The Black Conversation - 25-01-2021

The Black Conversation - 25-01-2021 

Why are Black People unlikely to have the Jab?

The last couple of weeks I have been flooded on WhatsApp by various Coronavirus misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories. The same information has been spreading virally on most social media platforms,  Some videos are unsettling because some of the people creating this content are professional health workers like doctors and nurses. The very people that should know better.

I know it is only natural that we look at various sources for information to determine how best to protect ourselves and our loved ones in these challenging times, but the accuracy and authenticity of that information have never been so important, given where we are in this pandemic. 

This week the UK, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) released a report that raised fresh concerns over Covid vaccine uptake among black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities (BAME) as research showed up to 72% of black people said they were unlikely to have the jab. According to the report, the reasons for lower levels of trust in the vaccination in these groups were mainly, structural and institutional racism, and historical issues of unethical healthcare research. 

In the general population, the study found high levels of willingness to be vaccinated, with 82% of people saying they were likely or likely to have the jab – rising to 96% among people over the age of 75.

Women, younger people, and those with lower levels of education were less willing, but hesitancy was particularly high among people from black groups, where 72% said they were unlikely or unlikely to be vaccinated. Among Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups, this figure was 42%. Eastern European groups were also less willing.

In my opinion, the reasons given in the report, i.e (structural, institutional racism, and historical issues of unethical healthcare research) don't cover the main concerns of the black community. For example:

• The Government is now campaigning for the Black community to take up the vaccine, the pertinent question for me is why has the health of Black people and other (BAME) groups become so important now, at the vaccine stage. Black people's health didn’t seem a priority during the pandemic’s first wave when race disparities in COVID emerged and Black people had a higher contraction rate and higher death rates of from COVID-19. 

• Questioning the scientific process - the speed at which the vaccine has been developed has had the unintended consequence of decreasing vaccine acceptance in the Black community. I have noticed comments posted on some WhatsApp and Facebook groups questioning why wasn’t such speed applied to finding a vaccine or cure for HIV? As of 2020, AIDS-related illness has killed an estimated 42 million people globally. It continues to disproportionately affect Black people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The question people are posing in these groups is that the HIV epidemic was never and is not being treated like a crisis because its high in less developed countries. 

• Clinical trial evidence - There was insufficient people from a diverse background in the clinical trials, ethnic minorities we seriously underrepresented in the vaccine clinical trials that took place across the UK. People from minority ethnic goups made up about 7% of those who took part in initial vaccine trails and less than 1% were black, but they account for roughly about 6% of COVID-19 deaths. Given that blacks account for about 3.5% of the total population in the UK, the share of deaths in Black individuals is 66% higher than their proportion of the total population. And for researchers to better understand the effectiveness of each vaccine they needed a diverse range of volunteers to cater for differences in immunologic responses.

In my opinion, the Government has some way to go to convince those in the black community to get  vaccinated. It is imperative that they use black voluntary organisations to reach and address concerns of black communities and ensure the disproportionate impact of Covid is not exacerbated. Churches and role models from the black community are also key in helping debunk myths, false claims and conspiracy theories on social media. According to the World Health Organisation, the world is fighting an "infodemic" as well as a pandemic, with an overload of information, some of it false, making it difficult for people to make decisions about their health. People in the black community also need to conduct their own research and educate themselves before making decisions on the vaccine.

Nitty Gritty Affair

The BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg used the term "nitty-gritty "while speaking on an episode of the Brexit podcast about the departure of top Downing Street press chief Lee Cain in November 2020. When she remarked: “Before we get into the nitty-gritty for saddo nerds like us who are fascinated by this soap opera.” The remark sparked a complaint from a listener, which was initially dismissed by the BBC and then escalated to the corporation's executive complaints unit, which has now also dismissed the complaint.  

The term “nitty-gritty” was reportedly banned by Sky Sports last year over the concerns about its origins, which are disputed by some linguistics experts. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, nitty-gritty means: “The fundamentals, realities or basic facts of a situation or subject. The heart of the matter.”Anti-racism campaigners suggest the expression refers to the debris, like lice and grit, left in the bottom of Transatlantic slave ships were once enslaved Africans had been removed from the hold after a long voyage. 

Language researcher Gary Martin, of the phrases.org.uk website, investigated the expression and said: “There is no evidence to support the suggestion that ‘nitty-gritty’ has any connection with slave ships.  “It may have originated in the USA as an African-American expression, but that's as near as it gets to slavery.”. This is another example of political correctness gone mad.  Another example of a seemingly innocent phrase to have origins in racism now causing offence is  - ‘uppity’, If you call someone 'uppity' you could be being offensive: during segregation, racist southerners in America reportedly used the word to describe black people "who didn't know their socioeconomic place”, Most people have no idea about some of these phrases and, I'd like to find out, how many people are actually offended by most of these phrases. 

We are now all being forced into one tribe or another. To realise how ridiculous this all is, only one person was offended and I would love to know how much the whole BBC investigation cost. We all paid for it through our television license.

Harriet Tubman and the $20 bill

Biden’s Treasury will seek to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, an effort the Trump administration halted.

For those who don't know Harriet Tubman, she was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped slavery and subsequently made several missions to rescue enslaved blacks, including family and friends, using a network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. In her later years. The plan for the Tubman bill originated with Trump's predecessor, President Obama, and was slated to replace the $20 Andrew Jackson bill in time for the 2020 centennial of the 19th Amendment.

Then in 2016, President Trump told NBC that stripping his favourite president, the populist and slave owner, Andrew Jackson, from the $20 bill was "pure political correctness." He suggested that Tubman be bumped to the $2 bill, no longer printed. Trump's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rolled back the introduction until 2028, citing technical difficulties and that they will persist until long after President Trump leaves office.

In my opinion, you don't need to scratch hard on the surface to find the poorly concealed bigotry beneath. Trump was effectively banning the likeness of Harriet Tubman, a black woman purely because she was African American. This is another example of white supremacy, it simply bulldozes over anything that would challenge the notion that whites belong at the top and blacks at the bottom. If you look at his statement "Tubman should be bumped to the $2 bill" - the suggestion here is the black person is not worthy of the higher denomination. 

Another teenager stabbed to death in the UK in a week

The third teenager to be stabbed to death in the UK in the space of a week has been named and no prize for guessing it's another black boy. 15-year-old Romario Opia, known as Rom to his friends, was knifed in the chest as he walked to a chip shop after clashing with youth following a long-running row, a family friend said yesterday. The killer came out of a house, stabbed the ‘beautiful’ teenager then went back in, the friend claimed. According to a witness, the suspect was Romario’s friend.

Also in London earlier in the week, Anas Mezenner, 17, died following a stabbing yard from his front door in Haringey, north London, on Tuesday of last week. Keon Lincoln, 15, was shot and stabbed to death by a gang in broad daylight outside his family home in Birmingham last Thursday. The victim was so young that he was taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where he died. 

Two boys, aged 16, have been charged with the murder of Anas Mezenner. Five teenage boys have been arrested over the murder of Keon Lincoln in Birmingham. A total of nine people have been murdered in London already this year, with two of the victim's teenagers.

In my opinion, the black community needs to focus and cannot keep denying that: 

• Black boys in London are massively over-represented in stabbings.
• Black-on-black violence is significantly gang-related.
• The age of recruitment and grooming of black young people for gang activity is dropping to primary school levels. 
• When male role models for these boys are neighbourhood gang elders (often replacing absent fathers) and a “gangsta” culture prevails, the boys stand little chance of escaping. 

I'm sometimes told to moderate my views, not to write about uncomfortable topics. If we are not careful, these topics will become “no go” areas for debate. But as long as black children are tragically dying on the streets, it is hugely important to debate the causes and call a spade a spade. I don't buy into the  narrative that Black-on-black violence is a myth created by Police to facilitate an acceptance by the black community of intrusive policing techniques. In my opinion the solution lies in the community.