Even 'Turning Texas Blue' Won't Fix Us If We Don't Face Some Hard Truths
“This is like the Hunger Games!” some version of this exclamation, often peppered with curse words and red-faced anger emojis, was a common refrain in a now-defunct volunteer Slack group I spent a few hours in each week this spring, working alongside tech types trying to #disrupt a broken COVID-19 vaccine-distribution system. The group saw tens of thousands of people come through searching for their shots, monitoring the platform’s auto-updated appointment trackers, and seeking assistance from dozens of volunteer schedulers who navigated public and private systems to find vaccines for people with low computer literacy or unreliable internet access.
Of course, it shouldn’t be this hard to get a lifesaving vaccine. For anyone. But this pandemic year, combined with our Texas deep freeze in February, has laid bare an awful truth that many of us have never had to face in a real and present way: There are some services and resources—essential services and resources—that we’re generally OK with making hard or even impossible to get, depending on who is needing them. Many express surprise about the failures of “our” pandemic year, yet the crises haven’t hit all of us the same way. Our systems are not designed to distribute the burdens of death, destruction, and disenfranchisement equally, and for a lot of Texans, these frustrations aren’t new.
If you’ve ever tried to get an abortion in Texas or had to sign your family up for food stamps or Medicaid, you may be less surprised by how hard it has been to get a vaccine. You may be less inclined to wonder how state leaders could have designed a built-to-fail power grid, left people to freeze to death on the streets in single-digit weather, or forced service workers to choose between a paycheck and bringing the coronavirus home to their families.
It seems that Texans ought to have lost our capacity to be shocked and outraged by the way the people in charge, men mostly, have with every interminable day of this nightmare year become more and more outrageous parodies of themselves. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick suggests grandparents sacrifice themselves to COVID-19 (politician, avail thyself!). Senator Ted Cruz helps incite a white supremacist insurrection in Washington, D.C., then flies to Cancún during a deadly deep freeze in his home state and blames the asinine decision on his daughters. Governor Greg Abbott announces that he has bravely freed us from the grip of face-mask oppression at a Lubbock restaurant that … continues to require masks.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/editorial-even-turning-texas-blue-wont-fix-us-if-we-dont-face-some-hard-truths/
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