Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, talks with reporters after voting Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Phil Long)AP
WASHINGTON, D. C. - Sen. Sherrod Brown on Wednesday introduced a resolution that would declare racism a public health emergency, saying that doing so would help the Senate continue the debate on how to deal with structural racism.
"Some want to treat the coronavirus and racial justice as separate issues, but they're intimately connected," Brown told reporters on Wednesday. "We know who proportionally is dying of the coronavirus. It's the same people who are discriminated against and targeted while simply going about their lives, driving, jogging down a neighborhood street, playing in a park, sleeping in their beds. The pandemic has been the great revealer. It's exposed what black Ohioans already knew -- that racism threatens their health, their safety and their lives every day."
Brown's resolution says that "since the Nation's founding, the United States has had a longstanding history and legacy of racism, mistreatment, and discrimination against African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and other people of color," and says its "health care system and other economic and social structures remain fraught with racism and racial, ethnic, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), and class biases that lead to health inequity and health disparities."
In addition to declaring racism a public health crisis, it would commit the United States to establishing a nationwide strategy to addressing health disparities and inequity across all sectors in society, dismantling systemic practices and policies that perpetuate racism and "advancing reforms to address years of neglectful and apathetic policies that have led to poor health outcomes for communities of color."
Brown said that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell probably won't bring the resolution he introduced with Democratic Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California to the floor, but argued its introduction would build pressure for its eventual passage.
Introducing the resolution will focus public attention on how social determinants like housing, the digital divide in the schools and the criminal justice system are among the reasons why African Americans have lower life expectancy, higher maternal mortality rates, higher infant mortality rates and higher rates of hypertension than the general public, said Brown
"There are reasons for all those things," Brown continued "We need to keep exploring them until Congress is actually ready to address them, and Congress isn't ready to address them if Mitch McConnell is president of the Senate."
Brown also said that the embattled speaker of Ohio's House of Representatives, Republican Larry Householder, should resign after being charged with improperly accepting payments from FirstEnergy for passing legislation that bailed out its Perry and Davis Besse nuclear power plants. He said the corruption the charges exposed was a natural result of having a single party - Republicans - controlling state government for the past several decades.
"This is a Republican party that is intrinsically corrupt," said Brown, who suggested that in addition to getting rid of dark money that Householder used to to finance campaigns, Ohio voters need to "get rid of the people who have corrupted the government, and that's one political party in the state."
Although Brown said Republicans should be voted out of statewide office in Ohio, he said he's "thrilled" that former Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich will reportedly speak at the Democratic National Convention." While Brown said he disagreed with Kasich's attacks on "unions and women's rights, and his underfunding of public education and public health," Brown said Kasich "also understands that President Trump has been a terrible, divisive president and I'm glad, I welcome John to speak to the Democratic convention."
Brown has said he doesn't plan to attend the convention himself because of concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
7 22 20 RACISM as PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS RESOLUTION (PDF)
7 22 20 RACISM as PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS RESOLUTION (Text)
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