So this kind of take bugs me, and I’m gonna do a thread about why.

I don’t actually know or interact with this tweeter, which is why I’ve obscured their identity.

For my part, I have always criticized people who can’t recognize their privilege... (1/10)

Only a small number of people in the world are vaccinated. Who those people are has been determined by the wealth and power of the nation-states to which they belong, and within that, by a range of other factors — not even all wealthy privileged people are vaccinated yet. (2/10)

NOBODY’S CHILDREN are vaccinated yet, even in the wealthiest and most powerful nations, which have been hoarding vaccines and engaging in vaccine apartheid ensuring that global vaccination is slower than it actually needs to be. (3/10)

The thing of “the entire point of these vaccines is that you can ... start living your normal life again” is also mind blowing to me. Because for some fucking reason I thought the point of these vaccines was to STOP HOSPITALIZATION AND DEATH. (4/10)

And “can we stop criticising people for doing what they’re supposed to be doing” casts getting vaccinated as some onerous duty that people only do because they’re altruists, when the truth is, people do it out of self-interest TO AVOID GETTING SICK AND POSSIBLY DYING. (5/10)

Like, if you’re living a life where you think the only reason that most of the world isn’t vaccinated is because they don’t want to be, then yes, I’m going to call that out. The truth is most of the world isn’t vaccinated yet because wealthy countries are hoarding. (6/10)

Now, if it makes you feel bad for someone to point that out, I guess I’m basically okay with that. I’m not telling you that you should feel bad. I’m just asking if you realize the pandemic is not over for most of the world, and you are super lucky to think it’s over for you. (7/

If you feel bad about someone pointing that out, when it’s really a simple observation of fact, that still doesn’t mean someone is criticising you for being vaccinated. But you’re not some hapless virtuous ingenue. You’re lucky as hell to be among the first, is all. (8/10)

I truly don’t grasp what is so challenging about just being able to think to yourself, “holy shit, I’m so lucky to be among the first to receive this life saving vaccine.” What do you want everyone who can’t get it to do, praise you for not caring about billions of others? (9/10)

How would that work? Am I supposed to thank you for lowering your own risk while literally billions of people don’t have the option to do so and are dying in increasingly greater numbers? Is that actually what you think? I don’t get it. At all. (10/10)

Like for real though.

When I was a kid I was vaccinated against measles, so when kindergarten friends who hadn’t been vaccinated caught it and died, it wasn’t because I was “doing what I was supposed to do” and was somehow morally awesome.

I was just privileged and lucky.

When I was 16 and she was 17, my best friend died of typhoid. I had been vaccinated against it; she had not.

That wasn’t because she or her parents were ignorant chucklefucks who were offered a vaccine and refused it.

It was because I was born white in the USA and she wasn’t.

So I mean, is her mom being an asshole on those occasions when she and I talk and she cries thinking about the 33 years so far that I’ve lived and her daughter didn’t?

Is she “shaming me” for still being here?

No. She’s glad I am.

But you know what?

if I were like “doña Cristina, please, don’t miss your daughter, it makes me feel bad,” then yeah, frankly, I would be the asshole.

I literally do not go a day without thinking about her daughter and the knowledge that there is no greater privilege than me being alive & her not

So yeah I guess I just don’t understand what is so fucking hard about just acknowledging the pandemic isn’t over and billions of people are still at risk even if you, personally, may no longer be.