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The Soft Racism of the Vaccine Blame-Game

11/8/2021

 
Volume 20, Issue 3

Publius

​
As the Morrison Government has scrambled to fix its humiliating lethargy in securing a steady supply of vaccines, jab availability is rising steadily across every state. Since Delta variant outbreaks have shut down the East Coast, all adults have been granted access to the domestically manufactured AstraZeneca ‘Covishield’ vaccine. 

Therefore, the focus of many prominent voices in the media has moved from pressuring the government to make vaccines available, to pressuring the public to take them. Concurrently, the latent frustration of the Victorian community, from months of recurrent lockdowns, is no longer primarily vented at the government, but at the vaccine-hesitant within our communities. 

This developing impulse to blame outbreaks and restrictions on those reluctant to take the vaccine is problematic for a number of reasons. For one thing, we know that vaccine-hesitant people in Victoria are more likely to live in communities of colour. For another, we know that minority communities are likely to disproportionately bear the negative health consequences of the pandemic, as compared to White Australia. 

Qualitative Victorian data is hard to come by, but we know from comparable work undertaken in the US and UK that people of colour and immigrant communities report less trust in institutions, and public health messaging around vaccines may have less of an impact for that reason.
So far, rather than asking ourselves as a society what negative experiences may have led to mistrust in public health messaging, a depressing number of Melbournians have seen fit to cast the vaccine-hesitant as selfish villains. For many in this so-called progressive city, a commitment to racial justice is skin-deep, ready to be dropped as soon as it presents a perceived inconvenience, for example in the form of lockdowns. 

Even where people acknowledge an equity issue in the public health discourse around vaccines, their responses frequently fall into two familiar camps: paternalism and blame. Immigrant and/or First Nations communities, so the conventional wisdom goes, are just too ignorant or misinformed to know what’s good for them. They need to be taken firmly by the hand and educated by us upstanding citizens. Alternatively, they have some cultural deficiency which makes them inherently paranoid or selfish. Who hasn’t seen the hand-over-mouth comments on social media posts deriding certain communities in the Western suburbs?

Frankly, it’s a disgrace.

Perhaps Victorians would be better served to show some humility, and listen to the people in question, rather than arrogantly brushing their concerns aside. From the perspective of white, affluent populations, for whom the public health infrastructure has traditionally worked, it can be hard to get our heads around the fact that some communities in our state could have legitimate reasons to distrust the Government of Victoria. 

For all our collective hand-wringing about the societal legacies of the White Australia Policy and the Stolen Generation, amongst other injustices, we remain shockingly blind to the obvious manifestations of systemic racial inequality in modern Australia. 

On the road to a more inclusive society, we’ve got a long way to go. 

Publius is a final-year JD student.
The views in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of De Minimis or its Editors.
VVS Laxman
11/8/2021 08:44:24 pm

Really like this article - vaccine hesitancy is also remarkably high in African American populations. Agree that derision probably isn't the solution.

Generally interested to hear people's thoughts on how best to reduce this vaccine hesitancy in these demographics. Derision and paternalism obviously isn't the solution, but everyone needs to be vaccinated. I think there's currently quite a really fine line between racist paternalism and ensuring that all members of our communities are protected (and protecting others).

Fed up.
11/8/2021 09:27:46 pm

One only needs to look at the videos of the Flinders Street and Sydney protests, along with the recent Gympie rally to see that the offenders are not "vaccine hesitant" POC or first nations peoples, but overwhelmingly middle income to well off, educated yet entitled, self centred "rights-exercising" yt folk who exercise no restraint in spouting their anti-vaxx, government conspiracy nonsense on any virtual soap box they can locate.

But if we take a step back from pointing fingers at each other, we can all together point at the media and government circus that has spun the vaccine shortage into a "Pfizer vs AZ vz Moderna" capitalist brand war. That is the true travesty here.

Scipio
12/8/2021 08:12:48 am

This is a great article, Publius. The comments here are good too. Blame, pride, and smug paternalism have no place in the mids of a pandemic, they are hostis humani generis - enemy of mankind.

With that said, it's worth asking if diverse communities here are lacking in trust as much as you suggest. In my (admittedly limited) experience with young people who are part of this demographic, the general sentiment is a far cry from what you suggest.

From what I've seen, there's a good degree of trust in our healthcare system. I know, this is only anecdotal. But if you google 'new research shows refugees do trust institutions,' there's a solid opinion piece on The Conversation that makes the same point, with some data from the Foundation for Belonging.

Regardless, every person at MLS could do to read this submission. As to reducing vaccine hesitancy in its myriad forms? A good start would be to just treat people like people, rather than things to be educated.


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