It’s no secret that I am very much for vaccination. I’ve worked with Dr. Hsu to write articles to give insight into the dominant view of the medical and public health professional sectors. I have gotten both doses of my vaccination, and am eagerly anticipating when I may dance safely with other vaccinated individuals. I also delete comments that I view as non-constructive or derailing from the premise of posts I make.
Despite this, I do not “hate” anti-vaccination individuals, as passionate as I may be about my own position. Let me explain.
The Problem of “Hate”
People believe many, many different things. Some are very misguided. Some are fueled by biases and thinking they know more than they actually do. How can I honestly hate someone who really believes that vaccines are going to kill them or those they love?
Contrary to their assertions that they are not “fearful”, there is a powerful fear and lack of trust driving these people. The same goes for people who believe that COVID is a hoax. So, while I shake my head and defeatedly sigh as I hear about covert dance gatherings that happened all through a global pandemic while friends and family suffered and died, I can’t hate them. I can’t hate them even if I think the decision they have made is misguided, selfish, and destructive. I’m oriented in a different worldview from those people, many of whom have honestly convinced themselves that what they’re doing is OK.
However, my patience stops at those that are willing to belittle, insult, and attack those of us who are doing our best to keep our communities safe.
The Organizer Problem
I am fortunate to not be an organizer with an event in the latter half of 2021. With our own event scheduled for mid-2022, I am fervently praying that by the time our event happens the need to think about vaccination-only vs. other requirements will be behind us. I’m hoping to dodge the bullet of having to decide one way or the other – but it isn’t a guarantee.
Organizers who are starting to open events face a terrible choice: don’t require vaccines, or do. No matter what choice they make, there is a section of the population that will be excluded:
- If you say vaccinations are required, those who have not been able to get the vaccine or choose not to will be excluded.
- If you do not require vaccinations, those that will only feel comfortable interacting with vaccinated individuals in close quarters will be excluded.
This conundrum exists regardless of what you believe. The purpose of this article is not to debate whether there are alternate ways of protecting people, etc. I have another article written by a physician for that. There is an entire Facebook group for organizers to get information on this. This article simply grapples with the reality that this is the choice. And, either way, the organizer is going to get hate mail and face conflict.
Some get in their personal inbox, calling them “fucking stupid” and other names. Some get negative ratings on their events. Some get persistent emailers who threaten lawsuits and other action based on laws that don’t exist. Some get sent multiple messages repeatedly despite requests to stop.
I’ve even gotten hate mail for my blogs (among the more colourful insults, being called a “Nazi genocidist communist” sticks out quite poignantly). One man began messaging my personal Facebook inbox with threats. Anonymous trolls posted hate-filled comments on the blog that needed to be combed through and deleted. Reasonable critiques and questions became hijacked by far-out theories and rants to a point that I wholesale deleted threads to stop it.
None of this is reasonable. Regardless of your views, you do not have a place at my event or in my community if this is how you treat organizers or others. And for my fellow vaccine-enthusiastic individuals, I maintain the same sentiment for those that choose to run a mixed event and even those that have been active throughout the pandemic: they should not be threatened, intimidated, or scared. This is inappropriate on a human level.
It’s not about you
One thing that people forget is that these policies are not about you; it is a decision the organizer is making regarding what they feel is the best approach for their event. No organizer wants to exclude anyone, but in this case, they have to pick. Those same organizers that have a view alternative to yours will likely be thrilled to finally host their event for everyone once this pandemic is behind us.
At the end of the day, the considerations of vaxxed-or-not are temporary. They will pass, and we will be able to have events once more without organizers worrying about that status – and the impacts of excluding one part of the population.
“So how do I show my personal unhappiness?”
Without cruelty. Without threats. Before you threaten to sue an organizer or tell them they’re a “fucking stupid bitch”, consider a little compassion.
There is nothing wrong with sending a message to an organization (not an individual) saying “Hey, I’m really disappointed that I can’t come to your event because of your vaccination policy. Here’s why.” If you hold a belief strongly enough, it’s also appropriate to “boycott” events that take an approach that you intrinsically disagree with. Your money and views are your own, and it’s up to you how much certain ideologies matter to you.
Remember: organizers do what they do because they love our community. They want it to be safe. They want attendees to be happy. Conflict is a nightmare scenario for many organizers, and those that choose to brave the frontier of being the first events back are bearing the brunt of it. Some organizers have a thicker skin, but many of the more compassionate ones don’t. The angry email that you pen is likely to go straight to their heart – but is unlikely to change the position they’re already committed to for this year.
“But I’m not going to be OK with those people again.”
I understand. For some people, the responses of certain people in the pandemic have broken a sense of human trust. I’ve seen this a lot in front-line health workers that have been told their lived experiences weren’t real; there’s a deep sense of betrayal in people that their community didn’t have their back.
I’m not here to tell you that you have to go back to how things were. Those choices are deeply personal. There may be people who are not able to treat me the same way as before because of my public positions. That’s their choice, and it’s not my place to tell them they must accept my views.
There is No License to Hurt
The hurt we feel is not a license to inflict our rage and pain on others. Many of us bear deep scars from this pandemic. Let’s not use them as an excuse. We have a responsibility to be humane in our interactions with others – even when we are hurting.
By all means, rant to your friends. Find your people. But, let’s stop short of threatening and intimidating each other as we navigate the difficult return to dance.
Good on you on the “belittle, insult, and attack” boundary. Even if someone thinks that following the COVID isolation rules is a net harm, they should realize that other people disagree and that there is a reasonable chance that they are following the rules in good faith.
Going one step further, one should not just stop making threats. It would be even better to not cast one’s own position as the enlightened one while feigning understanding for the opposite view by explaining it with their holders’ moral or intellectual shortcomings.
We are all biased. We are all “victims” of the information week seek out. We are all part of a bubble. Not hating others for holding different opinions is not good enough.
While vaccination ist partly about protecting others it is mostly about protecting oneself. And ever since I am vaccinated I will (with a careful look at current infection rates) happily dance with every considerate and cheerful dancer without prior inquiring about their vaccination status.
This whif of “judginess” is not what a diverse scene needs. It’s a bad example that will only further politicise and divide the scene. It used to be us dancers being above that. But then maybe it’s inevitable in our times. Maybe there can’t be holdovers from before everyone looked down on each other.
Your assumption seems to be that organizers must make the decision to join one camp or the other. Cater to the vaccinated or those declining. This is the fallacy of a false dilemma. Organizers can be neutral. You don’t have to dodge a bullet if you’re not in the line of fire. Hold the event as if it were New Year’s Eve 2019. If people choose to identify themselves as vaccinated/unvaccinated by wearing a color, a bracelet, or other identifier and avoid the unvaccinated let them work it out themselves. The key would be that people work out a system, not the organizer.
Where are the “My body, my choice” people when you need them? What happened to all the platitudes about inclusiveness and respect for others’ opinions? You can’t profess inclusiveness on Monday and then demand inoculation apartheid on Tuesday. Unvaccinated people are your friends, neighbors, and former dance partners. Increasingly I hear people sneering at them as anti-vaxers.
Regarding rude and vulgar people. No, they don’t have a license to be hurtful. Do you think social shunning is perfectly fine, and not hurtful? I don’t condone vulgarity, but I kind of see how someone might not take kindly to being excluded for coming to a different medical decision. Said another way; this ostracizing says I’m right, you’re wrong, you’re blacklisted, that’s the end of it. That’s pretty offensive too.
I’m vaccinated. But this decision does not have a one-size-fits-all answer. If you are 65, with a couple of co-morbidities, the risk/benefit analysis is entirely different than that of a healthy 25-year-old. Vaccine complications are inversely related to age, pregnant women shouldn’t take the vaccine, people allergic to the vaccine obviously shouldn’t take it, people taking certain drugs….the list goes on before you even get to the people that object to the more generalized fears. I made a decision that was best for me. The easiest thing in the world for me to do is respect the decision of others. I encourage tango organizers to do the same, and not embrace and dance with fear.
The binary is not choosing whether people should or should not be vaccinated; it’s that you must choose to either allow people of any vaccination status, or only vaccinated individuals.
And, if you’ve ever organized an event, you would know that people don’t just “work it out”. Dancers are not automatically honest. Not having a vaccine-only policy means that the event does not have a real management system.
Please read the article again. Organizers have a choice whether to run vaccination-only or mixed. That’s not a false dilemma. You simply feel that organizers should only run a mixed event. People absolutely have a right not to get vaccinated; those that are running an event have a right to organize in a way that feels safe to them. It’s not an “inoculation apartheid”; it is a temporary measure while in the midst of a pandemic as we are beginning to slowly return to dance.
The fact is, an at-risk person who is vaccinated also is “ostracized” (your words, not mine) if they cannot safely attend an event. So, they will likely attend events that do cater to their risk tolerance: aka Vaccine Only events.
At the end of the day, one can respect others opinions and still set boundaries for what is safe to them – including at an organizational level.