RFK Jr. under fire for claiming Arabs ‘don’t produce’ science or literature

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced condemnation from civil rights groups, healthcare advocates and Democrats after claiming at a Michigan campaign rally that Arabs "don't produce" science or literature and have not won major international prizes. CAIR called the remarks "a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry." The event was held for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, who is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced widespread rebuke from civil rights groups, healthcare advocates and Democrats on Tuesday over remarks he made a day earlier at a campaign event in Michigan, where Republican Mike Rogers is running for the US Senate against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. At the rally Kennedy claimed that Arabs had not won major international awards and "don't produce" science and literature. "There are 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don't produce science, they don't win the Nobel Prize, they don't win the Fields prize, they don't win the Wolf Prize, they don't produce literature," he said. The article notes that Arabs have won all those prizes. Peter Hotez, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine specializing in vaccine development and tropical medicine, said his late colleague, Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, who was Arab and died in 2016, "would disagree" with the health secretary. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the remarks "a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry" and said the "sweeping erasure of Arab contributions to humanity" fans anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate. Kennedy also said the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood had "created stagnant societies"; Republicans have claimed without evidence that El-Sayed has ties to the group, which he has disavowed. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said the comments were part of a "coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans," and the group Protect Our Care called them a "wildly racist tirade."