Make America Learn History Again: California and The Bubonic Plague

It's real history, told by the All American Man in my inbox and me.

I’m not an anti vaxxer. Let’s get that out of the way before we begin this one.

When I think of anti vaxxers, I think of loud white Republicans screaming about how they don’t want their Covid vaccine. It’s easy to write off all anti vaccine sentiments as being the behavior of unintelligent enraged assholes, but, historically there’s been more legitimate reasons for a fear of vaccines.

Johnny joins me as I dive into this story.

Trust me, you don’t want to read his whole nonsensical spiel.

Scientists eventually discovered the plague was not inherent to Chinese people after all. In fact, the fleas on the diseased rats were Northern European rat fleas. That didn’t stop racists from continuing to blame the problem on Chinese immigrants and continuing to mistreat them.

If you want to learn more about the plague in San Francisco I suggest, this episode from the Science History Institute podcast, and Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David K Randall.