THE SAN BERNARDINO
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AMERICAN
“A Man In Debt is So Far A Slave” -Emerson
NEWSPAPER A Community Newspaper Serving San Bernardino, Riverside & Los Angeles Counties Volume 51 No. 34
Mailing: P.O. Box 837, Victorville, CA 92393
December 10, 2020 - December 16, 2020 Office: (909) 889-7677
Email: Mary @Sb-American.com
Website: www.SB-American.com
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance those of whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
Will the Black Community Get Shut out From COVID Vaccination?
Demand that Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans Stop Blocking COVID-19 Relief By Ben Jealous
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
NNPA NEWSWIRE — While the CDC said there should be enough doses for as many as 20 million people to receive vaccination by the end of December, health officials expect a much larger supply in the coming months. Still, with a justified distrust of unproven vaccines, and a perceived limited participation by African Americans in clinical the trials that lead to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, many question whether African Americans will accept vaccination. Ben Jealous
The first wave of coronavirus vaccines should reach the public this week, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending that all adults receive the vaccination in 2021. While the CDC said there should be enough doses for as many as 20 million people to receive vaccination by the end of December, health officials expect a much larger supply in the coming months. Still, with a justified distrust of unproven vaccines, and a perceived limited participation by African Americans in clinical the trials that lead to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, many question whether African Americans will accept vaccination. Others are also concerned that, even if the Black community generally accepts the vaccine, would doses be available. “I’m guessing white folks will be first in line,” Mo n ic a Ro d e r ick , a Temple Hills, Maryland mother of four, opined. “One of the reasons I shudder when I hear people talk about how Black people
are still suspect because of the Tuskegee Experiment and other vaccines that ended wrong is because it tends to give other folks the greenlight to leave us out,” Roderick said. She continued: “This virus is the worst thing the world has seen in 100 years. It’s too important not to consider the vaccine, especially since most people affected by the coronavirus are Black and Brown.” Putting whether the Black community can trust the vaccine aside, the next controversy on the immediate horizon is whether African Americans will have access. The initial supply certainly will overwhelm demand, CDC officials said. The federal government plans to distribute the vaccine in phases. Health care workers and patients in long-term health care facilities are first in line. According to guidelines, senior citizens and those with high-risk comorbidities and essential workers are next. After that, state and local government officials will determine who next
receives a vaccination. So far, most states have yet to develop a concrete plan. The outline reportedly provided suggested no explicit details about reaching marginalized populations like the Black community who have suffered the most. “I’m looking at social media, and I’m seeing [Former President] Barack Obama saying he’ll take the vaccine on television, and I’m shaking my head,” said Tonia Everhart, a Northeast, Washington, D.C., nurse. “First, understand that Obama isn’t necessarily the most trusted voice in the Black community, and he’s not a doctor. “While I understand what he’s trying to do to encourage participation and eliminate fear, our community needs Black medical professionals, trusted voices, to say it’s okay to take the vaccine and then we need to be assured that we are not going to be left behind when the vaccine becomes available,” Everhart demanded. Health officials agreed. “You need that deep
community engagement to strategize and inform what needs to be done, community by community,” Eric Toner, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who was the lead author for Johns Hopkins’ Covid-19 vaccine allocation framework, told NBC News. That means engagement of local leaders, from pastors to principals, to reach hesitant individuals, he said, adding that such strategies are particularly key to reaching historically marginalized and disenfranchised communities. “That is a public health priority not only for ethical and moral reasons but because that’s where a lot of the transmission of the disease is happening,” Toner added. “It’s absolutely t r ue that we can’t reach them solely th rough public messaging,” Toner continued. “States need to be working now to create the relationships in those communities with trusted leaders to encourage people to seriously think about getting vaccinated.”
It is going to be a hard Christmas for many Americans. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 is soaring. The virus is spreading faster than ever. Families and small business owners whose incomes have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic are being hurt by the U.S. Senate’s refusal to provide any relief since April. This suffering is not shared equally. Black and brown people have been hit harder than other Americans by the pandemic in many ways. We get sicker and die more often. We have been hit harder by the economic fallout, too. And Senate Republicans’ refusal to give Americans what is needed to protect our families and get the economy going again just extends the inequitable burden that we are bearing. There is no mystery about the source of the problem. It is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has refused to even consider a meaningful COVID relief bill, including the HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives more than six months ago. Even the Trump administration was willing to negotiate with Democrats, but McConnell has acted in bad faith. McConnell held relief hostage because he has insisted that any legislation must exempt companies from legal accountability for outbreaks or deaths within workplaces. Before the election, he told Trump not to make a deal with Democrats. And since then, he has cut his already weak counteroffer in half. Does the wealthy McConnell not understand how many Americans are going hungry? Twenty-two percent of Black households reported going hungry in one recent week, which the Washington Post noted was more than double the rate for white Americans. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and State Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a letter to McConnell before Thanksgiving, economists agree that the country
needs a much bigger aid package than he has been willing to consider to keep people and the economy from sinking further. If the Senate doesn’t act now, more Americans will be hurt. Unemployment benefits run out the day after Christmas. A freeze on student loan payments, protections against evictions, and expanded paid family medical leave will all run out at the end of the month. The threat to families is devastating. Almost one-third of Black renters have fallen behind on their rent. Meanwhile, in spite of the moratorium on evictions during the pandemic, the real estate management company owned in part by Trump’s sonin-law and White House aide Jared Kushner is suing to evict hundreds of tenants who have fallen behind on their rent. The need for action is urgent. But McConnell has used the Senate’s time this fall to push right-wing Trump judges into lifetime positions on the federal courts. He adjourned the Senate for Thanksgiving without bringing up relief legislation. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have put the new administration’s coronavirus task force in place. Biden has called on Congress to pass legislation like the HEROES Act the House passed back in May. It is long past time for Senate Republicans to deal with their Democratic colleagues in good faith, and to give American families the relief they need and deserve. Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.