Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has proclaimed racism is a “public health crisis” that plays out in “microaggressions” and the “forms of violence” Black Americans face when “jogging in neighborhoods,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.
On Monday, Brown introduced “a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis.” The measure calls for “a nationwide strategy to address health disparities and inequities across all sectors in society.”
Sherrod Brown Wants To Declare Racism a 'Public Health Crisis'https://t.co/Y3eBOGCngZ
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 12, 2024
Oddly enough, the resolution fails to provide strategies for “dismantling systemic practices and policies that perpetuate racism.” Instead, it calls for “governments to engage significant resources to empower the communities that are impacted.”
Racism as a health crisis is a pet project of Brown’s, one of the Senate’s most die-hard progressives. He first introduced the legislation in July 2020 and then had another go at it in April 2021 and December 2022.
The details have changed since Brown first cosponsored the bill alongside then-senator Kamala Harris (D-CA).
In one example, the original draft did not mention the alleged dangers that black Americans face when going on a jog. Brown’s contention that “social scientists have documented racial microaggressions in contemporary United States society” is also a recent addition to the measure.
The current bill states, “Black people are confronted and threatened by armed citizens while performing everyday tasks, such as jogging in neighborhoods, driving, or playing in a park.”
It should be noted that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is not a cosponsor of the bill, according to the Free Beacon. In 2013, Fetterman chased a black man down the street with a shotgun.
BREAKING: “Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) wants to declare racism a "public health crisis," the symptoms of which include "microaggressions" and the "forms of violence" that black Americans face when "jogging in neighborhoods." … Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), who in 2013 chased… pic.twitter.com/ldzrc4N0uk
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 13, 2024
Brown’s resolution also asserts that “the myth of meritocracy” and “statements that convey color-blindness” are both “microaggressions” that “over time have a negative impact on physical health … and mental health” of minority Americans.
The bill employs dubious research such as the assertion that “42% of employees in the United States have experienced or witnessed racism in the workplace.” The source of the research looks to be a 2019 survey by a job search website.
Brown has also forwarded the idea that “approximately” 1.8 million individuals with “Mexican ethnic identity” were deported during the Great Depression.
And yet the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services maintains, “an estimated 400,000 to 1 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans left the U.S.” in those years due to economic reasons.
Instead of 1.8 million, the agency states that from 1929 to 1935 immigration authorities “removed approximately 82,000 Mexicans.”
The skewing of statistics shouldn’t come as a surprise. The progressive Senator from Ohio votes with Joe Biden 98% of the time yet tries to present himself as a defender of blue-collar workers. Brown appears to be Biden’s mini-me.
Brown faces a tough reelection race in a state that swung for former president Donald Trump by more than seven points in 2020.
