Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Friday said that people “grow enraged” whenever politicians like her try to point out and discuss the “racial inequities” associated with the coronavirus crisis.
“We have racial inequities that people grow enraged in talking about, in just bringing up, in just acknowledging,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We can’t fix what we don’t talk about, we can’t fix what we don’t address.”
Last week, Ocasio-Cortez said even Republicans were ready to accept more progressive policies until they saw the “racial data” associated with the coronavirus crisis.
Ocasio-Cortez said the “racial data” caused Congress and the Trump administration to fight the coronavirus “fire” with “gasoline” instead of “water”:
Coronavirus presents an opportunity for the United States to actually catch up with the developed world, with the rest of the developed world in health care guarantees, in wages and jobs. But it is being squandered. When the stay at home orders were first issued, we saw a massive shift in the direction of progressive policy. You had Mitt Romney talking about a universal basic income. And then a couple of interesting things happened. It felt like once the racial data came out that showed that this was disproportionately impacting working class people and black and brown people, it was almost like within days a lot of those ambitions just fell. But when we didn’t know who it was going to impact, when all of us felt vulnerable, we were ready to change. And I think that, at the very least, should be a moment of reflection for our country.
Ocasio-Cortez has recognized “political fighters” like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and urged Democrats to “govern in a way that is just” by fighting for policies like “health care to all Americans.”