I had a zoom call with a large English language teaching company recently. I consult and initial emails gave me the impression that this would be something I’d be good at and like to do. Plus, my own entrepreneurial foray the last couple of years hasn’t gone as well as planned (need more subscribers!).
The call went great. We started with the formal and then to the informal. Getting to know each other. As the call was winding down, a strange question came up. Very awkward like - “And do you mind me asking, are you vaccinated?”
Now, full disclosure. The job is fully remote and no, I’m not vaccinated.
So in short, I gave a short and polite reply saying I don’t think it is relevant. Then the call ended. Good-bye. We’ll be intouch.
And that’s how it is these days, the unvaccinated (and my I hate that term, label - it is a litote, a word that is a label in the negative, so right away, it must be bad), the unvaccinated are the new “unwelcomed”.
We are sliding down the slippery slope of civil unrights. You remember those days when we were making progress, climbing the slope and people fought and died and struggled to be judged equally before the law and all?
Colored not welcome. Juden Verboten. Long-haired hippy people need not apply. It’s a man’s job. Apt. for rent - vaccinated only. The vaccinated only in our bars, theatres, public venues.
It is going on everywhere. On the macro level - countries are forbidding even their own citizens to enter the country if they haven’t got the jab yet. At least the WHO released a statement saying it was against such. Finally some honest words. And then there is Djokovic. First athlete ever to be banned for NOT taking drugs. Enough said.
As an educator, I know about Jane Elliott’s blue eyes / brown eyes experiments with kids, adults, convicts. It’s so easy to turn people against a group. So easy … We are hard-wired for it. We are living in real-time, live, her experiment.
I wonder what Jane would say about this?
All my liberal friends despite admitting that yes, the vaccine doesn’t do enough say total vaccination is the proper course. Cross those “i”s, dot those “t”s. It should be the new normal. There is a bigot in all of us and there ain’t no vaccine for that.
Mandates forge ahead even as we finally realize that vaccination offers very little benefit. It doesn’t prevent transmission - so many of my triple-jabbed friends have become ill with Covid. It doesn’t offer any significant benefit to those outside of the elderly and those with risky comorbidities. It fades, doesn’t last. In a word - it is crap. At best, it is no basis to discriminate against those who don’t want it - for whatever reason. And let’s not mention that a test would do just fine - it is a better indication of symptomatology than an ineffective vaccine, 4 months ago. This is my kind of vaccine. Thank you, El Salvador.
But yet, here we are. NIH in jolly old England wants all its staff vaccinated. Those same professionals that served selflessly amid all the confusion and risk at the beginning of the pandemic. Suddenly, they are now just expendable lepers. Never mind, they all probably have natural immunity - the only thing we know DOES work.
Thank god for nature. Man, never. Or if, only sometimes.
It’s getting farcical. I’ve seen on my twitter feed the vaccinated brag about getting Covid and going down to the “pure” QR code only pub for a pint to celebrate. What’s next, vaccinated, unvaccinated schools?
I never trust mankind when it comes to ideology. And that’s what it has become - pure bluster and “clean” belief. Religious, eugenic B.S. My shit detector is going crazy.
To end - I blocked the email from that company. Only block I’ve ever done ever with my email. Goodriddens. Now time to fight back.
Only when the tide goes out, do you see who has been swimming naked. - Warren Buffet
I do hope Neil Oliver (impassioned video below) is right. The ruse is up. The tide is going out. These discriminatory practices are going to end. I hope but I’m not too optimistic. Human kind has a good percentage that revels in cancel culture, in shaming, in the delight of seeming better at the expense of others. We’ve seen it so often before.
Thanks for your text, David.
I, as a double-jabbed person, haven't caught COVID yet and neither have my parents and siblings. Only if someone doesn't obey protoocols and has a background illness they'll get COVID. I completely agree that "otherizing" is not right. I sometimes think COVID was intended to be a WMM (Weapon of Mass Mortality) to balance the population.