Hoffman describes the area around Greenville as "rural, overwhelmingly Republican, deeply Christian, 95 percent white." The article uses a framing in keeping with the standard forays-into-the-hinterland in the mainstream press:
But a week here in Greene County reveals a more nuanced, layered hesitancy than surveys suggest. People say that politics isn’t the leading driver of their vaccine attitudes. The most common reason for their apprehension is fear — that the vaccine was developed in haste, that long-term side effects are unknown. Their decisions are also entangled in a web of views about bodily autonomy, science and authority, plus a powerful regional, somewhat romanticized self-image: We don’t like outsiders messing in our business.Hoffman elaborates this description with a quote from a Walt Cross, who despite the piece's respectful description of him comes off as kind of a small-town huckster type. "In Appalachia, Mr. Cross explained, the fervor with which people sidestep the vaccine is ratcheted up by history and tradition. For centuries, Scots-Irish settlers tucked into the mountains to evade army conscription and tax collectors."
Good God, are Yankee reporters really this gullible? A bit of a reality check here. The city of Ashville, North Carolina, a city famous for its "alternative" vibe and a regional cultural center, is 57 miles away, not quite an hour and a half drive on a state highway through the mountains. Knoxville TN at 70 miles distant is a bit closer but a somewhat quicker drive on interstate highways. I've visited more than once in this region, including Knoxville and Ashville. I don't recall if I was even in Greenville, but I've driven through numerous small towns in this area and all across Tennessee. There are visibly poor areas in the Greenville vicinity.
But Greenville is also not a stereotypical "inbred hillbilly settlement," - triracial isolates, as anthropologists call them - who spend all their time hiding in the mountains watchin' out for the revenooers. It's a nice image for a Neil Young folk song, like the one performed here by Margo Timmins, Cowboy Junkies "Powderfinger" (Neil Young & Crazy Horse Cover) Latent Uncovers 088/23/2017:
But let's get real. Wiothout even leaving town, people in Greenville have access to TV, radio, and this newfangled Internet thang with the YouTubes and streaming services and whatnot. Some of them surely have attended concerts in Ashville with gray-haired hippies, or shopped at the same Knoxville shopping malls as scientists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And this is the problem with too many of the pop-anthropology-toned major media reports from Trump Country. The stories tend to treat their subjects as inscrutable creatures from exotic cultures whose comments need to be reported uncritically. When really their subjects can pull claims and arguments from FOX News or One America News or QAnon, just like Republican politicians across the country do.
My father worked as a sanitarian for the Mississippi State Health Department in two rural counties in the years after the Second World War. Not a lot of TVs around there then, and the general education level was pretty low in national comparison. ARPANET, the baby version of the Internet, didn't come along until 1969. From his stories of that time, including checking on reports of deadly infectious diseases showing up, I know that people in rural areas can be poorly informed on public health issues.
But this Times article's general approach is really lacking in how it describes a 2021 version of that. It focuses on how religious communities communicate ideas and attitudes about COVID measures and vaccines. But there is no mention of a very important reason why people in and around a small city in a rural area may be putting excessive reliance on what their church communities and personal networks have to say about a once-in-a-century pandemic: Many of them have had restricted access to health care in their lives, and still do. That has to do with inadequate health insurance, or total lack thereof, and to rural shortages of doctors and medical facilities.
Less affluent people not being able to afford decent health insurance is something of which the Tennessee Republican Party approves, by the way. Thsi story from the Nashville Tennesseean Tennessee Republicans open to Medicaid expansion talks as Biden sweetens deal 03/23/20201 treats it as newsworthy that a senior state Republican isn't dismissing a new Biden proposal outright: "it signals a rare crack in a near-insurmountable opposition that has kept Medicaid expansion out of Tennessee." (my emphasis)
How access to accurate information from trained medical personal can make a real difference is illustrated, though, near the end of the article where she writes about a Green physician, Daniel Lewis, who himself survived a severe symptomatic case of COVID-19:
When he left the hospital, 34 pounds thinner, weak and wobbly, he and his wife, devout Baptists, struggled to figure out God’s purpose behind the ordeal.This is actually a good example of how people who have some level of trust with someone else can respectfully counter disinformation with good information, practical advice, and a bit of humanity. This kind of conversation at least provides people a glimpse of how they might organize the information about the pandemic and related conspiracy theories in a more reality-based way. And one that at least opens up a path for them to take responsible decisions based on actual information, not just what they hear from some faith-healer or QAnon conspiracist.
Patients kept telling him, “I didn’t take Covid seriously until you got sick.”
So Dr. Lewis began using that hard-earned credibility to speak about the vaccine, visiting nursing homes, addressing churches, making videos. He honed his pitch to meet every pushback, from faux-scientific to conspiratorial to spiritual.
Although many Appalachians used to resist seeing the doctor, family medicine practitioners like Dr. Lewis are becoming trusted figures. But discussing vaccines with patients takes time, which many doctors can’t afford, and an established relationship, which many poor patients don’t have.
Dr. Lewis gives a soft sell that sometimes works. A patient will say, “So are you going to give me the vaccinenow?”
He has to respond, “I don’t have it here.” The patient shuts down. “Then I’m not going to take it.”
Could Dr. Lewis persuade the Fletchers to get the vaccine? ...
Dr. Lewis patiently addressed the Fletchers’ questions, delineating between what researchers do and don’t yetknow.
“How can we be sure there are no chips in the vaccine, like the things you put in your dog?” Mr. Fletcher asked.
“We can’t make microchips that small,” Dr. Lewis countered.
“Well, it’s like a grain of rice,” said Mr. Fletcher.
“I couldn’t inject a grain of rice with a needle,” Dr. Lewis said.
Dr. Lewis held up his smartphone. If you’re worried about being tracked, he said, all the technology is right here, in the very thing you pick up every day. Every hour.
The Fletchers looked abashed.
“It’s your decision,” Dr. Lewis said gently. “I just want you to be able to make an informed decision and I want todo the best I can to help you.”
Mr. Fletcher replied, “Well, we have to spend some time in discussion.”
Later, Dr. Lewis was optimistic: “I think I can eventually persuade them.” [my emphasis]
Hoffman's story links to or mentions several churches whose members she interviews. I've identified what seems to be their denominational affiliations here
- Tusculum Baptist: Southern Baptist
- Old Fashion Gospel House (no further information found)
- Free Will Baptists (individual church not specified): a small Baptist trend with various denominational groups and independent churches
- Seventh Day Adventist Church, individual church not specified (Walt Cross's church)
- West Hills Baptist Church: Southern Baptist
No comments:
Post a Comment