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Seeing important discussion among Indigenous ppl of why Canada & provinces/territories are prioritizing vaccination of our ppl when neglect is the norm. Maureen Lux in her history books has pointed out that tuberculosis treatment of Native ppl had more to do with settlers than us
Many aren't aware that colonial officials had a vaccine for smallpox in the 1800s but did not fully or properly administer it to Native ppl. One official, John Tod, even used it to extort Secwepemc ppl for supplies of salmon in 1846. https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2020/04/04/a-smallpox-epidemic-colonial-quarantine-around-lake-winnipeg/
In January, Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said priority vaccination for Native ppl is "about science, it's about facts, it's about health care." But he wasn't talking about the kind of social science in works by Fanon or Mary Jane Logan McCallum https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/indigenous-vaccinations-priority-marc-miller-1.5889826
He was talking about negative statistical health outcomes for Native ppl but framed in such a way as to pathologize Indigenous ppl ourselves rather than condemn the social conditions caused by colonialism that lead to such outcomes. Targeted not vulnerable https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/ep-74-starvation-experimentation-segregation-trauma-indigenous-health-history
"...the medical emergency is built on a pre-existing economic crisis of deep inequality, racism, colonization, and systemic underfunding." https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/04/09/no-such-thing-as-natural-disasters-infrastructure-and-the-first-nation-fight-against-covid-19/
Priority Indigenous vaccination is still framed by Canada & the provinces/territories as a matter of benevolence or simply *good science* rather than as part of their obligations to health & health care under both Canadian & international law. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2021/02/04/the-failure-of-federal-indigenous-healthcare-policy-in-canada/
It's been heartening to see Native ppl in Vancouver getting the vaccine in the latest opening for 18+ & trying to normalize it & encourage others to do so. Also good to be aware that Native ppl in other priority groups, health care workers for example, already got it previously.
Native ppl didn't stop being Native if they got the vaccine as part of a non Native-exclusive priority group. In my opinion, all Native ppl should take whatever vaccine they can get, wherever & as soon as they can get it.
It's good to try to collectively break thru whatever stigma exists among us as Native ppl around getting vaccinated, but also to try to dispel the myth that we are being privileged when Canada & the provinces/territories aren't even fulfilling obligations. http://www.vch.ca/covid-19/covid-19-vaccine
Usually when the State says it's doing something for our benefit (Native or non-Native) it's actually for their own benefit & that of capitalist/colonial society. But this doesn't mean it can't also incidentally benefit us to some extent & that we should unconditionally refuse it
