‘Black Panther’ star Letitia Wright under fire for anti-vax tweets

[Thaivisa Web Content Team 1,534]

Black Panther star Letitia Wright is facing backlash after sharing an anti-vaccine video on Twitter.

 

Posted by the YouTube talk show On The Table, the video is titled "COVID-19 VACCINE, SHOULD WE TAKE IT?"

 

The hour-long video raises unfounded concerns about the safety of vaccines and the contents of COVID-19 vaccines specifically.

 

It also includes some transphobic comments from host Tomi Arayomi, who is described as "an internationally received and recognised Prophet, Speaker, Author and Founder of RIG Nation, a media platform with the Christian mission."

 

After sharing the video on Thursday, Wright followed up with a tweet saying, "if you don’t conform to popular opinions. but ask questions and think for yourself....you get cancelled," followed by a cry-laughing emoji.

 

This opinion came as a shock to many of Wright's fans.

 

While she's widely recognized for playing Shuri in Black Panther (and more recently for her work in the acclaimed British drama Mangrove), she's not the kind of celebrity whose personal life and values are routinely covered in the press.

 

Her social media feeds mostly focus on her career and her Christian faith.

 

Last month she faced some criticism for liking tweets from anti-vax conspiracy theorists and Jackie Hill-Perry, a poet and rapper who identifies as "ex-lesbian" and says that God turned her straight.

 

But these mostly flew under the radar, because Wright's Twitter likes are not exactly front-page news.

 

Wright responded to the vaccine controversy by arguing with people on Twitter, saying that "qualified doctors" "got cancelled" and had their videos "taken down" for voicing doubts about vaccination.

 

She didn't go into specifics.

 

In reality, there's no meaningful pushback against vaccination in the mainstream medical community.

 

There's also no evidence that a COVID-19 vaccine will pose any danger to the public.

 

At the moment, there are several COVID-19 vaccines in various stages of testing and development, and that testing stage literally exists to make sure the vaccines are both efficient and safe.

 

The anti-vax movement is based on conspiracy theories and misinformation, and it's causing serious concerns during the pandemic, overlapping with the anti-mask movement.

 

It's surprising to see this kind of controversial commentary from a Marvel star, since most MCU actors have a PR-friendly presence on social media.

 

Anti-vax sentiments are the kind of hot-button topic that could potentially damage Wright's role in the franchise, especially considering her character's depiction as a scientific genius.

 

FULL ARTICLE

[Venom 734]

Differing scientific opinions are not allowed. 

[techietraveller84 133]

Anti-vax sympathies for the COVID vaccine are quite strong right now, especially in the African American community. I was surprised this made it out of the newsroom:

 

"A study released by the COVID Collaborative, the NAACP and UnidosUS found that only 14% of Black Americans trust that a vaccine will be safe and 18% trust it will be effective.

 

Latino Americans, however, were more optimistic with 34% saying they trust the vaccine will be safe and 40% believing it will be effective."

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/us/vaccine-distrust-black-and-latino-americans/index.html

[JCauto 2,031]

2 hours ago, Venom said:

Differing scientific opinions are not allowed. 

On the contrary, they're welcomed - however they must pass muster in terms of science. This means being properly documented and replicable. Then you as an aspiring scientist can boldly take your hypothesis forward and present it to the wider scientific community for peer review. 

Or of course you could just throw all that out the window because "deep state" or some other line of spurious BS, and chase after loony fringe theories of which there will be an unlimited supply related to the demand of folks like you. Ever wonder why these theories aren't published in proper scientific journals? Either they were submitted and summarily rejected due to their lack of integrity or errors in the work or analysis, and then the hapless scientist who got rejected published it anyway where desperate contrarians looking to justify their own unfounded opinions found it and proclaimed it gospel. If it were credible, they'd publish it in a credible journal. They're not, they aren't. 

[chilli42 2,021]

There is plenty of debate in the scientific and medical communities regarding the safety of these vaccines backed by as much scientific evidence as those that are saying it’s safe.  Is it any surprise that this has bubbled over to the general public?  Past behaviors have eroded trust  institutions across the world .... governments and business in particular.  Is it any surprise that people question the truthfulness and motivations of these institutions?  I am not advocating for anti-vaccine.  However, if you don’t question these institutions and the media reports and seek your own truth then you are at the mercy of those who don’t have your best interests at heart.  So maybe she is right or wrong.  In my view it’s not a bad thing to question, if it gets people off their backsides being spoon fed by the media and PR, to seek the truth for themselves.

[Katipo 5,178]

3 hours ago, Venom said:

Differing scientific opinions are not allowed. 

 

Differing scientific opinions are the foundation of progress. The problem is when the differing opinions are not based on science, as is highlighted in the article.

 

[SheungWan 8,254]

33 minutes ago, chilli42 said:

There is plenty of debate in the scientific and medical communities regarding the safety of these vaccines backed by as much scientific evidence as those that are saying it’s safe.  Is it any surprise that this has bubbled over to the general public?  Past behaviors have eroded trust  institutions across the world .... governments and business in particular.  Is it any surprise that people question the truthfulness and motivations of these institutions?  I am not advocating for anti-vaccine.  However, if you don’t question these institutions and the media reports and seek your own truth then you are at the mercy of those who don’t have your best interests at heart.  So maybe she is right or wrong.  In my view it’s not a bad thing to question, if it gets people off their backsides being spoon fed by the media and PR, to seek the truth for themselves.

Bogus non-scientific assertions don't "bubble" over from recognised scientific institutions, but are instead are prognostications from the loop-de- loop fringe conspiracy crowd. 

[skytrooper70 90]

Hmmm....so, it appears that someone else is practicing medicine, under the name, "Dr. Google."

[ncc1701d 478]

3 hours ago, JCauto said:

On the contrary, they're welcomed - however they must pass muster in terms of science. This means being properly documented and replicable. Then you as an aspiring scientist can boldly take your hypothesis forward and present it to the wider scientific community for peer review. 

Or of course you could just throw all that out the window because "deep state" or some other line of spurious BS, and chase after loony fringe theories of which there will be an unlimited supply related to the demand of folks like you. Ever wonder why these theories aren't published in proper scientific journals? Either they were submitted and summarily rejected due to their lack of integrity or errors in the work or analysis, and then the hapless scientist who got rejected published it anyway where desperate contrarians looking to justify their own unfounded opinions found it and proclaimed it gospel. If it were credible, they'd publish it in a credible journal. They're not, they aren't. 

It's a shame I can only like a post once. Because this is excellent.

 

As for her video - someone who plays some sort of scientific genius in a movie is in fact the complete opposite irl. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by ncc1701d

[JCauto 2,031]

3 hours ago, chilli42 said:

There is plenty of debate in the scientific and medical communities regarding the safety of these vaccines backed by as much scientific evidence as those that are saying it’s safe.  Is it any surprise that this has bubbled over to the general public?  Past behaviors have eroded trust  institutions across the world .... governments and business in particular.  Is it any surprise that people question the truthfulness and motivations of these institutions?  I am not advocating for anti-vaccine.  However, if you don’t question these institutions and the media reports and seek your own truth then you are at the mercy of those who don’t have your best interests at heart.  So maybe she is right or wrong.  In my view it’s not a bad thing to question, if it gets people off their backsides being spoon fed by the media and PR, to seek the truth for themselves.

No, there's not. This is a lie. You have no basis for your first statement, you made it up out of whole cloth. This is what we call a "false equivalency". 

Past behaviours that erode trust in political and business institutions have no bearing upon scientific institutions (unless they're specifically caught in a scandal, a very rare event indeed and usually something not many people outside of the scientific community are aware of or care about). In very few cases does one find the scientists though in charge of political and business institutions, hence their concerns often are swept under the rug in the urge to proclaim the virus defeated or hydrochloroquine a cure. You will note that the only ones making those sorts of statements were politicians, businessmen or quacks. Do you "seek your own truth" when you decide to build a house or defend yourself in court? If you do, you're either a civil engineer/lawyer or you're going to make a mess/have a fool for a client. That you believe you could come up with some sort of knowledge or understanding that epidemiologists, virologists and public health experts who have risen to the top of their field after toiling for years tells me you know very little about expertise or science. The "question the truthfulness and motivations" nonsense is straight out of the COVIDiot/anti-vaxxer playbook; the purpose is not to legitimately question the scientist, it's to throw doubt upon science itself so that those who don't understand it have their opinions placed at the same level as those who do. I don't know what you do, but I would never claim to somehow know more about it than you do no matter how many youtube videos I might watch (assuming you're not a civil engineer as I am).

 

Lastly, ask yourself - if these people questioning the overwhelming consensus of the experts were correct, why aren't they publishing their results in reputable journals where their work would be carefully peer-reviewed, assessed, questioned and then either accepted or rejected (with reasons). If they are correct, and demonstrate it, they're immediately at the top of their profession and richer than Croesus; and not only that, they have managed to stick their thumbs in the eye of the institutions they disparage. But of course, they never do. Because they never have anything truly novel other than a new line of seductive BS that has just enough truthiness to convince those like yourself who are "questioning the truthfulness" but collapses upon even rudimentary scrutiny. 

[Scott Tracy 691]

9 hours ago, Venom said:

Differing scientific opinions are not allowed. 

 

So she's a scientist now?

[Scott Tracy 691]

6 hours ago, chilli42 said:

There is plenty of debate in the scientific and medical communities regarding the safety of these vaccines backed by as much scientific evidence as those that are saying it’s safe.  

 

Where can I find such assertions and the corroborating evidence? I love to peruse it.

[chilli42 2,021]

38 minutes ago, Scott Tracy said:

 

Where can I find such assertions and the corroborating evidence? I love to peruse it.

If it matters to you, stir yourself to find them.  I’m not your librarian.

[Peter Denis 6,597]

56 minutes ago, Scott Tracy said:

Where can I find such assertions and the corroborating evidence? I love to peruse it.

This forum is not the place to discuss these issues, or provide links to material that does not follow the common narrative.  There is a reason that those who can contribute to a civil and interesting discussion on the matter, refrain from posting...

[Venom 734]

2 hours ago, Scott Tracy said:

 

So she's a scientist now?

No she posted a video opposing the narrative, it's been banned and she's been ostracized so hopefully she learned her lesson and won't do it again.