Dear President Joe Biden:
Give Americans a tangible reason to trust you.
We have seen the toll that the coronavirus pandemic has taken on rural and Black communities.
We have seen vaccine skepticism from across various communities that cannot afford to be skeptical of vaccines due to lack of healthcare.
We have seen my governor, Mike Parson, fail to address the pandemic in Missouri with seriousness only to lead the country in Delta cases.
We watched as the St. Louis County Council rescinded a mask mandate as a white supremacist antivax and anti-mask mob took over the County Governor Building making threats of an insurrection and hanging of our elected leaders.
We watched as over half a million victims died due to COVID-19 including the family members of my peers and I.
I am uncertain of how we can fight misinformation when so many people, including elected officials, are dedicated to other narratives that are not backed by neither evidence nor logic. However, I do believe regaining the trust of various communities will be a key part of this. After all, many of us are disillusioned by the government, including myself.
I encourage vaccination and masking myself, but regardless of what the writers at CNN may say, partaking in panels that encourage Black people to vaccinate is not enough if your policies have not sought to financially uplift poor and working-class black people or demilitarized the police in Black communities.
We need you to continue to use your platform to represent the concerns of poor and working-class Black people even if it means applying pressure to those in your own party. After all, many Black people fought and organized to ensure that you became president.
Needless to say, betraying Black voters will not win you or your political allies support, and Black leaders are not afraid to express such concerns. This should not be taken lightly.
You cannot expect more Black people, or any poor or working class Americans for that matter, to trust you regarding vaccination without giving us an incentive to trust you.
Unfortunately, we have seen the Senate recently support an amendment formed by my seditionist senator Josh Hawley which aims to further militarize marginalized communities. This has the very bipartisan support that you often tout as a good thing. However, bipartisan support has very rarely been used for the tangible good of marginalized people. As a matter of fact, bipartisonship has been used to silence grassroots movements.
And no, Juneteenth does not count as tangible.
If you want to encourage vaccination while also building trust, try the following proposal: institute a monthly basic income to all citizens who get up-to-date vaccinations.
Not only is this a fairer incentive than those that solely award vaccine skeptics with a cash amount for getting vaccinated but it gives citizens a direct sense of trust from the government.
Because some still feel as if COVID-19 is distant, providing them with more tangible incentive could be the encouragement we need in this pandemic. Furthermore, this could ensure that in the future citizens have an incentive to continue getting vaccinated in the future.
It is time for our country to directly invest in all citizens on a consistent basis. This would be an obvious way to win over American citizens.
Martin Luther King Jr., himself, had an economic dream to eradicate poverty by instituting a federally guaranteed basic income. Furthermore, we saw how popular the stimulus checks were across the political spectrum. Why don’t we take these a step further and institute a basic income that can eradicate disease and poverty?
Truly,
Malik Lendell
