Equity Lab | Black Sacramentans demand a fair vaccine rollout. Why we should listen
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Good afternoon, Equity Lab readers:
It’s Monday, March 1, 2021, and I’m Keiona, editor of The Equity Lab.
It took me months to convince my 69-year-old grandmother that she should receive the COVID-19 vaccine. And when the vaccine finally became available to her, it took weeks to get her an appointment.
She spent weeks with her name on the MyTurn app — a fruitless endeavor since it never resulted in an appointment. She will receive her first dose this upcoming weekend but only because my mom is a teacher and had access to a vaccination clinic not being advertised on the County website.
It turns out that the real battle in vaccinating Black communities is not that we only needed convincing. It’s that we need access.
Earlier this month, nine Black community leaders sent a letter to Sacramento County and regional health care officials, pleading for them to keep promises they had made early in the pandemic: that the COVID-19 vaccine would be distributed equitably.
Put plainly, community leaders said, the county and our health systems are failing to inform, vaccinate and develop trust with Black residents.
There appears to be little planning at the county level and within health care systems to prioritize all of our communities. This is not new: Community leaders criticized those same systems for not coming up with a response plan when the pandemic was raging through neighborhoods of color last year. And, in the absence of a plan, humans must rely on systems and structures — the same systems and structures designed to leave out non-white and less wealthy communities.
The data, thus far, speaks for itself: More than twice as many white people have received the vaccine in the county than any other ethnic group.
If the county isn’t doing enough to focus on Black, low-income and homeless communities, then it has a blueprint from Sacramentans Advocating for Vaccine Equity, or SAVE, which is asking the county to put in place an advisory board of leaders who can get the job done. Our lives depend on it.
Why the current rollout is not working
There are no community vaccination sites dedicated to vaccinating specifically Black residents in the city of Sacramento. Local nonprofits like Asian Resources Inc. and La Familia counseling center have received minimal doses from the county to target the communities they serve in pop-up events. Yet the COVID-19 case rates in the Latino, Asian and Black communities of Sacramento are higher than the rates for whites.
“It is during difficult times such as these that we need our systems and agencies to perform for us,” the letter from the Black community leaders read. “However, data continue to reveal that despite our best efforts, they continue to fail us.”
The promise of large vaccination sites at Cal Expo, the current partnership with Safeway and the elusive pop-up sites that aren’t widely advertised only continue to deepen the community’s distrust of government intention. Meadowview, Del Paso Heights, Lemon Hill and Oak Park — communities hit hard by the pandemic — do not have Safeways and are at least 15-minute drives from Cal Expo. In many of these neighborhoods, as many as one in four don’t have access to a car.
There was a vaccine site pop-up in Del Paso Heights recently. The site was hosted by Dignity Health but appointments were not advertised. Some residents didn’t know about the site until they noticed people in cars not normally seen in their neighborhood lining up to receive the vaccine.
After the pop-up was over, volunteers went door to door hoping to vaccinate residents with leftover doses.
What’s next?
Sacramentans Advocating for Vaccine Equity is supported by Black community leaders and professionals in position with existing structures, facilities, relationships and, most importantly, trust in the communities who most need access to the vaccine.
The demands from these leaders are:
Convene an African American COVID-19 Vaccine Committee to help inform steps the county and health systems will be taking to address the health crisis as it related to the African American community.
Establish regular and transparent dialogue with the African American community about the availability of state and federal resources that will be received by distributors to address the vaccine rollout.
Open multiple vaccination distribution sites in areas where the target population can access them — with particular attention given to our homeless population.
A review and oversight of the distribution plans and ongoing performance of health care providers and big-box pharmacy companies such as CVS and Walgreens related to the outreach and inclusion of African Americans.
Publish and maintain a comprehensive, up-to-date listing of ALL vaccination sites with dates, times and tiers.
Launch a targeted community outreach and education campaign to motivate and inform the African American community to participate in the vaccination effort.
While early distrust in government and health care institutions could have largely been drawn to historical failures or generational distrust of our systems by the Black community, the system has lived up to those fears.
Vaccinating the communities most likely to become infected and most likely to die from COVID-19 is not just the moral thing to do, but it’s also an effective way to slow the pandemic. If we continue to rely on the current systems, one where relationships, influence and power control the priority line for vaccines with little accountability for the interest of our Black, Latino, low-income and unhoused communities, we will not only have failed almost 50% of our population, we will have not lived up to the city I know we can be.
— Keiona Williamson
Here’s what else you need to know this week:
Must-Read Stories
SACRAMENTO STUDENT ACCUSED OF BLACKFACE: A sophomore at St. Francis High School in Sacramento was disciplined for bullying after using a black paint feature on Snapchat to imitate Blackface and mock a Black peer. [Read more here]
REMOVING THE TERM ILLEGAL ‘ALIEN’: California Democrats introduced a bill last week that seeks to eliminate the term “alien” from state laws, an immigration classification used to describe undocumented immigrants and foreign-born individuals. [Read the story here]
SACRAMENTO RENTAL ASSISTANCE FUND: As part of a national effort to save low-income renters from eviction, Sacramento city and county officials on Thursday made nearly $100 million in free rent assistance grants available to help pay for past-due rent and utility bills during the COVID-19 pandemic. [Read more here]
FREE TRANSPORTATION TO COVID VACCINE APPOINTMENT: Sacramento Regional Transit will offer free rides to anyone who needs to get to a scheduled COVID-19 vaccine appointment starting March 1 (today!). [Read more here]
LOCAL TEACHER USES OFFENSIVE SLANT-EYES TO DEPICT ASIANS: A Grant High School teacher was recorded using slant eyes — an offensive racist stereotype of Asians — to depict Chinese and Japanese people during a lesson Thursday. [Read more here]
STIMULUS CHECKS TO UNDOCUMENTED HOUSEHOLDS: In order to provide relief to immigrant communities financially affected by the coronavirus pandemic, California is making available stimulus checks to those who file taxes with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, also known as ITINs. [Here’s how to qualify]
More Interesting Reads
California must protect the privacy of transgender and non-binary people. Here’s how | Sacramento Bee Editorial Board
Racists are increasingly targeting Asians in Sacramento. It’s time to talk about it | Yousef Baig, Opinion
Legislators introduce bill to create toll-free hotline for reporting hate crimes | Capitol Alert
Black history is America’s history. It will not be erased — no matter how hard America tries | Leonard Pitts Jr., Opinion
He built homes for the homeless. So the city sued him | VICE World News
Help us tell your loved one’s COVID-19 story
Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 1,500 Sacramento County residents have died from COVID-19. But while we’ve been following the numbers of new cases and deaths, too often the story behind the statistics is lost.
Each COVID-19 death represents a human life. A brother or a sister, a coworker, a grandparent, a partner. Those who have died had passions and dreams and adventures. They had favorite bands and hated foods and beloved sports teams and cherished traditions. They have family and friends who love and miss them.
The Sacramento Bee would like to illuminate the people and faces of those who lost their lives to the pandemic for a series of stories.
If you’ve lost a loved one to COVID-19 and would like to help tell their story, please contact us at equitylab@sacbee.com or fill out the form here.
— Alex Yoon-Hendricks
Equity Lab Q&A with Jay King of KDEE
Our Equity Lab’s Black communities reporter Marcus D. Smith sat down for a one-on-one discussion about KDEE 97.5 FM last week with Jay King, on-air host and President and CEO of the California Black Chamber of Commerce.
➡️ Watch a replay of the interview here.
What we’re listening to, and you should, too
“Spectacle,” a new podcast on the history of reality TV, hosted by Mariah Smith and produced by Neon Hum Media.
Early in the pandemic, that meant watching, over and over, various seasons of The Great British Bake Off. (And yes, going so far as to get a VPN to watch the first two seasons that haven’t been released on the US version of Netflix.)
Now, I’ve started watching old seasons of “The Amazing Race,” a two-decades-old reality TV show based on a formula that’s one part couple’s therapy, one part adventure, and one part social commentary on America’s relationship with The World. Having grown up watching the show, I already feel very nostalgic about it, but especially given the yearlong travel lockdown, there’s an eerie charm to watching these silly little racers cram into packed markets and trains as they galavant around the globe.
Last week, I started listening to Spectacle’s third episode on “Survivor,” which I have never watched but is a spiritual cousin of “The Amazing Race” (they’re both produced by CBS). It’s been fun to unpack our weird fascination with seeing Real Humans on TV, especially when we know some of these shows have, uh, issues.
— Alex Yoon-Hendricks
Black History Month | People of Sacramento
For the final week of Black History Month, we highlighted influential people in Sacramento on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Here are three people we recognized this week ⬇️
Are you enjoying this newsletter? Tell us what you think by emailing us at equitylab@sacbee.com.
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The Equity Lab is a community-funded journalism team that explores issues of equity, wealth, race, power and justice in the Sacramento region. Support our work. Donate here.
This story was originally published March 1, 2021 at 2:52 PM.