The Washington, D.C. mayor who painted "Black Lives Matter" on a street leading up to the White House is now implementing a vaccine requirement that will disproportionately impact black lives in her city.
The mandate — covered by Townhall here — applies to most businesses in the District and will eventually include students at all schools in Washington, including charter, private and parochial schools. A quick check of Washington's Wuhan coronavirus data shows that Bowser's requirement will disproportionately limit the ability of her city's black residents to go out to dinner, enter stores, or even attend school.
Data accessed Thursday on Washington's vaccine dashboard shows that the city has administered more than 1.2 million doses of Wuhan coronavirus vaccines, amounting to an estimate that 66.1 percent of D.C. residents are fully vaccinated.
Broken down by race, the vaccine dashboard shows that 50.9 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander residents are fully vaccinated and 43.4 percent of white residents have received full vaccination but just 39.4 percent of black residents are fully vaccinated. That means, thanks to Mayor Bowser's vaccine requirement, more than half of black residents of her city will soon be unable to eat in a restaurant, sit in a coffee shop, go to a movie theater, work out in a gym, or partake in many other activities — unless they get fully vaccinated.
The Democrats’ new vaccine mandate in D.C. would ban up to 53.6% of D.C.’s Black residents from restaurants, gyms, entertainment facilities, and other indoor venues.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 22, 2021
Joe Biden supports this. pic.twitter.com/sIa7iuifpx
Black students, though, are even more disproportionately impacted when compared to their 5-11 year-old peers of other races. With 14 percent of white children fully vaccinated and 13 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander children fully vaccinated, just 3 percent of black children are.
In March, when Bowser's vaccine mandate for students takes effect, 97 percent of black students aged 5 to 11 won't be able to go to school unless they are vaccinated before then. Older students are vaccinated across all races at a higher percentage, but black students still lag by at least ten points behind their white or Asian/Pacific Islander peers.
As if Washington's school-aged population hadn't taken enough of a hit to their education and formative years due to remote learning, lockdowns, and other COVID policies implemented by Bowser, she's now making vaccination a prerequisite to learning and being an active resident in her city.
As has been happening for some time now, Democrat leaders such as Bowser have worked to divide residents into two groups: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Those in the former group have been, temporarily in DC's case, able to enjoy more freedom than the latter. Now, Bowser is making the division more clear-cut than ever before in her policies addressing the Wuhan coronavirus. In her newest edict, the group with less freedom than other Washingtonians is overwhelmingly populated with black residents.
The RNC's Paris Dennard blasted Bowser's "clearly discriminatory vaccine mandates" in a statement to Fox News, noting the disproportionate impact the requirement will have on black residents of the nation's capital.
"Democrats like Mayor Bowser and President Biden should be ashamed of themselves and their clearly discriminatory vaccine mandates that disproportionately penalize hardworking Black Americans who have the freedom to decide what is best for themselves...”- @PARISDENNARD
— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) December 23, 2021