In videotaped remarks, Kennedy suggested the virus was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, drawing accusations of racism and antisemitism.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is facing widespread criticism from political leaders and civil rights organizations after a video surfaced of him making false claims that COVID-19 was designed to attack certain ethnic groups while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people — a conspiracy theory that drew accusations of antisemitism and racism.

    • MasterOBee Master/King@lemmy.world
      36·
      1 jaar geleden

      “His claim is insane, but it’s right”?

      That’s your defense?

      What he said sounds bad, especially when we just read the headlines and think we know the context, but he’s just saying the virus doesn’t affect every ethnicity the same.

      We know that. It’s fact. You agree with it. So why is the claim insane?

            • MasterOBee Master/King@lemmy.world
              36·
              1 jaar geleden

              “COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,”

              Are you claiming that there are no differences between ethnicities and the harshness of covid?

              COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he continued, adding, “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.”

              What’s wrong with that? He said we don’t know the origins. That’s fact. He said we do know they affect different ethnicities differently, that’s fact.

              You’re trying to push a narrative against him for that.

              Come on, dude.

                • MasterOBee Master/King@lemmy.world
                  23·
                  1 jaar geleden

                  We don’t know the exact origins

                  And many big organizations say there’s a reasonable chance that it was lab altered.

                  we should assume given the likelihood it is and the lack of evidence otherwise that’s its perfectly natural

                  We don’t know the origins, as you said before, but we should assume it was natural? I don’t assume either way, but it seems weird you claimed both these things.

                  He is obviously throwing racist dog whistles

                  No, he’s not. He said that we don’t know if it was created/altered by humans or not.

                  But we do know it affects different ethnicities differently, which is, once again, objectively right.

                  refusing to see that shows you are a racist

                  Refusing to think like you makes me a racist? I think we have different definitions of racist.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                    1·
                    1 jaar geleden

                    Select? Attention? Hmm. That sounds like it has agency. But then a disease can’t have agency, so it must be someone with agency using the disease. Almost as if it’s a bioweapon.

                    If it’s targeted, that is.

              • Mostly_Harmless@lemmy.world
                11·
                1 jaar geleden

                He was talking about covid in the context of engineered bioweapons. That the virus has been more severe with people of color can, and has been explained by racial inequity and access to care.

                “The overrepresentation of African Americans among confirmed COVID-19 cases and number of deaths underscores the fact that the coronavirus pandemic, far from being an equalizer, is amplifying or even worsening existing social inequalities tied to race, class, and access to the health care system.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7762908/#:~:text=Approximately 97.9 out of every,Asians (40.4 per 100%2C000).

                • MasterOBee Master/King@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  1 jaar geleden

                  What makes you think he was talking about covid in the context of engineered bioweapons?

                  He said “there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.”

                  You provided one such paper that shows that there are differences in how covid impacted different communities. Whether that’s due to obesity rates, socioeconomic status or healthcare access.

                  "Kennedy later posted a video statement on Sunday, saying in part: “Nobody has suggested that these were deliberately engineered changes and I certainly don’t believe that they were deliberately engineered,”