MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson introduced her infant daughter on air Tuesday as she returned from maternity leave, using her experience to highlight racial disparities in maternal health outcomes.
Jackson described leaving the hospital two days before the NBA suspended its 2020 season due to the pandemic, actor Tom Hanks announced he had contracted the virus and President Trump delivered an address on the subject.
She also described the reflections about privilege inspired by protests against racism and police brutality in the U.S., adding, “And for a new mom, here’s one: I’m alive, and so is my kid, and if the color of my skin were different, I’d be twice as likely to have died giving birth. That is an outrageous public health disparity.”
Jackson called the racial disparities in coronavirus outcomes similarly “outrageous” and noted that two days after the NBA’s announcement, Louisville, Ky., police killed Breonna Taylor.
“That week in March changed my world, sure, but it changed everybody’s, and the question has been, and is now, how we handle it,” she said. “How we hold ourselves accountable, how we do the work and especially how we hold our leaders accountable, our lawmakers, our president.”
Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was killed after police entered her apartment unannounced serving a so-called no-knock warrant. When Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker opened fire on the police, who did not identify themselves, they fired back, killing Taylor. The case, along with the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, has been a rallying cry for protesters. Taylor’s is the only case of the three in which no arrests have been made.