So I was talking to my therapist (who’s white btw) the other day and she said something I kinda agree with. She said she thinks the fact that Tuskegee Airmen happened along with how black people and healthcare don’t get along because of how we were treated the government might be taking advantage of that and hoping that this can also potentially disenfranchise us even more. I’m usually the type to think that everyone in the government is out to get us but this made a lot of sense. I personally am waiting for others too see how the vaccine affects others before I get it because 1. Tuskegee Alabama 2. This vaccine was developed too fast usually there’s some type of testing phase and there wasn’t any for this. The fact that you can’t sue or complain to the government or company(s) about side effects is another red flag. I don’t like how the news outlets are portraying the vaccine either. There was a elderly man that died who had the vaccine and people are trying to find correlations between them. The problem is this was an elderly person it could’ve affected them any sort of way natural, it could’ve been his medications didn’t mix with the vaccine any number of things could’ve went wrong. But people immediately tried to find the correlation. I under the hesitation with this because none of us want to go through another Tuskegee Experiments.
Now in a brief history lesson
Tuskegee is located in Alabama and happened at the university of the same name with both the CDC and HPS performing unethical tests on African American males. There was 600 unwilling and knowing participants, about 400 had syphilis injected into them to see side effects. They were promised health care testing etc. but were deceived by the HPS. These experiments went on for 40 years. They started in 1932 and ended in 1972 so this is still fairly recent in terms of modern history. So it’s a fresh wound in the black community also this isn’t the first time or last time we’ve dealt with persecutions in the health care department.
On to something
I’ve let this conversation linger for a few days and I think my therapist is on to something…. to an extent. I know because of how we were treated in the past and currently by medical professionals. However I think it might be a little bit to easy to just assume that. I don’t like the fact that has mentioned before is the fact that we can’t take legal action with the vaccine (at the time of this posting). I also don’t like how we immediately right it off either I personally think we need to have more tests that are run on the vaccine for long term effects. I’m also an advocate for people thinking critically before doing anything that can be life altering. I’m personally in the boat of waiting and seeing how each vaccine effects individuals and make my decision on that.
