It occurs to me this morning that discussions about folks' willingness to use a COVID-19 vaccine follow a similar trajectory. There are progressives quick to label any distrust of vaccines "anti-vaxx" when there are at least two *very different* reasons for opposition. 1/
https://twitter.com/feministlib/status/1352750963363352581
The first is an ideological objection by Christian nationalists &/or far-right libertarians to government providing social services &/or requiring action that supports communal thriving. They see it either as a usurpation of God's will or intervention in "natural" selection. 2/
The second is a wariness born of a long, documented history of medical racism, medical sexism, mistreatment and neglect of queer people and people with disabilities by the state. 3/
Rather than an ideological opposition to government providing resources for human flourishing, folks in this second group associate state power with the very power-over, exclusionist ideologies we find in group one. 4/
Because the thing about white Christian nationalists is that although they position themselves as victims of the oppressor state, in reality they have held majority power and wielded it throughout U.S. history. 5/
People in communities that have been marginalized in the U.S. don't see the state as the obvious solution to white Christian nationalism ... because we have seen how white Christian nationalist the state is. 6/
This is not to say that government power cannot, by definition, be used for human flourishing -- I believe it can! I believe it SHOULD. But it's important to remember that many people are wary of government power for historically-grounded, evidence-based reasons. 7/7
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