From 1: “The promising Moderna vaccine will likely require two injections, spaced about 4 weeks apart. This poses a problem for disadvantaged communities. Members of these communities, who are the hardest hit by the current pandemic, face significant structural hurdles to receiving both injections. They typically lack both time off work for health care and easy transportation access to health care facilities. So, these communities are also most likely not to have sufficient vaccination levels to produce herd immunity.”

While I don’t expect that this admonition will find many friendly ears, I would ask everyone to beware of the subtle racism embedded in passages like this. As we continue to write about race from our comparatively privileged standpoint as academics, we should avoid speaking of persons from disadvantaged communities as though they were stupid, irrational, or somehow entirely constrained by structural forces (i.e. as non-agents). Now, think about what Prof. Smith is actually suggesting here: in virtue of working harder jobs, having to take public transit, having more childcare burdens, etc, disadvantaged persons will as a rule not find the time to go and get vaccinated twice in 4 weeks against the deadliest pandemic in a century, a pandemic that has been ravaging their communities, killing their parents and grandparents, and keeping their children away from school and daycare. A little reflection will reveal that this claim is in fact an insult dressed up as flag-waving concern for the underprivileged, since only a very unintelligent, reckless or otherwise irrational person wouldn’t figure out how to make the time for something this important. Structural racism is a real thing. But so are communities who fight through it every day and get important stuff done.