Rep. Summer Lee Presses RFK Jr. About Black Maternal Health

Supply:

At this level, Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should hate to see a Black congresswoman coming when it’s time for him to defend statements he has made about Black well being, or his insurance policies that look like geared toward ignoring racial disparities in healthcare.

Earlier this month, we reported that RFK was grilled by Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) throughout a Home Methods and Means Committee listening to over remarks he made throughout a podcast interview, wherein he steered that “each Black child” has been placed on ADHD remedy as a typical — even though, statistically, the alternative is true — and that they need to be “re-parented” if their patents allowed these meds to be prescribed. RFK, in fact, denied saying it, however see, the issue with podcasts is that they’re recorded.

Anyway, final week, RFK was confronted by one other Black congresswoman, Rep. Summer time Lee (D-Pa.), over the Trump administration’s assaults on Black maternal well being analysis, community-based maternal well being applications, range, fairness, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives in healthcare, and his statements about taking Black youngsters out of their properties based mostly on racist nonsense he made up.

“That is ‘Black maternal well being week,’ so I’ll begin there,” Lee started. “Secretary Kennedy, I’m certain you’re conscious that Black girls are no less than thrice extra prone to die from pregnancy-related causes than white girls. The overwhelming majority of those deaths are preventable. Black girls in my district usually tend to die throughout being pregnant than their friends in 97% of U.S. cities.

“Your written testimony talked about maternity and baby well being 4 instances, however, from what I’ve seen, the NIH canceled grants researching Black maternal well being,” she continued, earlier than questioning him about how the Trump administration’s 2027 finances proposes to remove applications like Wholesome Begin, which she described as “one of many federal authorities’s major community-based maternal well being applications.” Lee additionally grilled Kennedy about HHS making it a precedence to finish no matter it’s that he considers DEI.

“If a medical college educates college students about addressing the Black maternal mortality disaster, would you think about that an unlawful DEI?” Lee requested Kennedy, to which he responded, “No.”

Final yr, the Trump administration lower funding for Black toddler well being analysis, regardless of the info that exhibits toddler mortality charges within the U.S. are disproportionately excessive amongst Black infants, and that Black and Latino infants are extra weak than their white counterparts to critical, life-threatening diseases equivalent to higher respiratory an infection (URI). Later that very same month, a federal decide dominated that the administration’s cuts to NIH funding have been unlawful after New York Legal professional Common Letitia James joined a coalition of 15 different attorneys common in suing the administration.

Lee instructed RFK — in a barely sarcastic tone — that she was delighted to listen to that he didn’t assume analysis on Black maternal well being disparities constituted unlawful DEI, and urged him to induce the Trump administration to cease threatening to defund establishments that interact in such analysis.

Later, she moved on to the administration’s obvious concern of the very phrase “Black.”

“Your company instructed applications to take away a listing of practically 200 phrases and phrases from their funding purposes, together with the phrase ‘Black,’” Lee identified to Kennedy throughout a Home Committee on Training and Workforce listening to titled Analyzing the Insurance policies and Priorities of the Division of Well being and Human Providers. “Do you could have an concept of how we might remedy the Black maternal mortality disaster if we are able to’t say ‘Black’?”

RFK, predictably, didn’t reply Lee’s very simple query and determined to reply a unique query that no person requested.

“President Trump is making an attempt to finish division on this nation. That’s what DEI did; it divided folks. It polarized folks,” he mentioned.

To begin with, simply because white conservatives get irrationally offended each time systemic racial disparities of any variety are introduced up, and applications are carried out which might be geared toward correcting these disparities, doesn’t imply the nation is being “divided” or “polarized.” It simply means folks in positions to impact change are prioritizing progress over white folks’s fragile emotions.

However extra to the purpose, RFK is partaking in racist gaslighting right here. Throughout his testimony, he acknowledged at a number of factors that the disparities in Black maternal well being are actual, and he even answered “no” when requested if analysis devoted to these disparities can be thought of unlawful DEI. So, why is he citing DEI when requested about why the phrase “Black” has been flagged on funding purposes?

“Do you assume the federal authorities must be paying for DEI,” Kennedy requested after Lee reiterated her concern that efforts have been being made to remove analysis centered on Black well being.

“I believe the federal authorities has a vested curiosity in making certain that residents survive childbirth,” Lee responded, to which RFK replied by claiming, “We’re assembly that obligation.”

“We’re not,” Lee shot again.

Lee continued to press Kennedy about how his insurance policies would particularly assist Black sufferers, to which he responded by sidestepping the query and telling her about how his insurance policies embrace “Blacks and whites.”

So, he did all that gaslighting simply to run with an “all lives matter” strategy to explaining why his administration is one of the best administration to handle the U.S. well being disaster.

That is nearly as good a time as any to remind those who RFK Jr. as soon as argued that Black folks don’t want white folks’s vaccine schedule as a result of we by some means have higher immune programs, which, as I wrote on the time, is “a name again to traditional white supremacist medical racism — the narrative that Black persons are naturally extra resilient and, subsequently, much less in want of correct care.”

It’s additionally nearly as good a time as any to remind you that RFK, the nation’s high well being authority, as soon as instructed folks flat-out that they need to not take medical recommendation from him — and all the pieces he has finished in workplace since he was appointed has confirmed that to be his most sincere assertion to this point.