AOC Called Out for Texas Charity Drive While Her District is Ravaged by COVID Deaths, Poverty
Ocasio-Cortez is doing a public charity drive in Texas, while calling for a Texas senator’s resignation...
Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez is not letting a crisis go to waste.
While the New York congresswoman has been fixated on the "Texas freeze," her constituents back home in Queens and the Bronx are being frozen out of much-needed leadership on the coronavirus pandemic.
The Bronx has been grappling with poverty and a pandemic that has led to the borough having the the highest case fatality rate in New York City.
"We don't see anyone coming to our rescue," said Mychal Johnson, co-founder of the community organization South Bronx Unite, in a ABC News report published in 2020. "The community residents here are pretty much living in shock."
On Saturday, the Gothamist confirms the abysmal trends in the Bronx and Queens have been sustained throughout the entire pandemic.
The COVID-related per capita fatality rate in the Bronx is currently the highest in New York City.
The positivity rates in the Bronx and Queens are also the highest of any of the other boroughs.
“It’s really been an unprecedented experience for me and I’ve been in medicine for 24 years,” said Bronx doctor Dr. Ernest Patti in the prior ABC News reportage. “You felt helpless.”
The systemic issues in the Bronx, which has been represented by Democrats for nearly three decades, are as much about deep-rooted poverty as about the recent coronavirus crisis.
“The situation in the Bronx with respect to COVID is really about the reality before COVID,” said Diana Hernandez, a public health expert from the Bronx. “The [Bronx] population is more invisible and more dispensable, which is to me so unfair,” she added.
AOC has nonetheless done a remarkable job of being extremely visible. She has harnessed her dedicated fanbase to raise millions of dollars for those impacted by the terrible “Texas freeze,” which has been accompanied by rolling blackouts due partly to the state’s wind-driven Green New Deal-like agenda that she endorses enthusiastically.
The high-profile Democratic congresswoman has thus far raised over $4 million for the affected denizens of Texas. But people in her own district must be wondering: What about us?
Ocasio-Cortez personally flew to Texas on Friday to meet other Democrat representatives, such as Sylvia Garcia, Al Green and Sheila Jackson-Lee. The photo op went as it typically goes: AOC is showing compassion, thus veiling any ostensible political motives.
AOC is doing the “right thing”: But is it for the wrong reasons?