The Decision: Vax Apartheid Edition

Each morning I wake up and reflect on the decision in front of us. With a 32-week cutoff to fly approaching: do we stay or do we go?

The original plan was to move to Kenya indefinitely. That is until we received our surprise. But life isn’t meant to be put on hold. And so, after a rigmarole to get our documents amidst a historic backlog, we crossed borders with the hubris of American passport holders.

The last four months have been life-affirming. On the coast, at the base of Mount Kenya, there’s been time and space for healing and reflection. In many ways it’s been life lived daily – not without its healthy dose of ups and downs. There have been emergency hospital visits, motorbike accidents, and elephant encounters. We’ve made new friends and watched our daughter thrive. Most importantly, we’ve been afforded the room to dream about the future we want for our growing family beyond what’s prescribed.

One of the biggest surprises here has been the culture surrounding children. Kids are allowed to be kids, even in public. There are no dirty looks or menacing insinuations when they wail in delight or despair. Waitresses will willingly play with children, strangers will watch out for your mtoto, and no amount of noise is deemed inappropriate. It’s like kids are seen as a collective blessing and not a personal burden (weird, right?).

As COVID cases began to climb in the US, we wondered out loud whether we would be better off staying put. Texts were sent to our team of supporters and soothsayers across the world. There have been moments during these discussions where I’ve felt ridiculed for even asking the question. It’s like the long shadow of American exceptionalism was cast over our conversations. The lurking assumption that because it’s the United States, everything is inherently better.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case. Our friends and family love us and want what’s best. And I get it. Kind of. I mean, vaccination rates are much higher in the US than in much of the world. We are fortunate enough to have health insurance that allows for quality care if we need emergency interventions. These are good reasons. And we are lucky to have such options.

The reality of course is that patents, hoarding, and vaccine apartheid is what is prolonging the pandemic by preventing the global majority from getting inoculated, thus allowing for further mutations and variants. The politicking over masks and public health and safety certainly doesn’t help either. In the United States, a Lancet study found that roughly 40 percent of deaths from COVID in the first year of the pandemic were unnecessary. Globally, millions of deaths were avoidable.

While the loss of life is shocking, and the economic impacts of the pandemic have been crippling for those most vulnerable, the profits being reaped are staggering. New research reveals that Pfizer, Moderna, and BioTech are making $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute. It’s not just pharmaceutical giants. The pandemic has led to a precipitous rise in inequality. Globally, the total wealth of billionaires increased by $5 trillion since March 2020, while millions were pushed into poverty. In the US, their wealth grew by 70 percent or $2.1 trillion. In India last year, the income of 84 percent of households dropped while the number of billionaires grew. In Asia as a whole, 20 new “pandemic billionaires” emerged while 140 million people fell into poverty due to loss of livelihoods. 

This is the shock doctrine Naomi Klein warned about. When crisis hits, corporate interests abetted by politicians exploit the moment to advance their own agendas and policies while the larger population struggles to respond and resist.

What does it say about our society that during a global pandemic the super wealthy are allowed to make obscene profits while basic public needs – access to healthcare, housing, and safety – remain unmet?

Notably, the same countries sitting on vaccine recipes, are also historically responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions driving the planet to an ecological tipping point. As natural disasters and extreme weather events intensify, the climate crisis disproportionately impacts countries in the Global South and low-income communities of color – precisely those who have contributed least to the crisis. The continued failures of global leaders to mandate binding action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees exposes the pathological nature of capitalism that ignores the writing on the wall in pursuit of endless growth.

Similarly, the pandemic has exposed the cutthroat nature of a system that demands people work when they’re sick, denies them adequate care, and disdains those who question whether our profit-motivated priorities are appropriate.

George Bush (the First) stated that the American way of life is non-negotiable. And that’s how we’re living. Killing ‘em softly to consume more and more.

Nowadays between walks in the forest, we read our incoming messages and look at the news with trepidation. Our loved ones are infected. Cases are surging to record levels. Hospitals are slammed. There is a marked difference in the tone of our conversations with folks back home.  

We are fortunate though to be able to cross borders with relative ease. For so many, seeking safety, security, and dignity involves embarking on dangerous journeys increasingly imperiled by walls, bullets, and cages. Ultimately, migration is a form of adaptation; one that people have employed throughout history as a response to changing environmental, economic, and political conditions.

Unfortunately, rich, high-emitting countries are militarizing borders and criminalizing migration instead of addressing root causes. Under the Biden Administration, immigration detention has swelled (so much for campaign promises, huh?). There are currently more than 22,000 people locked up in migrant detention centers – many of which are private, for-profit institutions – up from 14,195 when Biden took office. Since January 3, there has been a 793 percent increase of COVID cases in ICE detention facilities where social distancing is essentially impossible.

Now before y’all start with that anti-national talk, I love my countries – but not the creeping fascism. After all, I came up on hip-hop. Fell in love to neo-soul. The NBA has more parity than ever. What else do you want? A pledge of allegiance? I gave that up at 15.

Seriously though, it has been the communities of care that have emerged through growing solidarity and mutual aid networks that speak to the foundation of the future we should aim to create. The nature of the common threats we face require rejecting trickle-down myths of bootstraps and rugged individualism and realizing we are better off embracing solutions rooted in our collective uplift.

Don’t get it twisted, home is home (even when home is where the hatred is) and I can’t deny the excitement that accompanies my apprehension. We’re taking our talents to Silver Spring – for now. But I got a list of demands: a global vaccination distribution plan, a Green New Deal, universal healthcare, a reduced military budget, and safe pathways for migration.  

We’ll see you on the other side, plague permitting.