Quote of the Week

“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down”– Eleanor Roosevelt 

Fun With Words

The American “Untouchables”

In America discrimination isn’t based upon a caste system like in India. Discrimination is usually based upon something tangible such as the color of your skin, your gender or your criminal background. But is it? After reading an article in the April 2022 issue of Wired magazine (Caste Away by Sonia Paul) describing how Indian immigrants continue to experience caste discrimination from other Indian immigrants I realized that this reporter’s writing about the Indian caste system could be applied to certain Americans too. A caste system is alive and well in the US!
Remember the Aids epidemic? Anyone who tested positive in the 90’s before our current “miracle” drugs were available were considered “untouchables” and shunned. And gays had to be careful not reveal that they were gay because, by association, ALL gays were Aids positive. Times changed and gays are no longer stigmatized as untouchables. Plus laws were created banning such discrimination. Then came COVID-19.
In 2020 when the COVID pandemic ran rampant, lockdowns, quarantines, etc. were attempts to contain the virus and impacted most everyone, healthy or sick. Then came the “miracle” vaccines. And that is when a whole cohort of individuals became untouchables. Governments created vaccine mandates that banned individuals who refused to be vaccinated from almost every aspect of society. The fear was they could have the virus, and thus transmit it making you sick and die. Isn’t that the very definition of an “untouchable”?
Just like the Indian caste system, there is no real way such as skin color that can “out” our unvaccinated untouchables. So governments came up with a system that solved the problem: vaccination cards. As part of the vaccine mandates that were passed anyone who didn’t have this proof of vaccination was now prohibited from entering their workplace, going to museums, etc. Unlike the Indian caste system based on birth, for people not wanting to “get the shot” there are many, many different reasons. And yet all unvaccinated were lumped into one “caste”, the “unvaccinated”.
We are not yet out of the pandemic. Vaccine mandates have faded away. However, there are other ways to remind the untouchables of their status. We continue with public service announcements on TV about getting your “booster shot” be a good citizen and protect the “vulnerable”. And even if an unvaccinated person can enter, say an art exhibit, and then has a discussion with someone about their unvaccinated status or vaccine hesitancy, just watch the reaction…
We now know that even the “fully vaccinated” can catch COVID and transmit it. Recently a White House gathering, and a huge social event for journalists, has shown how easily this occurs. Fully vaccinated and tested, permitted entry to these highly selective gatherings, yet days later the virus was spread with attendees testing positive. But the “unvaccinated” caste system still prevails! It is the unvaccinated who continue to be seen as the threat.
At the start of all this it was thought that the courts would side with eliminating the mandates, seeing them as a form of discrimination. That failed. The law was never and will never be on the side of this American caste because fear and control is at the bottom of it all. Just like in the Aids epidemic, you don’t want to have contact with someone who might make you sick. So if you are unvaccinated you hide your caste status just to survive another day “…you are forced to hide your identity to be somebody different than what you are…a violation of one’s basic rights.” (Milind Awasarmol, quoted in the April 2022 Wired article Caste Away by Sonia Paul)
.
Are we really, anymore, “the Land of the Free”?