I completely empathize with Black folx who are apprehensive about the COVID-19 vaccine. Western medicine has *never* done justice to Black people. Why would Black folx trust them now?

While I think we need the vaccine, we shouldn't minimize Black folx's experiences.

Beyond the Tuskegee experiments where doctors *intentionally* infected Black men with syphilis and watched them die, go blind, or lose their mental faculties rather than treating them, there are tons of ways medical science has been built from harming Black folx.

J Marion Sims performed gynecological procedures on Black women without anesthesia. He developed the speculum and learned how to treat vaginal tears by operating on enslaved women who he believed felt no pain.

Black women have been forcibly sterilized in hospitals without any consent because they were deemed unfit for raising children. This happened as late as the 1970s.

Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer but her cells were used without her consent to modernize treatments of cancer. Essentially, she was immortalized in cancer treatment methods that, for years, completely ignored her existence.

Black women remain the most at risk of dying in childbirth. Black folx die from cancer at higher rates than other groups and are often diagnosed later in their life cycle. None of this stuff is lost on people.

All of the existing barriers Black folx face to access, treatment, and reliable care have been exacerbated with COVID-19. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/racism-in-care-leads-to-health-disparities-doctors-and-other-experts-say-as-they-push-for-change/2020/07/10/a1a1e40a-bb9e-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html

Yes, we need a vaccine. But, don't gaslight Black people who are the experts on their experiences with medicine in the United States.