If someone tells you who they are, believe them.
This statement goes around on the internet occasionally, and despite being a bit trite and cliché I’ve come to recognize it as fundamentally sound.
So when anti-vaxxers rally outside hospitals, screaming abuse at workers and slowing ambulances, then they’re telling us exactly who they are… even when they’re claiming to be someone they aren’t.
Today and though in the week, the anti-vaxxers have planned another series of protests outside hospitals right across Canada. The first round, of course, included infamous scenes of anti-vaxxers spitting and coughing on counter-protesters; of ambulances being blocked and delayed; of cancer patients forced to run a gauntlet of unmasked and agitated protesters; and worst of all of front line health care workers being targeted by the mob.
A friend commented online that “Considering the response to the last round of hospital protests, you’d think they’d clue into why it’s a bad idea to repeat the process.” And they would… if they were protesting in good faith.
They aren’t. It isn’t that they have an honest point to make and just screwed up the optics through a tactical or strategic error; the bad press is the point. The anti-vaxxers have deliberately set out to be as offensive and obnoxious as possible because they knew that would drive headlines and outrage and spread their message further. And as I’ve written about the anti-vaxxers before (in fact, just a few days before the first round of hospital protests) they’re not doing this because the care about public health or civil rights; they’re doing it because it lets them be hateful bigots.
Nothing about protesting in front of hospitals makes me think that’s changed at all. In fact, I think their decision to protest at hospitals only reinforces my point.
Look; I’ve been an activist for more than twenty years. I’ve helped organize and participated in dozens of direct actions and demonstrations. So I’m going to play the bootmaker card here and argue from experience: If you’re trying to get a message across, then you pick actions that convey the message. How you go about protesting is just as important as what you’re protesting. Look at the outpouring of Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the police murder of George Floyd last year – there were huge peaceful street marches around the world, despite the pandemic. Millions of people took to the streets in a massive and dignified demonstration… which were ignored by the media in favour of reporting incidents of vandalism, some of which were of rather dubious origin.
And as an experienced activist, there’s only one conclusion that I can make about a “protest” that blocks ambulances and endangers patients and abuses exhausted nurses: The cruelty is the point.
They’re doing this partly because the far-right scumbags always love an excuse to indulge their cruelty and bigotry but mostly because they know it’s getting a reaction from the public. It’s like they’re little kids who’ve never learned the difference between good attention and bad attention, so they’re throwing a temper tantrum.
Let me be clear: the anti-vaxxers going after the sick and the elderly, going after exhausted health care workers, is the most abject cowardice I have ever seen. It is so far beyond the pale that I sometimes have trouble believing it’s really happening. It disgusts me. They disgust me. If ever I find that someone I know is supporting or attending these things, they’re out of my life. Period.
Cruelty and cowardice. That’s all these hospital protests are. And yeah, there’s no actual law against them… possibly because no one ever thought we’d need a law for such a basic standard of human decency. (But of course, if there’s one thing the last five years or so has taught us, there is no level of depravity to which some people will not sink if it gets their rocks off.)
The anti-vaxxers – co-opted by far-right bad actors – have been running around for almost eighteen months now, screaming about “freedom” and a “fake pandemic” and the authorities have treated them with remarkable, exasperating deference. And with every unopposed action, they’ve sunk to a new low.
That needs to stop.
And since it seems that the authorities are either unwilling or unable to counter these assholes, it’s up to us. If there’s one thing the pandemic has proven, it’s that community-organized mutual aid works. If anti-vaxxers represent the worst of us, then don’t forget that the pandemic has also brought out the best of us: from local “Caremongering” groups to the extraordinary volunteer efforts of Vaccine Hunters Canada to any number of local initiatives to help keep our neighbours fed and healthy.
We need to tap into that spirit again and oppose the cruelty of the anti-vaxxers.
The first and most important thing you can do is to get vaccinated. Period. If you’re hesitant, if you’re scared, if you’ve got a phobia of needles or have economic or transport barriers or for whatever reason you just haven’t been vaccinated, reach out. There are people who will gladly explain their experience. There are plenty of resources that show the real science, not just the lies being peddled by the anti-vaccination movement.
There are legitimate reasons why some might be hesitant be be vaccinated, especially people of colour and indigenous people whose communities have history of non-consensual medical experimentation; if that’s what’s holding you back I encourage you to contact your own community authorities and elders. There are real efforts being made in these spaces to address those concerns.
If you’re having trouble physically getting to a clinic reach out on social media; there are people who will give you a lift. Hell, there are clinics that will drive to you these days. If you haven’t been vaccinated because can’t get the time off work, reach out to the community; there are after-hours clinics. If you haven’t been vaccinated because you can’t afford to take time off if you have a rough reaction to the jab for a couple of days (my second jab knocked me on my ass for about 48 hours) you need to talk to your employer, talk to your community, maybe send a message to your MPP or MP. Don’t be silent. People want to help.
Only 69% of Canadians have received their full vaccinations as I write this, and that’s way too low. We need to get those numbers up to protect us all.
Second, we need to do is show our support for health care workers because they were on the ragged edge before the scumbags started calling them murderers and whatnot and a lot of them are out of gas.
Last year people were banging pots and pans and kids were making banners and signs in support of frontline workers and healthcare workers. We need to see that again. I know we’re all suffering an enormous amount of fatigue about the pandemic but we need to dig a bit deeper: If you’ve got family or friends in healthcare, touch base with them. Buy them a coffee or bake them a loaf of bread or send flowers. Let them know they’re appreciated and respected. Paint a banner, put up a sign. Doctors and nurses and paramedics and janitorial staff and all those who work in health care have given a supreme effort during this pandemic.
Make sure they know how profoundly grateful we are for their service and sacrifices.
The third thing we can do — what we must do — is to openly oppose the anti-vaxxers. The majority of people in this country do not approve of these hospital protests, but disapproval is not enough: they need to be countered. If that means going out to their hospital protests and physically preventing them from blocking entrances or ambulance bays, then so be it; I know that there will be a number of such counter-demonstrations today. If you’re double-vaxxed and physically able to do so, then I encourage you to mask up, go out and non-violently oppose the anti-vaxxers at street level. (I can’t emphasize the non-violent part enough: brawling in front of a hospital rather defeats the purpose of the counter-protest.) In fact, I’d encourage anyone counter-protesting the anti-vaxxers’ hospital protests not just to be non-violent, but to be silent as well.
I have a vision of walls of masked people outside hospitals silently staring the anti-vaxxer scumbags down.
If you can’t get out on the street to counter them (and right now I’m one of the people who genuinely can’t, despite weeks of physiotherapy) then there’s another way to directly oppose them. Confront those people in your life who are anti-vaxxers. Make it clear that their actions are not acceptable, and if they won’t change – and at this point they probably won’t – then give them the silent treatment. Make being anti-vaccination a socially isolating phenomenon.
Ostracism can an absolutely devastating punishment when a whole community gets behind it.
The anti-vaxxers standing outside hospitals today are selfish, entitled, deeply dishonest and viciously cruel. They have not had to suffer any real consequences for their cruelty, which has only encouraged them. We don’t want them out front of our hospitals. We don’t want them in our communities. We don’t want their lies, and we don’t want their hate.
It’s time to show them that actions have consequences.
