On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham) attacked HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. during a House Ways and Means Committee meeting, taking comments that were made almost two years ago out of context to portray them as racist.
"In a 2024 podcast interview, you suggested that black children on ADHD medication should be 'reparented.' You said every black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and that those children are going to have to go somewhere to get 'reparented,'" Sewell told Kennedy.
In the 2024 podcast, Kennedy described a voluntary program he intended to expand to improve the lives of anyone who wanted to participate. The podcast was intended for a black audience, so Kennedy's remarks focused on his commitment to the health and well-being of everyone, but specifically spoke to challenges facing the black community.
"My big Peace Corps program. My uncle started the Peace Corps. He started the space program," Kennedy explained in the podcast. "My space program, my Peace Corps program is going to be wellness farms, rehabilitation facilities that I'm going to start in rural areas, all over the country, where people, any American can go for free, any of them who is dependent on drugs, either legal drugs, or illegal drugs. Psychiatric drugs."
He then went on to note the number of black children on ADHD, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.
"Every black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs," he said. He explained that those medications "are known to induce violence."
"And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get reparented, to live in a community, where there'll be no cell phones, no screens, you'll actually have to talk to people," he said.
He then said the idea came to him when a family member visited a farm like this. While Sewell compared Kennedy's proposal to separating children from their slave parents, he made it clear that the program would be voluntary, free and beneficial.
"Our community is a 10,000-acre farm, and they grow organic foods, so the kids eat very, very good food for the first time in their lives. They have a bakery, and the kids work in the bakery. They work in a furniture factory. They have an apparel factory. They have a wallpaper factory. They learn a skill, they learn a trade, and they can stay as long as they want for free," Kennedy explained of his vision.
"And when they leave their place in a job, but they're taught how to be responsible, how to tell the truth, how to show up on time, how to be reliable, how to be a caring member of a community, to reconnect," he continued. "So many of our kids today are alienated. They're dispossessed. They have no hope for their future, and the suicide rates are astronomical and black. It's now, it's at the highest rate of suicide, and it's one of the highest causes of death among black youth."
"We need to give kids back, again, hope and hope in our country. Hope in their futures, but also a feeling of community and an understanding about how to live in those communities," Kennedy continued. "My relative who went there lost all her diagnoses, and she came out of there an extraordinary person. lives a thriving life now."
See Kennedy's full remarks from the podcast here:
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