“Why are you talking to them?” Hank Millbourne remembers friends saying to him during the 1980s gay scene in Detroit about other gay men. “They have the package.”
Millbourne had only a passing idea of what the “package” was, but he was quickly taught the alleged telltale signs of it: darkened fingernails from using AZT, then the only approved treatment for HIV. In Black Americans, it had the odd side effect of turning some people’s fingernails dark black.
Unconscious bias in medical care and a history of experimentation and exploitation of Blacks for medical knowledge has left many in the Black community questioning everything about the vaccines — from the racial demographics of who has been inoculated already, to whether people of color were studied in the safety and efficacy trials and whether the vaccines even work. State officials hope to ease those concerns and erase racial disparities in COVID vaccination rates.
Crank the speakers in your Uber and get ready as Lisha & Jules cover Lisha’s favorite movie (yes, again, it’s a whole thing), Carlos López Estrada’s 2018 feature length directorial debut, Blindspotting!