After nearly a year of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it has been well established that the people most at risk of dying from the novel virus are the elderly. Thus, it came as quite a surprise when the initial (and now scuttled) plan for administering the newly developed COVID-19 vaccine did not have elderly Americans at the front of the line. Instead, it was healthcare workers. While they arguably have a higher chance of contracting the virus due to the nature of their jobs, they also largely make up a lower-risk population.

When the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was questioned on the rationale behind the vaccination prioritization, it was exposed that racism — actual racism arising from the Left’s Critical Race Theory logic — played a significant role in the decision.

As reported by The Washington Free Beacon, “The committee openly acknowledged that its initial plan would result in more deaths than ‘vaccinating older adults first.’ But, the panel said, the plan would reduce racial disparities — something they deemed more important than saving lives — because essential workers, unlike adults over 65, are disproportionately black and Hispanic, the two groups that have borne the brunt of the pandemic.”

So it’s okay if grandma dies from COVID before getting the vaccine because, statistically, she’s most likely white and therefore her death serves to “level the playing field.” That’s what Dr. Harald Schmidt, an ethics and health professor at the University of Pennsylvania, essentially implied in a recent New York Times article. “Older populations are whiter. Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

Underscoring this racist mindset was one member of the 11-person committee that helped craft the ethical framework for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That would be “health equity” consultant Dayna Bowen Matthew, who also serves as dean of George Washington University Law School. Matthew perfectly parrots the CRT narrative of “systemic racism,” as she argued that racial inequity “requires us to prioritize by race.” Requires?

The Federalist’s David Marcus insightfully observes, “Nothing, it seems, is more important than protecting the lives of the oldest among us, except for fighting racism. The great irony of course is that the lockdowns themselves have disproportionately destroyed minority-owned businesses. Yet, for the Marxists on the radical left, this doesn’t matter. They don’t fight racism by giving people tools to lift themselves up, they purport to do it by making people dependent on the state.”

And that is really what this is all about — working to garner greater controlling power for the government. Declare a problem where none really exists, i.e. systemic racism, find it in everything from education to vaccines, and then push “solutions” that invariably require more government infringement on Americans’ individual rights and freedoms.

Can’t we just fight a global pandemic with a vaccine that’s quickly distributed to everyone? Not without a political fight.