White Evangelical Resistance Is Obstacle in Vaccination Effort (NYT article 4/05)

Thanks for the posting, Vinnie. I will read it. Offhand, I as a “white evangelical” am receiving the vaccine (had dose 1 already) and am not concerned. I know others who also are getting the vaccine. I do have a friend who does not like that it comes (she said) from aborted babies – not sure all the details on that. I received an email warning Africans against taking the vaccine (I am NOT African) so I suppose there is information and disinformation in various directions… “Mistrust of science” may be a misnomer but I will read the article. Thanks!

Thanks, Vinnie. You are right about the NY Times…great article. Now I understand better where my friend got the idea of the vaccine coming from aborted babies (or baby). Just FYI, people who hold that sort of belief are not ignorant hillbillies (necessarily) but have strong feelings about the wrongs of supporting abortion as well as anything that smacks of “benefitting” from it — which might justify more abortions in the minds of others (“I am doing it for the science” or similar)…I suppose that I have not queried every evangelical I know for their views…but it is, along with everything else, a free country…

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You actually walk around asking people if they know about the Tuskegee airmen?

Yes. Ive asked people about that probably 200 times in my life when bringing up social issues. If I talk about it on social media, I’m already talking about it in person with people I know and complete strangers. So science, social issues, theology, hiking, working out and horror is something I talk about almost everyday.

When I was at the gym at 5am this morning I asked a guy in there who was wearing military boots if he was in the army and he said yeah. We talked about that for a few minutes and I brought up nutrition and what does he think about GMOs which lead into a discussion about attack of killer tomatoes which lead to talking about how Jesus withered the fruit tree to does he want to go to church this Sunday. He said no, he’s Muslim. A black guy. So then we talked about what does he think about all of those silly reports about military and mountain giants fighting which lead to us talking about soldiers and ptsd and then does he believe that they use inmates for lab mice. Whole convo lasted about 15 minutes.

Yes, I think it’s documented that the reasons for vaccine hesitancy in different communities are different.

Out of curiosity , do y’all believe that the majority of African Americans believe that there is one vaccine being given to white people and another vaccine being given to black people as a experiment?

Of do y’all believe that most African Americans believe that white people and black people will both be the subject to this government conspiracy theory?

Or do y’all believe that the general consensus is that they don’t trust the government and think that they are reacting out fear and mass produced something that may or may not help that will equally harm people taking it?

Are most white people who are not taking the vaccine not taking it because they fear it was not properly tested and are not willing to be hurt because of it?

No. I don’t think anyone thinks this is currently an experiment. Just that they are leery of medicine due to past and present ethics and racism in medicine.

also

This is not the same as the Tuskegee experiments…

You can read the Pew results for yourself, it’s not a matter of our personal opinions.

White evangelicals are the least likely to say they should consider the health effects on their community when making a decision to be vaccinated. Only 48% of white evangelicals said they would consider the community health effects “a lot” when deciding to be vaccinated.

So. white evangelicals are the least “selfless” group, according to the survey.
I think they have gotten very much wrapped up in individualism to know when we are all supposed to take one for the team.

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Sure.

But the pew results are not saying that it’s a problem with whiteness or a problem with evangelicalism. Just like it’s not a problem with the very close behind and in at one least spot even higher, of blackness or Protestantism.

If the problem is not religious based, and it’s not skin color based then what is it for both sides?

For both sides it’s the same issue.

They don’t understand the process of how the vaccine was made and why it got out so quickly. Both does don’t trust that the government is actually doing anything than some kind of knee jerk fear reaction with untested vaccines. The black men and women, and the white men and women have the same fear. It’s not that the black men and women are afraid of it being a experiment targeted at them. So it’s not a racial fear. It’s a basic fear across the board of people simply not understanding the vaccine, or even the virus.

So by trying to use some headliner as if it’s A racially driven religiously driven problem is stupid. It’s something that they feel safe saying but hypocritically typically won’t say it the other way around. Because it could just as easily be headlined “ Black Protestants Resistance is Obstacle in Vaccination Process “. To which everyone would bring up just like I did, it’s not actually a black problem and it’s not actually a Protestant problem but it’s a lack of understanding the science behind it problem which fuels conspiracy theories such as it’s a government experiment or just something they tossed together for whatever reason from needing money to escape the economic fall out to secretly using the money to fund other things and ect…

Because if the blacks believes it’s the same vaccination as being given to the whites they are not afraid of it being the government targeting them. Their fear is the same as the whites and ect…

But like with many posts I’m done. I repeated the argument enough times that if others disagree with it, then they disagree with it snd there is no seeing eye to eye on it, and the data from the research is being interpreted differently and there is nothing to be said or read to reinterpret or reinstate the data and all I could waste my time on typing is refer to previous posts.

It seems like you are unclear on the concept of “demographic trends.” If you point out that 43% of women, but only 15% of men agree with a statement, you are just pointing out a statistically significant difference between the two demographics. Then you try to figure out what factors might contribute to the difference. Pointing out the trend is not saying, “being a man makes you think X.”

The reason white evangelicals are grouped together for sociological research is because there are statistically significant ways they tend to think similarly and this allows for modeling and predictions in ways other groupings would not. For example, you could find out about vaccine hesitancy among left-handed people or redheads, but these numbers would not be useful for modeling or predictions because those groups do not tend to think similarly in meaningful ways. Pointing out trends within demographics is not claiming that belonging to the group is what “made them think X.” But understanding the correlations between the prevalence of specific opinions in different demographic groups help researchers understand what factors are shaping those opinions.

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I’m not confused about anything. I stated clearly what my issues were as stated in my previous posts. Repeatedly.

Yes, you’ve repeated over and over again arguments that make people wonder if you understand the significance of the data that was referenced. You seem to keep saying race and religious views have nothing to do with a person’s vaccine hesitancy. Sociological data repeatedly indicates otherwise. There are statistically significant correlations.

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No. What I’ve stated, Barney style is this.

You can use statists to frame false narratives for the point of causing unnecessary tension.

Such as this.

The majority of gun violence in America comes from stolen handguns being used by young black males. That’s why you have more blacks killing blacks in a place like Chicago alone than all blacks killed by cops across all of America.

So you could make this statement based off of the same standard you’re using for while evangelicals.

Young black males are holding back from Chicago being a safe place.

However, that narrative is being presented in a way that is trying to push a specific agenda. The agenda being black males are dangerous. ( that’s simply not true ) or that black Chicago males are dangerous ) that’s also not true.

So my point again and again is this.

It’s not a evangelical problem.
It’s not a white problem.

So you disagree Christy? Is it a white problem? Is it a evangelical problem? If yes, then so are the other statements I made also true.

I’m surprised by the acceptance of racist narratives that are found acceptable.

I don’t think anyone is pushing a narrative that says vaccine hesitancy is a white problem or an evangelical problem. I think they are stating facts that the white evangelical demographic has much higher rates of vaccine hesitancy than other racial/religious demographics. When trends like that are observed, health professionals want to understand the factors relevant to that demographic that are driving the higher rates. In this case, views on abortion, conservative political affiliation, theological views on end times, and distrust of scientists–views that are uniquely prevalent in the white evangelical demographic compared to others, seem to be affecting behavior related to vaccination.

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That is true. And there are a variety of opinions also. I think the NYT made their covid articles free for everyone.

Black and Hispanic Communities Grapple With Vaccine Misinformation

‘At Your Age, It’s the Vaccine or the Grave’

Black People Need Better Vaccine Access, Not Better Vaccine Attitudes

Here’s one on a variety of religious attitudes and faith leaders urging vaccination:

Clergy Preach Faith in the Covid Vaccine to Doubters

Yes, thank you for the correction. I conflated two different things.

I think you were just pasting what I wrote. I did not even know I wrote airmen or if somehow because I was in traffic for over 90 minutes and barely moved a mile to the road I needed and maybe I misspelled experiment or instead of hitting space i hit a auto correction of airmen and when you read it you probably read it as experiment in your mind just like I did when I reread it in your response and only noticed it once it was mentioned.

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