Last year he told an audience that “every Black kid” is prescribed SSRI medications, “which are known to induce violence.”
As a Democratic presidetial candidate in 2024, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy told an audience that Black children are “put on Adderall, on SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence.” He suggested they could be treated by working on organic farms. Credit: Getty Images
Overview:
The new Health and Human Services secretary — a vaccine skeptic with troubling views on race — will oversee a White House-directed study of medications commonly prescribed for depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions.
It’s been a busy and controversial first week for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official.
Along with investigating the childhood vaccine schedule and reneging on his promise not to purge staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kennedy will be overseeing a White House study of “SSRI and other psychiatric drugs” — medications commonly prescribed for people struggling with depression, anxiety or ADHD.
RELATED: What RFK Jr. as Health Secretary Means for Black Well-Being
The latter statement is bringing attention to an alarming vision he first spoke about last July when he was running for president: government-run farms where Black youth would be “reparented” away from their families.
“Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence,” Kennedy said on the 19Keys online show last year. “And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented — to live in a community where there’ll be no cellphones, no screens. You’ll actually have to talk to people.”
Sending Black children away to work on a “farm,” simply because they are taking prescription medication for common mental health conditions, bears haunting similarities to other instances of forced family separations in America, including slavery.
The concept, which isn’t backed by science, also raises troubling questions about how Kennedy views the intersection of race, medicine, and state power.
Republished from Word In Black
Keywords: RFK Jr., ADHD drugs, Black kids, re-parenting, parenting advice
#ADHD #ParentingAdvice #MentalHealthMatter
