We certainly haven’t been perfect as a country, but now is our time and our opportunity to stand up and not repeat the lessons learned from failures in the past. We’ve heard a lot about being anti-racist and our history of institutional racism. We make poor decisions when we are fearful, from putting Japanese Americans in internment camps in World War II President Biden mandating the vaccine in order to participate in economic activity. Vaccine mandates affects us all but it will force African-Americans out of economic activity because they are highly vaccine-hesitant due to past atrocities.
As history has taught us, an injustice to one will be a door to injustice to all. There are three reasons why the vaccine mandate for employers over 100 and for federal worker and contractors is a perfect example of our hidden biases and institutional racism. First, I’ll show the mandate does discriminate. Secondly, that fear is a poor state of mind to make decisions. Finally, the history of American fear and its devastating results. That is why we must all fight back against these unconstitutional and systemically racist mandates.
The Declaration of Helsinki and the Nuremburg Code clearly articulates it is immoral to force someone to take something into their body against their will and knowledge and that those who perpetrate these atrocities can be held liable. The Tuskegee Experiment was a prime example of the misuse of “science” in exchange for the well-being of the people.
African-Americans were given syphilis for government scientists to see how it spread in a society. Although this was made illegal to do in the middle of the experiment, it continued for another 20 years until nearly all original participants had died. I spoke to a local nurse who said many African-Americans she has spoken with cite this atrocity as a major factor in their hesitancy to take the COVID vaccine.
On September 14th 2021, Mary Kathryn Rudyk, a physician at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in North Carolina, was caught on a leaked zoom meeting saying, “My feeling at this point in time is that maybe we need to be completely a little bit more scary for the public.”
To be clear the hospital held a brainstorming session on how-to drive-up fear. Fear is a terrible state of mind to make decisions, especially big decisions. Yet every day for the last 2 years we have been fed fear from the media and unelected government bureaucrats. This has led to an unprecedented rise in inequality as well as the latest mandates which disproportionally affect the job prospects of minorities. We are now being forced to take a vaccine to have the ability to support our families, this is medical coercion. This is a fear-based, not fact-based, mandate.
The vaccine mandate is not as intimidating as some of the things in the country’s past we all would like to forget. For example, the Tulsa race riots, where the “Black Wall-Street” was burned down. This was a violent example of forcing minority groups out of economic activity. The vaccine mandate is not as visually violent, but still those who decline to get vaccinated, even if they have the antibodies, are forced out of their job, out of economic activity and the ability to provide for their family.
Another example is when Democrat President Roosevelt through executive order forced Japanese-Americans into isolated camps from 1942 to 1945. Racism is one of the most violent outcomes that is derived from fear. Democrat leaders in America have a terrible history of fear-based mandates derived from group-think. The vaccine mandates are another fear-based mandate.
On Monday May 17th, 2021 President Biden in his address said, “Ultimately, those who are not vaccinated will end up paying the price.” The price of not being vaccinated is going to fall disproportionately on the African-American community and other minority communities who are rightfully vaccine-hesitant or already have the antibodies. This is the textbook definition of government mandates that are based in hidden biases and promote institutional racism. This cannot stand, we must raise out voice now and stand up for every American to make their own medical choices informed by conversations with their own doctor.
Robert Bortins is CEO of Classical Conversations in Southern Pines
