[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/05/12/vaccine-strata/

Vaccine Strata

Discussion

[Rebecca McClinton]

(cross posted) As of this week in the city near me, grocery workers have been granted an extra $4/hour in hazard pay an hour. It was a hard won fight. I do not believe payment is given retroactively. It was approved nearly simultaneously to grocery store workers providing their employees the vaccination (thankfully, right at their work site). That seems to be how it often goes…not meeting the need when its most imperative but after the fact when folks have either already gotten sick, or lost wages/jobs. I can find myself in those white character traits of not meeting and addressing need immediately, directly, or reflexively, choosing instead to take time “garnishing support”, or “evaluating options”, prioritizing “thinking about it” or “wanting to word it correctly”. Those approaches put barriers up, don’t tear them down.

[Christina Sonas]

That has been happening in municipalities in my region, too. Almost every white person I know decries them as “unfair”, “a waste of time and money”, “unhelpful”, etc. “People will just shop elsewhere when prices go up.” No one questions why prices have to go up. No one thinks millionaires and billionaires and decabillionaires are the reason prices go up, went up. That’s just capitalism, and capitalism demands exploitation and predation, and white people everywhere think that’s normal and reasonable and sometimes even honorable. This is The Hunger Games, Mad Max, only the studios have trained us to believe those things are fantasy. They’re not. This is reality. Every day I need to get more seeds into the ground, literally, to put myself into a mode of production that isn’t exploitative and predatory. I need to conserve resources wherever I can, so that others get rightful access. It’s not enough to criticize the system. I have to oppose and circumvent and counteract the system.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I’m re-typing your words to help them saturate more. “capitalism demands exploitation and predation, and white people everywhere think that’s normal and reasonable and sometimes even honorable.” It’s true I have felt and thought all of those ways in my life. I also appreciate how you point out the countering action steps to that…conserving resources so that others get rightful access, and looking for ways to circumvent and counteract.

[Jessie Lee]

“It’s not enough to criticize the system. I have to oppose and circumvent and counteract the system.” This. If I’m not doing this, I’m just a well-read racist. I have to do this stuff under the direction of those on the less powerful side of the slash, and within community, so that I can recognize when I’m reverting back to those supremacist default settings and be accountable to others in my course correction.

[Shara Cody]

Thank you for the connection of businesses not acting reflexively to protect and compensate workers from and for risk (although they’re still not fairly compensated) to how I act too slowly to address harm.

[Julia Tayler]

I see myself evaluating and internally debating all sides of the situation. Meanwhile time is passing. I need to be more reflexive too.

[Emily Holzknecht]

*crossposted*

Lace describes two Black women mothers of young adult children. I am going to focus on the one who was working at a vaccine clinic. The woman working in a temp job as a monitor was giving her time to caring for others in getting vaccinated while her own son is experiencing the opposite of care during the pandemic. She is providing for others what others have refused to provide for her own son. So long Black women have been expected to care for others in ways they know their own children will not be cared for. I remember learning that those who work in infant care in centers (disproportionately Black and brown women) often have to go back to work before their own baby is old enough to be cared for in a childcare center.

Lace also writes about the janitorial stuff. My understanding is that cleaning jobs are some of the most hazardous jobs to be in due to chemicals and repetitive strain and other physical challenges of the work. And of course they are inside cleaning after everyone else has been breathing in that space, possibly with harsher chemicals or with more chemicals even though the research says surfaces are not a hazard with coronavirus, so it’s not even work that needs to be done. It’s just done to make people feel more comfortable and the health of the janitorial staff is being compromised to make people feel more comfortable. If it was actually about keeping people safe, actual essential workers (we’ve had other discussions about positions that have been questionably designated as essential while not having to be indoors around other people) would be vaccinated first. I am thinking that a lot of these people are invisible to us as people. They may no longer have sleeping quarters in our house that are hidden away and secret passages so that they can light the fires and serve the food without being seen (although this is basically grubhub type deliveries) as if the house magically runs itself, but they are still invisible to us as people.

So when it comes to Lace’s paragraph of questions, there are people who our society sees as people and people who our society doesn’t see as people. The Kaiser card is one more form of ID to confirm personhood like proof of citizenship or diploma.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I appreciate your reminder that just because someone’s not seen doesn’t mean there’s not a person there negatively impacted. It’s that the person and the negative impact are both being hidden.

[Jessie Lee]

Thank you for pulling out this piece out about Black women providing for others what isn’t provided for their own children. I’d missed that dynamic initially and it’s so true.

I teach in a school district that has been doing face-to-face learning without the proper mitigation in place for nearly the entire school year. With each new case, we received an email telling us that someone in our school community tested positive for covid, but those in close contact have been informed so they can quarantine and extra care is being taken to sanitize the areas where this person came into contact, etc. Every time I received that email, and it’s been MANY times, I’ve thought about our janitorial staff who I noticed never quarantined until they eventually got the virus. They were the ones who had to carry out the extensive sanitization procedures. I’ve complained to and with other teachers and my administrators about these conditions, but that’s… stopping WAY short of what’s required to move any stone. Talking about and to our janitorial staff and how they’re treated isn’t the same as insisting and demanding the powers that be to SEE them.

I wrote our superintendent and school board about inadequate PPE for the students and staff in my own classroom, but when I faced the potential of repercussions for that, not even the repercussions themselves, not really, I let the fear of losing my job stop me from becoming a squeaky wheel about the treatment of our janitorial staff. Instead I let others do that work and cheered them on from a distance. I yelled at the TV screen during televised school board meetings when the same janitor, a woman of color, had to sanitize the podium in between speakers, some who refused to wear masks. That’s… not standing in the gap. That’s some supremacist BS that I need to be relentless about confronting and rooting out. I hear Lace in my ear right now “Racism and white supremacy are economic constructs.” If I lost my job I’d survive. And I probably wouldn’t lose my job because it’s also essential and I’m white. I need to remember that next time I’m clenching about potential repercussions, take a deep breath, and flex in service to North Star instead of myself and other white people.

[Dee (Dalina) Weinfurtner]

The whole contract employee thing has always really bothered me. I worked at Sharp Healthcare in San Diego for almost 10 years and was well aware that the janitorial staff, as well as the cafe workers, were contract employees who actually worked under the employment of Sodexo. I also know that supply distribution technicians actually are a higher pay grade than Nursing Assistants. I know this because I took a pay cut having started working as a supply distribution technician and then going to work as a nursing assistant on my way to becoming a Nurse. I always wondered why this could be since we know how hard-working and front-line patient care CNAs are. Now that I have a greater understanding of the dynamics of white supremacy and that nurse aides tend to have a high percentage of Black and Brown people, I think it makes a lot more sense to me now. But back to the contract worker thing, I knew of stories of people who had been working at the hospital that I worked in since it was still a community hospital in the 1990s and during that time everyone just worked for the hospital, including the housekeepers. There were stories of people who put many many years into working for the hospital but had to start over because when the hospital was bought out the new company brought on the contract worker house keeping. I also felt like the contacted workers created a divide in the same place that people work. Those who worked for sodexo were still expected to adhere to the “culture” of sharp and wore sharp name badges but were not actually employed the same way as those who were actually sharp employees. This is especially uncomfortable knowing the demographics of those in food service and environmental services verses those who provided other tasks around the hospital including nurses. I never liked this and felt like Sharp was hypocritical in trying to promote the idea that it wanted to be the best hospital (in the universe *eye rilling*) for those who worked there and those it served. They absolutely should be employing everyone who works there. I do believe sharp does provide free flu vaccines for everyone who works in the building so I really hope they are following that same protocol for the covid-19 vaccines. I just really feel that this contract worker thing is something that feels really wrong to me knowing that contract workers are typically treated differently, get less benefits and have lower wages than others doing the same jobs or working in the same places even. I am trying to get involved in my community in helping to increase the vaccintion rates of Black and Brown people which is disproportionatly lower than the vaccination rates of white people. I need to do what I can to step up and help those workers we all know as a society are essential and work to break down the barriers to them getting vaccinations at the same rates as white people.

[Deleted User]

Dear Dee,

I can relate to a lot of what you shared here. I worked in health care also, and I have also witnessed the contracting out of the employee cafeterias, housecleaning/sanitation, building maintenance, grounds keeping, safety/security staff, in all sorts of medical facilities. It’s said to be done as a cost saving measure. It often has unintended consequences that are hard on everyone in the situation. This is the problem with making medical healthcare profit based. Cost cutting is about money, not people. If the guiding principal of any endeavor is profitability if the end in itself and the highest value, other things will be sacrificed – it turns out those things are not things: they are Black and Brown people, who are often the majority of people holding those jobs, in those contracted out departments. I admire your commitment to your own inner work and to helping your fellow Black and Brown human beings, to see that they get vaccinated and protected. I appreciated hearing your story and perspective.

[Christina Sonas]

Food deserts and vaccine deserts — fundamentally, humanity deserts, compassion deserts, hesed deserts. Food and vaccines and safe housing and so many other things, all signs and symptoms of the drought caused by capitalist white supremacy. Before Lace on Race, I engaged with the signs and the symptoms — but I never dug down into the heart of the matter. Mitigating the signs and symptoms is critical, but if I don’t attack the root cause, I’m allowing the signs and symptoms to persist, to continue to need mitigation. Mitigation alongside perpetuating the problems? That’s not North Star.

[Deleted User]

This was really well said, Christina. I agree with this post.

[Deleted User]

We could do this differently. We could uplift and protect those we call frontline, essential workers, first. This past year-plus has laid bare the pressures, burdens, and violence that women, especially poor women and women of color, face every day.

[Emily Holzknecht]

In Lace’s piece the two people discussed as being pressured to work while sick and not having access to the vaccine were both men. I am curious why your comment here focuses on women specifically.

[Clare Steward]

I am also curious on the pivot to women when the essay is addressing essential workers who are disproportionately Black and Brown people. Black and Brown people are charged with caring for others when we do not prioritize their care.

[Deleted User]

Emily, and Clare – there were two women, the mother’s the two sons who were working and not yet vaccinated. I was thinking of theses mother’s worrying about their children, and the fear and frustration they were sharing with one another over the fact that their kids were not safe. I think I got focused on what that would feel like to me, to be making sure other people got their shots, but feeling that I couldn’t get my own child protected. As a mom, I would be angry and frightened for my child. I’d harp on them to double mask, stay distanced and use hand sanitizer. I’d tell them not to put themselves in harm’s way if their employer would not protect them. Or, I would insist that they take call in sick or take time on a weekend to get themselves vaccinated as soon as possible. Everything else can be replaced, but my child’s life. If they get sick and die. Game over. If it was a choice between their job and starvation or homelessness I’d do whatever I could to share what I had to make sure my kid had food, clothing and shelter.

[Deleted User]

To be clear, I’m not saying these two mom’s did not do everything in their power to help their kids. I have no idea of what their son’s living situations are, or who is helping whom. I meant no disrespect to the two women speaking. I simply don’t have a clear picture of why their son’s couldn’t get vaccinated, other than their age tier – if they were in their 20’s which is what I recall – they were too young for the initial roll out of the vaccine, unless they were in a high risk group, i.e. diabetic, cancer patient, taking immune suppressant drugs for a number of autoimmune conditions.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Rebecca, you remind me of some old assumptions of mine (coming up from Marlise’s post I read earlier this evening and my commitment to avoid assumptions). I have previously assumed that ‘doing everything in your power to help your kids’ is the same for everyone. But it isn’t. I can make personal phone calls during my workday to find support for my child. Many mother’s can’t. I have a mother that runs a daycare so I had access to free daycare part of the year. Many mother’s don’t. I have been able to save for college and pay for basic expenses. Many mother’s can’t. I am guessing that thee mother’s are doing everything they can to support their sons. I am also guessing they don’t have access to the same resources I do.

[Julia Tayler]

I had the same assumptions about motherhood too. I realize how privileged I’ve been. Thank you for bringing this up.

[Jessie Lee]

“Those who need it most will be left out.“

Those who are left out are those who, not coincidentally, are not paid a living wage, and who are lauded as essential but treated as disposable. It’s like… they’re “essential” as a faceless, nameless resource, but disposable as actual humans who are not invincible. Their labor is the essential thing, not their humanity. Their humanity is an inconvenience.

How do I consume the labor of Black and brown people while not seeing them eye to eye? I think one way is reading and listening to the work of authors and activists without taking time to use my fictive imagination to think about how they’re impacted by the dynamics they write about. And when it’s someone I know personally, like Lace, not taking the time to ask how she’s impacted, really listen to and hear the answer, and uncenter myself when it isn’t what I want to hear.

[Clare Steward]

Essential for the work Black and Brown people do for us but disposable when it comes to their humanity… powerful and gut wrenching and true.

[Shara Cody]

“Their labor is the essential thing, not their humanity.”- this cuts to why we’re willing to sacrifice certain people as Lace said. Capitalism keeps us focused on what people can do or produce and not on people and racism compounds on that.

[Shara Cody]

Businesses saying they protect their workers and not to come to work if sick sounds like businesses and organizations with publicly stated values that include diversity and inclusion statements that aren’t lived out. Just as one of the sons was told he’d lose his job if he stayed home, Black and brown people who speak up about racism in their workplace are very often threatened, gas lit, quieted, and/or let go. Before coming to LoR, I would have assumed there were meaningful preventative measures and actions behind these types of statements instead of looking below the surface and specifically looking for actions.

The way those on the front lines who are disproportionality Black and brown people have been intentionally not prioritized for vaccines is an overt demonstration of racism. It not only risks the front line workers but also their families who they have close contact with and care for, ultimately increasing the risk for more Black and brown people and amplifying racism through health disparities and loss of income.

[Julia Tayler]

Yes businesses make it very hard or impossible to speak up. They have so many loopholes that they can use to get rid of workers.

[Julia Tayler]

The inequalities in health care just keep getting worse. We told these employees that they had to work throughout the shutdown and then didn’t take care of them. Like others said the work was essential but they weren’t

In our community they had a pretty central location for the vaccine but they wanted you to sign up online. This is problematic for people without resources to be online. They ended up having a phone line but it wasn’t for the first in line. The county also had some vaccine clinics at church’s and that seemed to be effective. Working on health equity has to be a priority. Walking

[Author]

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