Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) claimed in an interview last week about the coronavirus that “environmental racism” was a “pre-existing condition.”

Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks while claiming that racism was to blame for the outbreak being more severe in Democrat-controlled cities like New York City.

“Inequality, environmental racism, these are pre-existing conditions, and when you have a pandemic – similar to what we saw with Hurricane Maria – when you have a natural disaster or an event like a pandemic hit communities that have already been ravaged by weakened health care systems, weakened infrastructure,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The South Bronx has one of the highest childhood asthma rates in the country. When we talk about environmental racism, we’re talking about illegal dumping, we’re talking about concentrating waste sites, and concentrating highways and trucking zones through the poorest communities in the country and the blackest communities, [in] the brownest communities.”

WATCH:

.@AOC on the Coronavirus: "Environmental racism" is a "pre-existing condition" in NYC. "When you have the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which was a notorious project of racism by Robert Moses … Black and brown workers [have become] overwhelmingly part of this front line." pic.twitter.com/HBOhrkDkO4 — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 7, 2020

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