Cornell offers 'person of color' exemption for flu vaccine requirement

Yikes! The race essentialism in liberal circles is shocking.

Is there a way to combat racism without making it seem like all these groups are homogeneous, helpless and require this predictable belittling kids gloves treatment to advance?

Even on a qualitative level, reading this stuff, you're struck by the incredibly dogmatic and scripted language.

steve_g 5 years ago |

"Away from campus community, BIPOC individuals are not as likely to have access to preventive services or quality health care."

Perhaps this is generally true. I don't know. But I doubt it's true for kids going to Cornell - one of the top 20 universities in the US.

uberman 5 years ago |

This seems completely unethical to me. While I understand and agree that minorities have been clearly the subjects of clearly unethical medical experimentation:

for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

it seems a terrible disservice to suggest that any group opt out of potentially life saving treatments. There is already far too much mis-information surrounding Covid and vaccines in the US to be sending persons from historically marginalized communities mixed messages.

A year from now people will rightfully say "I didn't get vaccinated when everyone else did because there was some suggestion that people of color did not need to be vaccinated".

On Pine Ridge, 10% of the community currently has Covid at this very moment : 10%!!!. Is it ethical to say to them:

"We have a vaccine and all whites are going to get it and I guess you can as well, if you don't feel that would be exploitative. You remember the shitty things we did in the past right..."

Add that message on top of messaging from Trump and Fox that this is all a hoax and that having Covid makes you stronger then compound it with persistent anti-vax messaging prevalent in the USA and you basically have a recipe for convincing marginalized communities that they would be better off not being vaccinated.

vmception 5 years ago |

Cornell needs help with execution.

They know this messaging would drive a wedge and lacked any inspiration to consider a different way of implementing the same idea.

treeman79 5 years ago |

This story could be expressed in a very different way.

“Top school working to exterminate post-birth minorities.”

I’m going to burn for this comment, but if BL actually M, then let’s not encourage genocidal policies.

tuesdayrain 5 years ago | |

If BLM was more than just a political party seeking to exploit black people, I think they would be focusing more on the #1 killer of black people(gang violence) rather than freak accidents that happen with police.

uberman 5 years ago | | |

A freak accident is your cell phone exploding. The systemic injustice that people of color face at the hands of police is neither uncommon, nor accidental.

tuesdayrain 5 years ago | | |

The word "uncommon" is very subjective here. According to this article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-rac... police shot 9 unarmed black people in 2019. 9 deaths out of 375 million annual civilian contacts is fairly uncommon in my opinion.

jdsully 5 years ago | | |

Back before shows like Live PD and COPS were taken off the air earlier this year - watching them made very clear people in marginalized communities could expect more frequent and less courteous interactions with police. People were frequently followed and pulled over for things I would never be stopped for.

After the stop its made clear the officer wants an opportunity to search, not to merely talk about whatever traffic infraction was the pretext. Another scenario I never experience.

treeman79 5 years ago | | |

White as snow buddy gets pulled over constantly.

Great guy, Does volunteer work for police on occasion.

He drives a piece of crap car and frankly is a little sketchy looking. Loved to cruise around late at night.

Had multiple encounters with police whenever I hung out with him. Never any before or since.

Problems eased up some when he upgraded to a slightly less beat up car.

johncearls 5 years ago |

Is it just.me or are they glossing over the fact they have any flu vaccine requirement. Since when are flu vaccines required for anyone but health care workers?

satellite2 5 years ago |

The weird thing being to force young people to have a flu vaccine.

The short development cycle of those vaccines mean that they generally offer less evidence regarding their safety. The mortality and side effects of the flu is basically null on that population. So the risk / benefit ratio would suggest not recommending it for this population, let alone force it.

Then there is the notion of heard immunity, but in that case is seems clear that only vaccinating the students wouldn't reach the threshold for that. Finally the argument regarding hospitals decongestion for COVID sounds far fetched, and a far more rational solution would be to keep the student at home instead of hastily reopening the campus with half backed vaccine politics.