Black New Yorkers protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates, compare them to slavery
By isabelle // 2021-10-07
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After all the vitriol directed at anyone who said or did anything that could even be remotely construed as racist against black people in the wake of the George Floyd incident, it’s alarming that there isn’t greater furor over the way COVID-19 vaccine mandates overwhelmingly place them at a disadvantage. New York City’s vaccine passports are being viewed by many black people as racist, and they're gathering together to make their voices heard. Last weekend, former GOP congressional candidate and niece of civil rights figure Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Stanton King, spoke at a Brooklyn event that she helped organize denouncing the mandates. Roughly 100 people attended, most of whom were black, to express their outrage. King drew attention to vaccines being used as population control in comments to The Epoch Times: “Medical apartheid is population control. Population control comes in different forms: vaccines, abortions, mass incarceration, and perverted sexual agendas targeting children. Population control is racist, from the womb to the tomb,” she said. King was a vocal supporter of President Trump, but it’s not just those with conservative political leanings who are outraged. The far more liberal Black Lives Matter group has also called attention to the problematic mandates. One leader of the Greater New York chapter of Black Lives Matter, Chivona Newsome, took Mayor Bill de Blasio to task over the mandate, saying: “The vaccination passports are modern-day Freedom Papers, which limit the free will of Black people.” The mandate went into effect the week of September 13. It ordered that all indoor establishments require each person to present proof of vaccination before entering. Moreover, employees of certain establishments must also show vaccination proof to keep their jobs. This is keeping many black people from dining in city restaurants and also jeopardizing their jobs and livelihoods. Black citizens make up 18 percent of New York’s population, yet they account for just 14 percent of vaccinated people there. This contrasts sharply with figures for white people, who make up 69.9 percent of the state’s population and 69 percent of its vaccinated people, as well as those for Asian New Yorkers at 9 percent and 15 percent respectively.

Vaccine mistrust among black Americans fueled by history

It’s not at all surprising that so many black people are hesitant to get vaccinated. America has a long history of targeting blacks with medical experiments. And although the Tuskegee syphilis study may be decades behind us now, black Americans still do not receive the same level of medical care that white Americans do overall, with disparities noted in everything from the treatment of chronic pain to maternal death rates. There is a deep distrust of the American healthcare system as well as the government agencies encouraging people to get the jab. Of course, the same mainstream media, liberal politicians and people on social media who are so quick to attack every police officer based on the actions of just one of them in the name of supporting black people are not saying or doing anything to acknowledge this very real problem that also affects black Americans. They'll complain that a traffic stop for a black person who ran a stop sign is racist but don’t see anything wrong with creating a two-class system that largely gives privileges to white people that blacks won’t have. In fact, they go out of their way to shame those who are too scared to get vaccinated. The same people who claim we’re not learning from history and want to knock down statues are completely ignoring our nation's history of medical experimentation on blacks and the fact that previous vaccines have statistically been more harmful to black people than those of other races. Sources for this article include: WesternJournal.com FoxNews.com
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