I think there’s a line between empathizing and excusing, though. Understanding why someone feels a certain way doesn’t mean you have to give credit to those reasons, which the above article does.

I think that it’s difficult to consume articles like this, even if the goal is empathy. At best, this is one viewpoint among many, and at worst, it’s a borderline straw man hypothetical. Particularly with the assumptions the article makes (like when it asserts that the reader is white…)

There probably are people whose vaccine hesitancy follow the exact steps laid out in this article, but they are certainly not everyone. The first set of events which the author present as undermining mainstream authority are a lot newer than vaccine hesitancy writ large, which has been steadily increasing through various avenues on the social internet. I try my best to understand, because it’s been clear for a while that yelling doesn’t help, but I don’t think this article does a good job of fostering understanding, it seems more interested in yelling just in the other direction