- Lynden points out that, recently, “most vaccines in cities are being administered to white people at way higher rates than Blacks, and the vaccines in poorer neighborhoods are being mostly given to affluent white people. In a pandemic that is killing Black people at higher rates than whites, the societal structures need to reimagine equity. A quote from the previous chapter explains this perfectly ‘pernicious feedback loop,’ amplifying the effects of racial bias and of the criminalization of poverty that are already endemic to the United States. Much might wonder how we are still at this point when the Civil rights act enacted into law in 1964. But the past is always with us.”
- Similar to how vaccines have been distributed in ways that advantage the white and wealthy, Queen points out the following about how some state and local governments disenfranchise voters in the U.S.: “Some bureaucracies are put in place to ensure that only a certain race can vote over the minor one.” This article has a quick summary of some of these bureaucracies that Queen mentions.
- Pratap writes that “[the elite/wealthy] are the ones making rules, laws, and regulations but only in their favor overlooking the people in need.”
Questions I’m left with: How can we publicize these structures more in ways that could pressure people to change them? How can we do that work, too, even if we can’t always win those fights?