Is there really such a thing as "choice?" Notice all the noise surrounding NBA Star, Kyrie Irving, standing for his "choice" to NOT be vaccinated. The amount of social and institutional pressure is huge. If one does not acquiesce, there are punitive consequences. Slavery was the exact same way.
This week, Dr. Venus does a deep dive into the illusion of choice, showing how those who have been historically marginalized have also been victims to "choose" a certain thing or action, or suffer the consequences. She gives examples of heartbreaking medical racism from Racial Eugenics (which Hitler modeled), the Tuskegee Experiment which sickened and killed HUNDREDS of Black Men, to Henrietta Lacks who had cells stolen for research.
Dr. Venus gives historical context as to why some Black people have a mistrust of vaccines, due to an industry that has a history of turning Black bodies into lab rats. However you feel about it, your feelings are valid. It's a hot topic, but let's talk about it.
Key Takeaways:
[1:13] What is choice when there are punitive consequences if you don't comply? Dr. Venus explains how medical racism goes deep, and when we combine eugenics, even deeper.
[4:22] When an NBA player recently refused a vaccine, he lost money, playing time, and he was shamed by society. Is this really a choice? He lost more than half his income due to a policy, and Dr. Venus discusses how these policies are typically created by White people in power to affect those that tend to be marginalized even more.
[7:03] This perceived choice runs parallel to both slavery and reproductive rights. First, Black Men and Women had the "choice" to evade death by acquiescing, giving up their bodies and doing what White Men said in order to stay alive. Women had the "right" to choose to have a baby, but sometimes at the cost of laws being created against that, and forced sterilization. The way the world articulates it, it makes it sound that if you choose something other than what is being presented, you are going against what is good for the people. You can choose, but you just may lose your friends, job, money, etc.
[9:59] It is a historical wound and a FACT that the medical industry has taken our bodies and used them for science. Dr. Venus gives the emotional example of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, with HUNDREDS of African-American men unknowingly serving as human guinea pigs. They let them die and be sick for research. We don't want to live at the effect of it or be made to feel like we are doing something wrong when we have mistrust and doubt about medicine.
[16:32] Throughout history, rich White Men have tried to create the strongest race of people by sterilizing those that they deemed anything less than the best. Based on Darwinism, they sterilized over 8,000 people in the name of progress. If you were handicapped, poor, slow, of color, etc, you would have been killed.
[22:04] The violation of medical ethics with Tuskegee had a direct impact on medical ethics, but how do we still trust the system today? Dr. Venus gives another example with Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cervical cancer cells were taken without consent in 1951, cloned and widely used for medical research.
[25:00] Whatever your choice is around the vaccine, you have every right to that. However, please know that our historical wounds are valid, and you are asking Black Men and Women to lay down logic and trust an institution that has built policies against us.
[30:20] Dr. Venus knows that at some point, she may have to take the vaccine. She can't do a group Pilates class because she hasn't gotten it. That's just one example. They can take away people's rights to fly, go to a restaurant, enter a bank, etc. There's no choice. It's a delayed punitive consequence, and it's just the illusion of choice.
[32:32] Black people have been lab rats for medicine in America. Even if we can't articulate it, we can feel it. As a Black person whose people have been experimented on, that is a valid truth. Do not feel pressured into a decision that you don't feel good about.
[35:19] Dr. Venus does take health and COVID very seriously, and even lost her brother to it, and couldn't be there with him because of the virus, or mourn him properly, in person, with her family. What she contends with is that if you have a right to choose to wear a mask or not, why can't women choose to keep or terminate a pregnancy? If it's my body my choice for reproductive rights, what's the difference when it comes to vaccination?
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