The Monocausal Fallacy: When Oversimplification Insults Everyone’s Intelligence
Former Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s Astonishing Claim Deserves Scrutiny
In a recent CNN appearance, former Representative Jamaal Bowman made a claim so sweeping, so reductive, and so divorced from medical science that it demands examination. According to Bowman, “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.”
The reason. Not a contributing factor. Not one element among many. The reason.
Let’s Unpack This Medical Marvel
Bowman has apparently solved what thousands of epidemiologists, physicians, geneticists, sociologists, and public health researchers have spent decades studying. Forget about:
- Food deserts and limited access to fresh produce in underserved communities
- Healthcare access disparities and insurance coverage gaps
- Socioeconomic factors, including poverty rates and educational opportunities
- Historical medical discrimination that creates legitimate mistrust of healthcare systems
- Environmental factors like exposure to pollution and unsafe housing
- Differential treatment in medical settings (actual documented bias in care)
- Cultural dietary patterns and cooking traditions
- Exercise and recreation access in neighborhoods lacking safe parks and facilities
- Genetic predispositions to certain conditions
- Workplace discrimination affects employment and income
- Chronic stress from poverty and economic instability
- Targeted marketing of unhealthy products to Black communities
No, no. According to Bowman, it’s slurs. Just slurs. That’s it. Mystery solved.
The Stress Argument: Valid Science Twisted Beyond Recognition
Here’s what makes this particularly insidious: there IS legitimate research on chronic stress and health outcomes. Weathering theory, developed by Dr. Arline Geronimus, explores how chronic stress from racism and discrimination may accelerate health deterioration in Black Americans. This is serious, evidence-based work.
But Bowman took that nuanced research and performed a spectacular act of reductionism, boiling down complex, intergenerational, systemic issues into “being called the N-word directly or indirectly every day.”
This isn’t just scientifically illiterate—it’s patronizing. It suggests that Black Americans are so fragile that words alone cause diabetes. It ignores the material conditions of poverty, the structural barriers to healthcare, and the documented biases in medical treatment.
The Soft Bigotry of Simplistic Explanations
What’s worse: Bowman’s insulting oversimplification or the fact that he thought this explanation was helpful?
Real health disparities require real solutions:
- Expanding Medicaid and healthcare access
- Investing in underserved communities
- Addressing food deserts with policy changes
- Ensuring equal treatment in medical settings
- Tackling environmental racism
- Improving economic opportunities
But sure, let’s just focus on mean words. That’ll fix cancer.
A Disservice to Serious Advocacy
The most frustrating aspect of Bowman’s statement is that it undermines legitimate work being done to address health disparities. Researchers and advocates who’ve spent careers documenting how systemic racism affects health outcomes through housing policy, employment discrimination, criminal justice disparities, and healthcare access deserve better than this cartoonish misrepresentation of their work.
When a former member of Congress reduces complex public health crises to a single-variable explanation, he’s not raising awareness—he’s raising eyebrows. And not in a good way.
The Questions No One Asked Bowman
Did CNN push back? Did anyone ask:
- “You’re saying obesity is caused by slurs? What about caloric intake?”
- “Are you claiming that diet and exercise play no role?”
- “What about Black immigrants who show different health patterns?”
- “Can you cite the research supporting this monocausal claim?”
Because the claim deserves interrogation. It’s the epidemiological equivalent of claiming climate change is caused exclusively by people breathing too much.
Conclusion: Complexity Matters
Health disparities in Black communities are real, serious, and multifaceted. They result from centuries of discrimination manifesting in countless ways—through policy, economics, environment, and yes, stress from racism, including microaggressions and overt discrimination.
But reducing this complex reality to “we get called slurs” is intellectually lazy, scientifically indefensible, and ultimately counterproductive. It trades serious analysis for viral soundbites.
Former Congressman Bowman might have been better served by simply saying: “Systemic racism affects health through multiple pathways, and we need comprehensive solutions.”
Instead, we got this gem of oversimplification that insults both the intelligence of viewers and the seriousness of the issue itself.
Perhaps the real stress comes from watching elected officials make claims like this on national television.