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
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    1 year ago

    He said because of some genetic differences that covid didn’t affect some ethnicities as hard.

    That’s just fact. He didn’t say it was created to do so, he said it’s just the way the virus is.

    • Mostly_Harmless@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “is targeted to…” implies deliberate action, which is exactly the message he wanted to convey. It’s just SSDD for this nutjob.

      • MasterOBee Master/King@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No it doesn’t.

        See you just made up an entire conspiracy theory and saying RFK Jr. believes in it.

        He did not say what you said he did. He said that it affects jews and asians different than black people. That’s factual.

        Stop making up reasons to hate people you disagree with. Listen to them and argue against what they say, not the words you put in their mouth.

        Sickle cell targets african americans. Am I now saying there’s a whole conspiracy against the black population by deliberately infecting them with sickle cell?

        • Mostly_Harmless@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sickle cell does not “target” blacks, it is genetically inherited trait. It affects blacks more often as it is thought to have evolved in sub-Saharan Africans as protection from malaria. https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/biology/index.html. So your statement isn’t really a conspiracy, it’s just uninformed.

          RFK Jr is on video talking about bioweapons and in that context said that “There’s an argument that it is ethnically targeted…” https://nypost.com/2023/07/15/rfk-jr-says-covid-was-ethnically-targeted-to-spare-jews. People of color are affected by most diseases more that white people. This is not a new phenomenon and is related to racial disparities. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8513546/. Also, the Chinese were hit as hard as everyone else.

          RFK Jr has a history of promoting conspiracy theories. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/06/06/rfk-jr-makes-unfounded-claims-about-mass-shootings-covid-19-here-are-all-the-conspiracies-he-promotes/?sh=20e82d7e3acc

          I’m not making up any reasons to dislike RFK Jr. I dislike him based on his own words and actions.

        • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          Did you even read the article. None of it is factual, even the author of one of the articles he referenced said he was wrong.

          No idea why you’re supporting this man.

          People really need to be more educated to read between the lines instead of taking everything at face value.

          This was clearly a racist and antisemitic comment. Even it being factual would not change that.

          • MasterOBee Master/King@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race

            There are vast differences on how different ethnicities were able to combat the virus.

            That’s a fact.

            No idea why you’re supporting this man.

            Because I’ve listened to what he says and his interactions with people, instead of basing my impressions on him on headlines.

            People really need to be more educated to read between the lines instead of taking everything at face value.

            Agreed, and they’d see this article and made up controversy is just big media calling the shots. Listen to the candidates interviews and interactions, and I promise you’ll understand every candidate better than just the media conglomerates narratives.

            This was clearly a racist and antisemitic comment

            Saying that some ethnicities handled the virus better/worse is not racist, nor antisemitic.

            Sickle cell affects african americans more than other ethnicities. Is that racist to say?

    • corsicanguppy
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      1 year ago

      covid didn’t affect some ethnicities as hard.

      That’s just fact.

      It was blood types and not race, right? Blood type predicted severity of symptoms … or was it infection rate?

      Hmm. I guess it’s also blood type: Not a big sample size, though.