Recent events have motivated me to remember how foolish people can be because they don’t know how to research topics in the age of ‘Disinformation’. It was on the Facebook page of my elementary school in March of 2021, as the COVID-19 virus was moving like a wildfire throughout the world, when I saw the first anti-vax post related to the COVID vaccine. I attended an all-black elementary school. Imagine my shock when a post showed up on that page that seriously maligned the vaccine. I discovered the article supporting the post was from a racist White website. The person posting it, claiming to have attended my elementary school, several decades after I did, clearly did not investigate the source of the anti-vax disinformation.
After avoiding contracting COVID-19 for three years, I recently contracted it from my wife who was exposed to someone who had no symptoms and probably never knew they had the virus. She had simply attended a family gathering, to plan funeral services for her mother’s last surviving sibling. My wife had the vaccine and all the boosters, did not wear a mask around family members.
Within two days of that gathering she tested positive for the virus. Unfortunately, I slept in the same bed for two nights before she took the at home test that produced positive results. Of course, I immediately began testing, wearing a mask and slept in a separate room. For two days the results were negative but on the third day, my results came up positive.
Even though the World Health Organization, ‘WHO’ and the CDC have declared the COVID Health Emergency is over, more than 1000 people in the US died from COVID related issues in 2023.
Many people have gone back to relaxed practices regarding masking and social distances. However, people over 60, or of any age who have compromised immunity, should not be so eager to let down their guard. I recently heard from a friend, who has an adult daughter who had a kidney transplant, and her body rejected the transplanted kidney due to Lupus.
The daughter is being evaluated for a second transplant. My friend received a call from a friend of the daughter that had a very close relationship with the daughter. She wanted to come visit. My friend did not give it a second thought. She imagined the visit would be a morale booster for her daughter. It turns out the visitor brought COVID with her. Both my friend and her daughter contracted the virus.
Upon further discussion, they discovered that the visitor was a COVID vaccine ‘Anti-Vaxxer’. She felt the vaccine was developed too quickly to be trusted. I asked, given your daughter’s compromised state of health, didn’t it occur to you to ask the visitor’s vaccination status? The answer was, “I could not imagine that this person would ever put our health at risk, so it did not occur to me to consider asking.”
I attached an article below that explains the rDNA technology that was used to develop the COVID vaccine, was developed almost 50 years ago. Even though the Trump Administration called the vaccine development, ‘Project Warp Speed’ the knowledge to develop it has been around almost twice as long as mifepristone/RU-486, the abortion pill that has been recently in the news. The rDNA technology has been around longer than Viagra, Ozempic, and a host of other drugs people rely on every day.
But the reality is really stark. COVID will be with us for a long time. With more than 1,000 people dying from this virus or underlying issues impacted by the virus, you need to exercise more care before you expose yourself to others. Don’t assume everyone you think you know is thoughtful and considerate enough to tell you up front about their immunization beliefs.
I attached an article where even a CDC conference had an outbreak of the virus among their attendees. You cannot be too careful, when around people you do not see daily and if you don’t know their views on vaccinations.
https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/herbert-w-boyer-and-stanley-n-cohen
Since so much disinformation comes from right-wing sources, Qanon, Christian Nationalists, sources, we have to be much more discerning. The biggest problem being we have many minorities, people of color who embrace racists views as part of their religious beliefs. Just as a number of assailants on recent mass shootings in Texas have been Hispanic, we must remember that the original Europeans to the western hemisphere who espoused racists views, genocide, and the dehumanization of anyone not European were Spanish. They were later followed by the Portuguese, British, and French.
The Leader of the Proud Boys is a Black Cuban, a number of Trump Officials and supporters are descendants of people from India. There are many people from Mexico who live in Texas border cities who voted for Trump and have no issues with Trump’s immigration policies. Most of the voting population in those border towns vote Republican.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/04/us/census-browning-of-america-myth-blake/index.html
….”Don’t ever underestimate White supremacy’s ability to adapt.
The assumption that more racial diversity equals more racial equality is a dangerous myth. Racial diversity can function as a cloaking device, concealing the most powerful forms of White supremacy while giving the appearance of racial progress.
Racism will likely be just as entrenched in a browner America as it is now. It will still be White supremacy, with a tan.
“America will soon belong to the men and women – white and black and Latino and Asian, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist, gay and straight – who can walk into a room and accept with real comfort the sensation that they are in a world of certain difference, that there are no real majorities, only pluralities and coalitions.”
The US has broadened its definition of White people throughout history enough to maintain power over Black, Asian and Latino people, writes political scientist Justin Gest in a recent essay, “What the ‘Majority Minority’ Shift Really Means for America.”
“Through a historical lens, being white in America today is like belonging to a once-exclusive social club that had to loosen its membership criteria to stay afloat,” Gest writes.
Why do so many racial groups gravitate toward Whiteness? The answer is both pragmatic and psychological.
It’s due to a racial hierarchy that places Whiter-looking people at the top and darker-skinned people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
“Sometimes looking White puts money directly into your pockets,” says Tanya K. Hernandez, author of the forthcoming book “Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and The Struggle for Equality.”
“You get access to jobs, opportunities and being viewed as competent. But there’s also a psychological benefit, that feeling of having enhanced status, of being part of Whiteness.”
A Reasonable Point of View 