Papa Roger and the virtue of vaccine-shaming

After the NFL became a bastion of gridiron “wokeness,” I basically stopped paying attention. If you ask me, I couldn’t tell you who won the Super Bowl this year, although I am assuming it was the team that Tom Brady now leads (the team known as “Not the Patriots”) since everyone was talking about his anti-Trump jokes at the White House this week. The only time Tom Brady goes to D.C. is when he’s gloating over a championship win.

But I have to say that my interest was piqued by a news item this week involving football, or rather, involving the people who don’t know how to throw a ball or run a pattern but who are expert in throwing shade and running amok. In other words, the suits in the front office.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced a draconian system of repercussions and penalties for players who refuse to get vaccinated. He didn’t mandate that the players get the shot. What he did was basically make it financially impossible for players not to get the vaccine.

Pursuant to Goodell’s memo a/k/a fiat, if a game is postponed and can’t be rescheduled because some unvaccinated players on one team’s roster cause a COVID outbreak, that team will forfeit the game and neither team will get paid that week. In other words, it’s like when the teacher says, “If the person who put gum on my seat doesn’t own up, the whole class is going to have a detention.” It’s guilt by association, and reminds me of the fact that, increasingly, athletics has less to do with sports than with virtue signaling (remember those stupid pink cleats to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month, taking a knee a la Kaepernick and forcing the Redskins to abandon their name?). Additionally, Papa Roger has decreed that the team responsible for the outbreak has to shoulder all of the financial losses, and might also face non-monetary discipline.

This is just the latest example of vaccine-shaming. I understand that we want to create herd immunity, and that it is advisable to get inoculated. As soon as I became eligible, I had both shots of the Moderna vaccine, and I am urging all of my friends and family members to do the same. For me, it’s a no-brainer, and while I know that some folks have legitimate questions about the impact the vaccine might have on certain vulnerable populations, I made the choice to trust the science.

(To those who think that the science on vaccines is unreliable, I have no problem if you came to that conclusion after doing research and studying legitimate sources. I don’t want to hear from you if your point of reference is some stranger on Twitter, or that mouthy guy who happens to share your political philosophy.)

But this isn’t about the efficacy of the vaccines. It’s about punishing people who make the decision that they do not want the government telling them what to put into their bodies. And now, even football has gotten into the act by making innocent parties liable for the medical decisions of their gridiron opponents. It’s frightening, because it’s an example of how, incrementally, society has decided to use shame as a motivator.

And what an extreme irony. Usually, progressives and the type of people who talk about the “common good” are loathe to make moral judgments about those who don’t follow societal norms. But if you decide that you do not want your child to be vaccinated, particularly where there is flimsy evidence that even the delta variant will cause serious illness or infection in those under the age of 16, you have less teeth than toes and likely married your sister. You are also evil.

And somehow, you are white, conservative and likely belong to the GOP. I find that last part to be interesting, because of my personal acquaintance with numerous people of color who do not want the vaccine. They remember the Tuskeegee experiments where Black men were treated as guinea pigs, given placebos instead of being treated for syphilis, and the government kept the secret for many years.

My point is that taking a vaccine, or not, should never become a referendum on our patriotism, our humanity or our concern for our children. And it sure as heck shouldn’t be a way to teach football players a lesson.

I got the vaccine. I hope you get the vaccine. But to me, an unvaccinated citizen is a lot less troubling than a society that uses intimidation and threats in its quest to serve the common good.