One of my AB5 coalition friends tagged me in this tweet series by a woman going by Mary K. Anstruther, PhD (she/her).
On first blush, it appears to be a poorly crafted parody account, ala Titania McGrath, but less snarky nuance and more bumbling sledgehammer.
Here’s how her thread started:
I want to get the black community fully vaccinated.
It’s time for @KFC, @Popeyes and @ChurchsChicken to step up to the plate and offer pop-up vaccine clinics at their restaurants.
Assign a trusted employee to administer them.
We need to get this virus back under control.
Her first mistake: Making the assumption that the virus was ever under control in the first place. Instead of leaving it there, Dr. Anstruther poured more milk on her bowl of stupid:
Anyone who takes this suggestion as a racist is a racist. If hesitant people are given the opportunity to take the vaccine at institutions they trust, they are more likely to take the vaccine. If while ordering chicken, they are offered the shot, they may say “Why not?”
“institutions they trust”? These are friggin’ fast food restaurants that serve junk chicken! The only thing we trust is that we’ll get some quick carbs and more grease per pound. The fact that she even phrased it this way shows she probably doesn’t know any Black people, and probably never engaged one in conversation.
These restaurants are accessible to the communities and are trusted. They are strategically placed in places where pharmacies might not be. They are gathering spots, points of commerce and able to be reached easily by public transit. But call me racist for wanting to help! FU!
Uh. Oh. She went there. Seems Dr. Anstruther’s reading her Ibrahim X. Kendi like a good little anti-racist.
The reactions were, as expected, with cries of racism, insults, etc. Dr. Anstruther deleted the above tweets and started over again, pretty much doubling down on her recommendations.
Why, one might ask? Because the clicks and outrage must be addicting. However, whether parody or real (I seriously doubt this is a real person), Dr. Anstruther brings to light, what plenty of Black people already know: the government is not our friend, and whatever “help” they devise is guaranteed to kill us.
Prove me wrong.
Hell yeah. Diabetes and heart disease was bullshit, let’s crank it up in partnership with Pfizer. Well played.
— JayFrankAF (@JayFrankAF1) July 31, 2021
It also brings to light how these White Saviors really view and treat people they consider beneath them, and their predilection towards stupid ideas wrapped in the guise of “help”.
COVID-19 and its detrimental effects on those with comorbidities is no secret, especially those classified as overweight and morbidly obese. In unhealthy people (of any weight), COVID latches on to these chinks in the immune armor and tears down the immune system, rather like a T-cell cancer does. I walked through my sister’s battle with a T-cell lymphoma that ultimately took her life, and it’s not pretty. As the commenter above noted, Blacks are disproportionately affected by diabetes and heart disease, as well as high blood pressure. Couple that with obesity, and contracting COVID is almost a guaranteed sentence of either ICU or death.
While I want my skinfolk to be safe, I also recognize vaccination may be neither the answer or the cure-all. I also recognize that this push to get us vaccinated has nothing to do with preserving our health or anyone elses. As I surmised in one of my articles, why is the government not giving away Peleton bikes and a year’s supply of online classes for Blacks and people of color? It’s a one-two punch: not only do we get vaccinated, but we also work on getting healthier! Doesn’t the government consider that more help than encouraging consumerism or obesity?
JUST IN: Biden calls on states to use funds from his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to offer $100 vaccine incentives https://t.co/zUVvObsZ1j pic.twitter.com/OYHD7rZRUy
— The Hill (@thehill) July 29, 2021
Apparently not, since they keep encouraging these incentives that only involve cash or fast food. The CDC and the Biden administration are supposed to be the best and brightest minds; why is it that the only ideas they can come up with are piss-poor and epic fail?
Simple: government really has no desire to actually help. They just don’t like the fact that Blacks are ignoring their fear-mongering and making their own decisions about their health. You see, they don’t want healthy people with clear heads; they want weak people that they can control.
I won’t lie, it gives me more than a little satisfaction that we are not cooperating.
It is also satisfying to see the Biden administration and the media twisting in the wind trying not to appear racist! Instead, Biden just resorts to calling us stupid, as my colleague Nick Arama wrote, and our colleague Andrew Malcolm tweeted.
Neither is he–Frustrated Biden Moves on to Insulting Non-Vaxxers: "If you're not vaccinated, you're not nearly as smart as I thought you were." https://t.co/VGtTnCp059
— Andrew Malcolm (@AHMalcolm) July 28, 2021
Now, imagine what he says when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Why don’t you address the fact that blacks are the most unvaccinated demographic in America?!! https://t.co/T01LNNV8x0
— Tired of BS (@Tiredof28996716) July 26, 2021
I wonder how rhetoric on this site would change if people knew the unvaccinated are disproportionately Black and Latino
— Nick Riccardi (@NickRiccardi) July 27, 2021
You know the Biden administration and the brain trust on the Left have come up with similar, and probably worse ideas than Mary K. Anstruther (or whoever she/her is). She was simply bold enough to say the quiet part out loud.
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