Over the weekend, the National Nurses Union issued a statement condemning the CDC for the new relaxed mask guidance. NNU’s press release specifically cites unfairness to BIPOC as a complaint:
At today’s White House press briefing, PBS journalist Yamiche Alcindor asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki about it:
Unreal… @Yamiche just urged Jen Psaki to reverse the CDC guidance on no longer wearing masks once vaccinated because it puts "people of color at risk." pic.twitter.com/0Dw67a2nIT
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) May 17, 2021
To be fair — at least in the above clip — Alcindor herself didn’t explicitly urge Psaki or the White House to reverse or push back against CDC guidance; she was merely asking for the White House’s take on NNU’s statement.
And it was a very stupid statement, we should note. Alcindor was also making a pretty silly statement in her own right:
The best part about this is that Yamiche is a person of color and she's not wearing a mask.
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) May 17, 2021
She's not wearing a mask 🤣 https://t.co/pT5yg8Z5L5
— 🍀 Tabatha 🇺🇸🇮🇪🇮🇱 (@Winning4Him) May 17, 2021
…and she wasn't wearing a mask. 🤦♀️ https://t.co/cgtOtnXbaB
— Judianna (@Judianna) May 17, 2021
Of course she wasn’t.
Wait, is she the one without the mask?
— Aldous Huxley's Ghost™ (@AF632) May 17, 2021
Then why isn’t she wearing a mask there? 😂😂😂
— Joey Wooleyhand (@jwooleyy) May 17, 2021
Why isn't she wearing a mask?
— mitrebox (@mitrebox) May 17, 2021
Maybe Yamiche Alcindor just isn’t taking NNU’s concerns seriously.
That’s probably not the case, but if it were, she’d be absolutely right, by the way.