Ocasio-Cortez demands coronavirus funds be used to pay reparations to minorities: ‘Inequality is a comorbidity’

(USA Features) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday that inequality is a preexisting health condition and as such minority and low-income communities should get coronavirus relief money in the form of reparations.

“COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities,” the New York democratic socialist tweeted to her 6.6 million followers. “Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions.

“Inequality is a comorbidity,” she added. “COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.”

AOC, as she is known, has been critical even of her own party regarding what she claims has been little attention paid to the so-called racial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. She says not enough is being done by either party to alleviate financial burdens placed on low-income families by work stoppages and job losses.

Also, she’s used the outbreak as a platform to push her socialist agenda of universal healthcare, taxpayer-funded free college, instituting what she calls a “living wage,” and guaranteed housing.

On Tuesday, she blasted Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for suspending mortgage payments but not rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, he halted evictions for 90 days, though renters will still be responsible for missed payments, he said, because landlords have bills and payments too.

“We’re kind of creating a class and race issue,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show,” Fox News  Wednesday. “We’re essentially rewarding and offering preferential treatment to landowners and folks who are more wealthy, and we’re not offering that same kind of relief to renters.”

“There’s absolutely … racial and class inequities baked into the crisis,” she said. “If you are able to stay home. You are a privileged person in this moment.”

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