Relationships

This essay is written by one of my close friends, a doctor I trust who reads my Facebook comments and asked for permission to respond to all those who are vaccine hesitant. This opinion is my friend's opinion, so please don't attack me for sharing what my friend asked me to share as a public health broadcast. Also, please don't ask me questions, as I’m not resourced nor experienced enough to answer them, and neither are my friends on the front lines.

In a statement by the President of the Ford Foundation For Social Justice, Darren Walker writes, "I have long believed that inequality is the greatest threat to justice—and, the corollary, that white supremacy is the greatest threat to democracy. But what has become clear during recent weeks—and all the more apparent yesterday—is that the converse is also true: Democracy is the greatest threat to white supremacy... Yes, the ideal of democracy is the greatest threat to the ideology of white supremacy; neither can long endure in the presence of the other.

Even as an empath, it's hard to imagine the seething outrage, helplessness, disgust, terror, powerlessness, horror, and understandable hatred Black and Indigenous People of Color and Jewish people must have felt while watching video footage of white supremacists and QAnon followers egged on by a sitting President of their country while some in law enforcement practically rolled out the red carpet for them.

Rick Loftus, MD is in the same Finding Meaning in Medicine circle with me and our mutual teacher, Kitchen Table Wisdom author and The Healer's Art founder Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. Given his epidemiology background, his smart brain, his position on the front lines, and his huge heart, Rick is my most trusted source for current information about the pandemic, so I wanted to share with you all what he just shared with the doctors in our inner circle.

This week, I took a hike with someone I've known for many years, someone who is convinced the conspiracy theories are true, someone who has been red-pilled. We've shared a dance floor and bumped into each other at the same spirituality conferences for many years. I like him. He's a good guy with a sensitive heart, someone who hates conflict and can't stand seeing everyone fighting. Like me, he wishes everyone could just get along.