Former congressman’s CNN comment on racism, Black health drew criticism. But research supports link

Editor’s note: This story includes a quote containing a racial slur.

In a guest appearance on CNN’s "NewsNight with Abby Phillip," former U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., criticized Republicans, saying their party fails to hold its members accountable for racist rhetoric.

As Bowman sparred with Republican Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, he drew a link between recent acts of racial and political violence and rhetorical attacks against Democratic New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s religion and ethnicity.

Calling hate and racism toward Black and brown people "America’s original sin," Bowman said such attacks have real-life health effects.

"I'm a Black man in America," Bowman said during the June 25 segment. "The reason why heart disease and cancer and obesity and diabetes are bigger in the Black community is because of the stress we carry from having to deal with being called the N-word directly or indirectly every day." 

Some on social media shared the clip to excoriate Bowman’s statement as outrageous.

"Jamaal Bowman gives INSANE excuse for obesity in Black community," right-wing media outlet the Daily Caller wrote in a YouTube caption.

"CNN gave him a platform to peddle race-based hysteria," conservative talk radio host Larry O’Connor wrote.

But public health researchers have long connected racism with health disparities.

Other than Native Americans, Black people face the lowest life expectancy of all racial groups in the U.S. and are the most likely to die from chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease among all Americans. Research has shown that stress caused by experiencing racial discrimination, combined with other challenges such as socioeconomic and environmental disparities, worsens Black Americans’ health and contributes to their ongoing health disparities when compared to other racial groups.

How does stress from racism impact Black Americans’ health?  

Although other marginalized groups experience discrimination, studies have shown that for Black people, negative experiences with racial discrimination culminate in constant stressors that Black people grapple with throughout their lifetimes. The additional burden contributes to worsened health outcomes for Black Americans compared with Asian, Hispanic and white Americans. 

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Minority Health reported in 2023 that Black Americans were 1.4 times more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes, 30% more likely to be obese and 20% more likely to have diagnosed high blood pressure. 

From 2018 to 2022, the Office of Minority Health found that Black American males were 2.4 times more likely to die from stomach cancer than non-Hispanic white males and 2.1 times more likely to die from prostate cancer. In the same time frame, Black American females were 2.4 times more likely to die from stomach cancer and two times more likely to die from uterine cancer than non-Hispanic white females. 

As researchers have sought over decades to uncover the underlying causes of these health disparities, one prevailing theory links it to a phenomenon called "weathering." 

Michigan-based public health researcher Arline Geronimus coined the term "weathering" to describe the toll chronic stress plays in exacerbating patients’ health outcomes, increasing the risk of heart disease, cancer and other conditions. Geronimus, who shared the theory during her studies of maternal disparities in the 1990s, told NPR’s "Fresh Air" that chronic stress "literally wears down your heart, your arteries, your neuroendocrine systems ... all your body systems so that in effect, you become chronologically old at a young age."

"It's not that every Black person has more damage than every white person," Geronimus said in the 2023 interview. "It's really about how much stress versus social support you get in your everyday life. … Because African Americans and low-income Americans are more likely to suffer more of these stressors, they are more likely to be weathered, weathered severely and weathered at younger ages."

Geronimus used the term in the 1990s to explain why teenage Black women had more successful birth outcomes than Black women in their 20s. Her research laid the groundwork for ongoing research into health disparities.

In 2020, University of Florida health researchers released findings from eight years of longitudinal data on 3,870 Black Americans. The researchers found that people who reported more frequent discrimination experiences throughout their lifetime accumulated more risk factors for diabetes and heart disease. 

The study also found that stress caused by discrimination can repeatedly activate stress responses, causing repeated floods of hormones such as cortisol that increase allostatic load, or "wear and tear" on the body. 

Constant influxes of hormones like cortisol can heighten blood pressure and cholesterol, leading to elevated risks of chronic health issues like diabetes and heart disease. Other studies found associations between perceived discrimination and biological impacts, including allostatic load, hardening of the coronary arteries and higher oxidative stress, which can increase susceptibility to cell-damaging diseases such as cancer. 

Racism and discrimination create disparities that affect health outcomes

Courtney Boen, Brown University assistant professor of sociology in the Population Studies and Training Center, emphasized the significance of acknowledging the variety of factors besides perceived discrimination that can influence health outcomes. 

"Much of this research focuses on instances of interpersonal discrimination, where people believe they are treated unfairly when they interact with others, but misses so many other forms of discrimination and racism, including institutional policies and practices that are both implicitly and explicitly discriminatory," Boen wrote in an email to PolitiFact. 

Although the stress of perceived discrimination has a biological impact on Black Americans, systemic discrimination and racism also contribute to disparities in socioeconomic status, living conditions and healthcare quality that significantly worsen the health of Black people. 

Health advocates warn that President Donald Trump’s expansive tax and spending package which he signed into law on July 4, could exacerbate health care disparities, especially among Black Americans. It cuts Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which are expected to impact millions of Black Americans, who make up around 20% and 27% of these social programs, respectively. 

On June 26, eight civil rights organizations wrote a letter to Congress urging leaders to recognize the "disproportionate harm this bill inflicts on Black communities and the rule of law."

CORRECTION, July 11, 2025: An earlier version of this story misspelled Abby Phillip’s name. It also misattributed a quote to conservative commentator Matt Walsh; the quote was from The Daily Caller. And we have clarified that a KFF report found that Black people are most likely to die from certain chronic diseases.