and they were launching
Speaker 1: court battles. Um they were trying to get vaccination laws
Speaker 1: repealed in several states, including California, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Playwright
Speaker 1: George Bernard Shaw, who was an aderant proponent of how
Speaker 1: do you say that? Uh? Playwright George Bernard Shaw, who
Speaker 1: was an ardent proponent of homopathy and eugenics, was like
Speaker 1: one of the main voices of the anti vaxx movement
Speaker 1: during the time, did not know that. As more and
Speaker 1: more vaccines began to rapidly roll out. Um as the
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds went on, whooping cough in polio means its
Speaker 1: three months in ninety sixty seven and rubella in nineteen one,
Speaker 1: the anti vaccination movement scaled up as well. So can
Speaker 1: you hear the cat in the background? Do I need
Speaker 1: to throw him in the closet or something? So? Per
Speaker 1: the history of vaccines, at or anti vaccination positions and
Speaker 1: vaccination controversies are not limited to the past and the
Speaker 1: Midnight seventies. International controversy over the safety of the dip
Speaker 1: theory of tetanus and per TESSAs immunization erupted in Europe, Asia,
Speaker 1: Australia and North America. In the United Kingdom, opposition resulted
Speaker 1: in response to report from the Great Ormond Street Hospital
Speaker 1: for six Children in London, which allowed that thirty children
Speaker 1: suffered neurological conditions. Following DTP immunization, television documentaries and newspaper
Speaker 1: reports drew public attention to the controversy. An advocacy group,
Speaker 1: the Association of Parents Against Vaccine Damaged Children. Yo, your
Speaker 1: childe dammage? You got a damaged as kid? Sorry? Okay,
Speaker 1: damn damaged Okay also also peak public interests in the
Speaker 1: potential risk and consequences of DTP. Members of the a
Speaker 1: p v d C continued to argue in court recognition
Speaker 1: and compensation, but we're denied both due to the lack
Speaker 1: of evidence linking the DTP immunization with harm. Getting even
Speaker 1: closer we got British doctor Andrew Wakefield recommended further investigation
Speaker 1: to the possible relationship between bow disease autism and the
Speaker 1: MMR vaccine, and today we're in the center of the
Speaker 1: current debate over this COVID vaccine. But what do you so,
Speaker 1: just generally, what are your what is your stance on
Speaker 1: like vaccines? Just in general, like would you describe yourself
Speaker 1: as pro vaccine. I don't know vaccine or anti vaccine.
Speaker 1: I am pro vaccine. I mean like I am passively
Speaker 1: pro vaccine and that like I am not like a
Speaker 1: warrior out here on the social media, like you know,
Speaker 1: like screaming about how we all need to go get vaccine,
Speaker 1: and we I mean we do, but I do feel
Speaker 1: like I like passively accept that if like the CDC
Speaker 1: says some is legit, then that's probably legit. They're very
Speaker 1: smart doctors, and I am not smartning my doctor, and
Speaker 1: so um I understand, Like I mean, outside of the
Speaker 1: logistical concerns about getting it with regards to like getting
Speaker 1: like recognizing that it can make you sick, and trying
Speaker 1: to like schedule around that with like having a busy
Speaker 1: ber schedule. I myself, like many people, I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get into this a little bit more later,
Speaker 1: you know, have a constant no take that into consideration
Speaker 1: with how soon I will get the vaccine. But in general,
Speaker 1: like I trust the science ie like which is like
Speaker 1: such an interesting phrase because like it's not like people
Speaker 1: have read the studies. Like when I hear like my
Speaker 1: friends who have gotten like wasted with at the bar
Speaker 1: or whatever. So I don't trust the silence. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you don't. I don't know the science. We're just stressing
Speaker 1: other people who saily dress the science too, who say
Speaker 1: they're doctors and so like, like like with every bit
Speaker 1: of information we get, it's like, you know, you're doctorally cool,
Speaker 1: you know, like, and some people just listen to the
Speaker 1: bad doctors. I guess, um, but I trust scientific consensus.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way with cove it, you know,
Speaker 1: I I trust the ship. I have like anecdotal stuff
Speaker 1: of like people I know who have gotten the vaccine
Speaker 1: and my mom's gotten it. And but at the same time,
Speaker 1: I understand, like if if if the numbers reflect that
Speaker 1: some alarming number of people are skeptical or hesitant about
Speaker 1: the COVID vaccine, I personally understand it because if you
Speaker 1: tell people, yeah, it usually takes ten years or four
Speaker 1: years or whatever to come up with one of them,
Speaker 1: and you come up with the ship in like seven months,
Speaker 1: I would imagine people would be like, I'm a wait
Speaker 1: until the update, you know, Like you know, I I understand,
Speaker 1: I understand it is what I'm saying. I I kind
Speaker 1: of hate when people are quick to de legitimize people like,
Speaker 1: oh you're crazy or oh you're conspiracy theorists. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hate that we did come up with this ship pretty
Speaker 1: rad really, that it should be a reason to be like, wait,
Speaker 1: It's like when they come up with a new game console.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting that shift first. I'm gonna let y'all
Speaker 1: motherfucker's get that ship first so I can hear how
Speaker 1: it is, and then you know, maybe wait for them
Speaker 1: to come up with the update because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this version that should have bugs, so we updated it,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's a game, councile or cell phone.
Speaker 1: I'm not just Russian. When they when they put out
Speaker 1: the first version of it, I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: just my own personal peace of mind. I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that it's been you know, crowd tested, mother
Speaker 1: approved before I go and get it. So again, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying I understand people having I just understand where
Speaker 1: that feeling is coming from. So half the states in
Speaker 1: America I have seen a decline over the past decade
Speaker 1: and the take up rates among kindergarten children of vaccines
Speaker 1: against diseases such as means those moms happatitis being polio.
Speaker 1: That was before COVID and Georgia. In Arkansas, the decline
Speaker 1: was more than six This is from the c d C.
Speaker 1: We know that a disease that is apparently under control
Speaker 1: can suddenly return because we've seen it happen in countries
Speaker 1: like Japan, Australia, and Sweden. Here's an example from Japan.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy four, about eight percent of Japanese children were
Speaker 1: getting whooping cough vaccine. That year, there were only three
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety three cases of whooping cough in the
Speaker 1: entire country. Not a single person had a death related
Speaker 1: to it. Then immunization rates begin to drop, until only
Speaker 1: about ten percent of children were being vaccinated. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, more than thirteen thousand people got whooping cough
Speaker 1: and forty one died. When routine vaccinations were resumed, the
Speaker 1: disease numbers dropped again. The chances of your child getting
Speaker 1: a case of measles or chicken pox or whooping cough
Speaker 1: might be quite low today, but vaccinations are not just
Speaker 1: for protecting theirselves. They are not just for today. They
Speaker 1: also protect people around you, so of whom might may
Speaker 1: be unable to get certain vaccines or might have failed
Speaker 1: to respond to a vaccine or might be susceptible to
Speaker 1: other for other reasons. And they also protect our children's
Speaker 1: children and their children by keeping diseases that we feel
Speaker 1: we've almost defeated for making a comeback. What would happen
Speaker 1: if we stopped taking vaccinations. We could soon find ourselves
Speaker 1: battling epidemics for diseases we thought we had conquered decades ago.
Speaker 1: And so that's like the over ar king you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: moral argument, I think is that it's not just for you,
Speaker 1: it's for society, which I think is is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why there maybe some nut skepticism. But just
Speaker 1: like nonchalance about getting the COVID vaccine, because you can
Speaker 1: still get COVID, you just won't get sick and die
Speaker 1: from it, you can still pass it to other people,
Speaker 1: you still have to keep wearing a mask um et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so like people who are young and think that
Speaker 1: they're invincible anywhere, like why should I get the vacs
Speaker 1: scene it's not gonna kill me anyway, And it's still
Speaker 1: gonna kill my grandma anyway, Like what's the big old deal?
Speaker 1: And so figuring out how to then argue that effectively
Speaker 1: you know without this, you know uh this this uh
Speaker 1: common good. Um. Part of the argument operating is strongly
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the difficulties that we're facing.
Speaker 1: So according to a few research poll only of African
Speaker 1: Americans say they would take the COVID nineteen vaccine. And
Speaker 1: I think that says multiple sources. I think, yes, there's
Speaker 1: this misinformation, and that's why it's important for us to
Speaker 1: undertake grassroots educational efforts so that vaccine information is coming
Speaker 1: from people that we trust. From your neighbor, from your
Speaker 1: pastor you might see your auntie posting a selfie for
Speaker 1: her getting the vaccine, and it normalizes the idea for you.
Speaker 1: I think that's really important because getting information from the CDC,
Speaker 1: who the fund is? The CDC, you know, like who
Speaker 1: like who? Who is the Department of Public else for
Speaker 1: Northeast Georgia like who? Like what? Who are you? Why
Speaker 1: do you care? But um, getting information where people who
Speaker 1: are you know, like trusted sources helps it feel like,
Speaker 1: it helps reinstill that sense of common good of like
Speaker 1: we're looking out for you, could we love you? And
Speaker 1: do we care about you? Know? But I think in
Speaker 1: an underappreciated problem stems from our general relationship as African
Speaker 1: Americans to privatized health care. In America, black people are
Speaker 1: disproportionately underinsured or uninsured, and being underinsured having insurance but
Speaker 1: having exorbited an out of pocket costs attached to that
Speaker 1: may prevent one of utilizing health care services. Thinking about
Speaker 1: the fact that for African Americans, the average annual costs
Speaker 1: for healthcare premiums is about of the average household income. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're spending that much to go see a doctor,
Speaker 1: even if you have insurance, you might not do it.
Speaker 1: Like you might then lean on insurance as a backup
Speaker 1: in the case in case of a health emergency, but
Speaker 1: shy away from taking preventative steps that you fear might
Speaker 1: cost you. So even if you have insurance, navigating the
Speaker 1: complex web of premiums copais sobriet of pills, I mean
Speaker 1: you don't have a strong relationship with a primary care provider,
Speaker 1: or have a primary care provider at all. So um
Speaker 1: folks that are underinsured are uninsured already just have like
Speaker 1: a weak relationship with our health care system such that
Speaker 1: you know they're not going to see a doctor and
Speaker 1: you know getting advice from them about whether they're eligible
Speaker 1: or whether it's smart for them to get it because
Speaker 1: they have underlying conditions, not even though they have an
Speaker 1: online conditions, because they're not going to see a doctor,
Speaker 1: you know, and so like the idea and then that
Speaker 1: creates like a psychological barrier. So like just going to
Speaker 1: get the vaccine because you don't regularly go see doctors
Speaker 1: is part of the issue. And UM, I've argued this
Speaker 1: with access to the polls. I think the same applies
Speaker 1: to access to education and a good job. And yes, vaccination, UM,
Speaker 1: that acts the idea of access is really important to
Speaker 1: just access to anything. UM, it's really important to understand
Speaker 1: and impacts of vaccination willingness as well. Think about people
Speaker 1: living neighborhoo it's underserved by public transportation, or being a
Speaker 1: person that lacks reliable personal transportation like a car. UM.
Speaker 1: Think about you know that impacts what you know, whether
Speaker 1: you will fucking get off work it's at you know,
Speaker 1: five thirty and try to catch the bus to make
Speaker 1: it to the Kroger by six to get your vaccine, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's just like with voting. It's just
Speaker 1: like with voting. It's just like with you know why, oh,
Speaker 1: why didn't you go back to you know, community college
Speaker 1: and get your finished degree. You're like, oh, why don't
Speaker 1: you get a job to pay more? All like access
Speaker 1: like ties is tied many many issues in our community
Speaker 1: and to define in some of the following ways, think
Speaker 1: about also black people's overrepresentation and office support at food
Speaker 1: service and production work industries. Off the long hours and
Speaker 1: no pay time off, are we really expecting these people
Speaker 1: to lose a day's pay to go get the jab
Speaker 1: and be laid out in bed because it makes you
Speaker 1: sick afterwards, let alone use your time off to scoutur
Speaker 1: six websites can call the Department of Hell to try
Speaker 1: and maybe fail to get an a point in the
Speaker 1: first place. So access with regards to time like you know,
Speaker 1: whether or not you have the time to navigate these
Speaker 1: this uh you know these websites figuring out how to
Speaker 1: get the bus to place or where the places or
Speaker 1: calling the doctor's office, all these things. How to recover
Speaker 1: from the aftermath, right except to work sixty hours a
Speaker 1: week or whatever, which is disproportionately after America. And then
Speaker 1: digital literacy I think also plays into this and my
Speaker 1: work recently on a grassroots campaign for vaccine outreach. We
Speaker 1: struggled with coming up with materials simple enough to reach
Speaker 1: folks who may be dropped out of high school or
Speaker 1: who are elders who weren't familiar with the technical terms.
Speaker 1: And I want to run this by you and just see,
Speaker 1: like to show you, like what problem like we ran
Speaker 1: into to the addition to like navigating a website or whatever,
Speaker 1: even if we were just trying to explain to people
Speaker 1: who was eligible at the time. Thank for example, of
Speaker 1: the eligibility requirements for Phase one B of George's vaccine rollout,
Speaker 1: You'd be eligible if you are quote unquote an essential
Speaker 1: worker in critical non healthcare infrastructure sectors. That's what the
Speaker 1: Department of Health told us to tell people. Now, Mac,
Speaker 1: what then do you think that means? I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here trying to think about an essential worker
Speaker 1: in critical infrastructure sectors non healthcare related. So I mean
Speaker 1: I would consider the grocery store worker in a critical
Speaker 1: right would that count? Right? Good question? So, even in
Speaker 1: trying to like get people the information they need to
Speaker 1: make these informed decisions about their health, like the like
Speaker 1: get any favors by talking in like this these fucking jargon. Man,
Speaker 1: this is a very weird flyer. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: so this is the fly so magazineon this flyer that
Speaker 1: we made to distribute to people at food distribution like
Speaker 1: mask food distribution sites and like churches and like going
Speaker 1: into the door talking to people. This is about the
Speaker 1: Department of Public Health told us to tell people. It's like, yo,
Speaker 1: do you all not know like what people like just
Speaker 1: life in these streets like like this is just not
Speaker 1: not even for like black people, just for regular apport
Speaker 1: point blanks generally. Who the funk knows what this ship means.
Speaker 1: It's a bus driver critical infrastructure exactly, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: teacher is what is teaching? Is education infrastructure? Like I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like okay, So we see the issue. So
Speaker 1: there's there's interweaving aspects of access, transportation, literacy, wage labor
Speaker 1: that that flow into the vaccine debate. I think that
Speaker 1: it's the fact that of African Americans say that they
Speaker 1: can take the vaccine. It's not that people have watched
Speaker 1: too many like whackul do YouTube videos doing fake research.
Speaker 1: Is that folks are often too burdened to give a shit,
Speaker 1: and we gotta work on that. I feel you on that. Yeah, although,
Speaker 1: as we're about to get into in the music discussion section,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people that believe fucking crazy that
Speaker 1: are probably not helping the matter. We're gonna get into that.
Speaker 1: That was a damn good teaser for that. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get into that after the job. Okay. So in the
Speaker 1: music discussion today, we're going to be discussing and showcasing
Speaker 1: some instances where the topic of vaccinations have come up
Speaker 1: in hip hop. Um off the bat, we want to
Speaker 1: start with an example of something that's completely current having
Speaker 1: to deal with COVID. So there is a YouTube channel
Speaker 1: called Hip Hop Public Health and they have a series
Speaker 1: of rap videos called Community Immunity or Rap Anthology. It's
Speaker 1: about vaccines. It's like rap songs to promote COVID immunity,
Speaker 1: and um here we've the whole thing was featured on
Speaker 1: PBS The News Hour and for one of those, we're
Speaker 1: going to check out the track by d m C
Speaker 1: which is part one of the series. That's what are
Speaker 1: vaccines and why do they work? That's literally what the
Speaker 1: track is called. Trust Me, Believe Me. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: have another tusk oh Okay, Yeah, I mean it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, like full special vibes. Yeah, and it's like
Speaker 1: I don't even think necessarily it would be like the
Speaker 1: subject matter alone would make it corny. Like aesop Rock
Speaker 1: just dropped a song this week about a frog, a
Speaker 1: crime fighting frog, and it's super adorable and the flow
Speaker 1: is really dope. And that's the critical thing is that
Speaker 1: they don't just do good rappers to do this song.
Speaker 1: I love DMC, you know, but yeah, you know it's
Speaker 1: DMC spitten you know, some yes, some nineteen eighties wraps,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I guess it's just like not in
Speaker 1: today's like it's just but whenever you be like making
Speaker 1: like a rap song where it's like, hey, y'all should
Speaker 1: do this, it takes a very very particular execution to
Speaker 1: not have it sound hokey and after school special life,
Speaker 1: because that's that's that's mainly like the thing that repels
Speaker 1: me about this, it's just it has is it falls
Speaker 1: into the I don't I think it's called the white elephant,
Speaker 1: not fallacy, but like the like if someone tells you
Speaker 1: don't think of an elephant, what do you think of exactly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're at so when They're like, it's it has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with race. I'm like, oh, someone said it
Speaker 1: has something to do with race. M hmm. Like reinforces
Speaker 1: that idea in people's mind, even say oh, but this
Speaker 1: ain't no Tuskegee referencing the Tuskegee experiment Um where they
Speaker 1: studied the full progression of UH syphilis in primarily black
Speaker 1: sharecroppers down to Macon County, Alabama. So they didn't they
Speaker 1: didn't tell people. They didn't tell these dudes, and they
Speaker 1: were giving them cyphilists. They're they're only gonna hear snippets.
Speaker 1: So I mean pretty much, you know, it's D M
Speaker 1: see from N D M C. And he's just like
Speaker 1: he's just like spitting a bunch of pro vaccination like facts.
Speaker 1: I guess you know what I mean. I guess it was.
Speaker 1: It's it's like almost like pre empting, you know, the
Speaker 1: arguments that are against vaccination dispel myths, but in doing so,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take any time to talk about why you
Speaker 1: should get vaccinated, like arguments. Now you want to hit
Speaker 1: the skating rink, you know, you're trying to go to
Speaker 1: the family barbecue, like get the vaccine. It's just like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's like scolding you for believing its defense and it's defense.
Speaker 1: It is just like a minute in twelve second long,
Speaker 1: like schoolhouse Rock sort of. It's even got like an
Speaker 1: animated cartoon video to it. But again it seems like
Speaker 1: to me, I'll put it to you this way, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's for kids, like little kids, that's totally cool.
Speaker 1: But it's like, this isn't gonna get teenagers or young
Speaker 1: people to be like who who are otherwise like skeptical
Speaker 1: about vaccinations. It's not gonna get them to get on board.
Speaker 1: And to even further illustrate that part, if this exact
Speaker 1: song was made by meges, it still wouldn't get them
Speaker 1: to fuck it, you know. I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just hope. Like I said, it's hokey. It's for little kids,
Speaker 1: like no, no self respecting, I'm cool. Teenager is gonna
Speaker 1: look at this and be like yeah, But honestly, if
Speaker 1: they had they had they had a video of me
Speaker 1: gooes like in the club popping bottles, is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're in the club because we all got vaccinated. We
Speaker 1: don't get fucks. We can like throw down because we
Speaker 1: can't get sick. Now, kind of think that would work better,
Speaker 1: but it would have to be like Amigo song. It
Speaker 1: would have to be like Amigos like it couldn't been
Speaker 1: and it couldn't be them over a trap beat going hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all get vaccinated because you know what I mean? Like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: like no no no, all right, um, Which is funny
Speaker 1: that we just lamdbasted like the one attempts in our
Speaker 1: lists for someone to like educate people about Hey, I mean,
Speaker 1: I had that fear, but we gotta cepe it real
Speaker 1: ship wasn't hot, yo, you know, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was hot if you're in like preschool. Kevin Gates
Speaker 1: told Rolling Stones in two thousand sixteen that he doesn't
Speaker 1: vaccinated his children. Gates claimed that his son and daughter
Speaker 1: were growing up in an evanced fashion and accelerated school.
Speaker 1: The largely believe this was due to them not getting vaccinated.
Speaker 1: He stressed that his stands on vaccines didn't come from
Speaker 1: bearing needles, considering the amount of tattoos he has. Rather,
Speaker 1: he explained that his children were born at home instead
Speaker 1: of a hospital. A lot of children that was born
Speaker 1: in a hospital experience a lot of difficulty that they
Speaker 1: didn't have to experience. So again was casting doubt on
Speaker 1: traditional West traditional you know, Western medicine. Um. If you
Speaker 1: have in linking um citing causation, correlation is causation. So like, oh,
Speaker 1: my kids were born at homes, have a hospital, and
Speaker 1: then factor is looking at them growing up. It's like
Speaker 1: Kevin Gates, like, you don't think they're growing up accelerated
Speaker 1: and advance the ship because like y'all living good? Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's no other there's no other reason
Speaker 1: that your kids are doing good. None. It's just totally
Speaker 1: because they weren't born in the hospital. That's It's not
Speaker 1: because you're Kevin Gates and a millionaire. It's it's definitely
Speaker 1: the vaccines word. It's a roast to five nine on
Speaker 1: trick lets. The hospital they target our children, say they're
Speaker 1: gonna name May somehow get artism. So yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: it's I just don't know how else to describe that
Speaker 1: other than cringe up. Next, we got Royce again with
Speaker 1: the track on the same album Uhood Oh yeah no
Speaker 1: this this this was on his last album. UM. This
Speaker 1: is from his last album that came out early Allegory,
Speaker 1: and it's it's crazy because I remember listening to this
Speaker 1: back in January, you know what I'm saying, And it's
Speaker 1: just like a couple of months later, we'd be in
Speaker 1: the COVID ship. But he was getting he was getting
Speaker 1: heat on him. You know, well I mean by heat,
Speaker 1: I just mean motherfucker's was complaining on Twitter, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But but people, he was getting that
Speaker 1: kind of heat over that line before we were even
Speaker 1: in the COVID pandemic. But um, in the track fubou,
Speaker 1: let's let's check that out. Really not even a documentary.
Speaker 1: My son got autism from injection by syringes autism. Um,
Speaker 1: I just looked at up again, like you know, it's
Speaker 1: this correlation equating causation, like jumping the gun thing, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that no research suggests that there's any link
Speaker 1: between MMR vaccines that are given to children and austin
Speaker 1: subtractant disorders. But like the same way that like oh
Speaker 1: I saw my friends get the COVID vaccine and I
Speaker 1: saw they got sick and now I'm nervous, or oh
Speaker 1: I saw them score my child's arm and inject like
Speaker 1: a blister from a vaccinated person, Like give make sure
Speaker 1: they don't get smallpox, and I'm a little freaked out.
Speaker 1: Like you, you search, you search for answers to make
Speaker 1: me feel more comfortable, or to like, you know, explain
Speaker 1: away things that are unfortunate. I guess you could say
Speaker 1: no that I don't think having contentsm is unfortunate, but
Speaker 1: I clearly roys to five nine does. Let's get onto
Speaker 1: this last example from NASA off everything. A parent hates
Speaker 1: to watch his baby's face taking his first immunization shots.
Speaker 1: But this is great Chiles and direction of suffering pain
Speaker 1: understand without nothing, nothing has explained or rushed to the
Speaker 1: brain looking up at his parents face, Like I thought
Speaker 1: you would protect me from the scary place. Why do
Speaker 1: you let them inject me? Who's gonna know? How? He said,
Speaker 1: effects gonna affect me. I feel like this is like
Speaker 1: the most reasoned, Like it's both like narratively, it like
Speaker 1: paints a very realistic portrait of just like how hard
Speaker 1: it is to watch your kids get vaccinated and like
Speaker 1: what the kids thinking, and just like yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it is very least like photo realistic in a certain sense.
Speaker 1: I love this line. I I think that this is
Speaker 1: super dope because, like you said, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: legitimate nuance, like idea, you know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 1: not just one line or just like an assertion you
Speaker 1: you you know you might. I could even learn that Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe like nas personally does feel that vaccines lead to autism.
Speaker 1: Maybe he really believes something like that. But I feel
Speaker 1: that concern is reflected in this line, but without an
Speaker 1: assertion of like you said, cause a ship and ship.
Speaker 1: But I don't, Yeah, I don't. I don't find that.
Speaker 1: I don't find this problematic at all. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that's a realistic portrait of just like the struggle without
Speaker 1: espousing of viewpoint that then can be problematic and influence
Speaker 1: people to do a certain things that might actually negatively
Speaker 1: impact um, somebody other children. Yeah, and then is he
Speaker 1: kind of technically like rap it a little bit from
Speaker 1: the perspective of the child? Do it's? But yeah, that
Speaker 1: that that that sounds it sounds like that nick spitting
Speaker 1: right there. All right, So that's gonna do it for
Speaker 1: us to today. Um, everybody, have a good week. Be
Speaker 1: safe out there. I'm dope Knife. We're waiting on reparations.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week. Waiting on reparations. As a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations
Speaker 1: on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.