How Black People Learned Not to Trust

By Charles M. Blow, The New York Times

Concerns about vaccination are unfortunate, but they have historical roots.

It would appear that the people in America hit hardest by Covid-19 — Black people — are also the group most leery about the prospects of a vaccine.

As a Pew Research report published last week pointed out: “Black Americans are especially likely to say they know someone who has been hospitalized or died as a result of having the coronavirus: 71 percent say this, compared with smaller shares of Hispanic (61 percent), White (49 percent) and Asian-American (48 percent) adults.”

But that same report contained the following: “Black Americans continue to stand out as less inclined to get vaccinated than other racial and ethnic groups: 42 percent would do so, compared with 63 percent of Hispanic and 61 percent of white adults.”

The unfortunate American fact is that Black people in this country have been well-trained, over centuries, to distrust both the government and the medical establishment on the issue of health care.

After the Civil War and the freeing of the enslaved, the limited and fragile infrastructure for Black people in this country collapsed and an epidemic of disease flourished.

White doctors refused to see Black people and white hospitals refused to admit them. Furthermore, federal, state and local governments squabbled over whose responsibility it was to provide health care for the newly freed men and women, with no entity truly wanting to assume that responsibility.

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