Donna Ladd is the founding editor of The Jackson Free Press in Jackson, Mississippi, the new nonprofit Mississippi Free Press and a freelance journalist.
Posted on 03/07/2021 7:05:32 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves told the media this week, “I do think it's really important that the City of Jackson start collecting their water bill payments before they start going and asking everyone else to pony up more money."
As the governor gave that lecture on March 3 in his state’s capital city, thousands of homes near where he sat in Jackson were without even non-potable water to flush their toilets, and not a single home in the city limits had access to safe drinking water we could use without boiling first.
The Monday before Reeves’ flippant remark about the majority-Black capital city, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann threw out a telling statement of his own when he criticized the poverty-stricken city for not fixing its own water system, adding, “You remember during Kane Ditto’s administration, he did repair work on water and sewer. So what happened since then?”
For people not steeped in Mississippi politics, Ditto — not coincidentally — was Jackson’s last white mayor before white-flight demographic shifts brought Harvey Johnson Jr., an urban planner and infrastructure wonk who devoted $200 million to the problem, to office. Johnson warned repeatedly of a future breakdown of our aging systems in Jackson, including around the state Capitol where Reeves and Hosemann had the temerity to lecture us. This was a system, it’s worth noting, that was not exactly handed over to Black leadership in pristine shape, with nary a crack or challenge. It was already in trouble then.
But white state leadership at the time and ever since — including those whose families left Jackson after the forced desegregation of schools in early 1970 — have typically responded to the city’s Black leaders with contempt, blank stares or condescension.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Donna Ladd is the founding editor of The Jackson Free Press in Jackson, Mississippi, the new nonprofit Mississippi Free Press and a freelance journalist.
Prolly another Shovel Ready job with disappearing funds. You’d think someone would catch on by now.
I wish we had more articles here about blacks complaining, Karens, and pronoun freaks...
They can’t catch on or prove it, as Math is racist.
Rain forecast for here today. Expected to fall more heavily on minority neighborhoods
Ahhh go take a cold shower and call me when I have 30 seconds to spare.
Donna may be a dyed-in-the-wool racist, but is more likely primarily a ‘Rat apologist.
That about sums it up for me.
The article blames racist white people for fleeing a dangerous, deteriorating city - for a safer place for their children.
It is more than that; as the lead crisis in Michigan and Newark NJ shows, the blacks that took over these cities for the most part contribute nothing to the upkeep of the infrastructure (very similar to problems in former African colonies). They are simply demanding that the former residents and their descendants maintain the infrastructure for the current residents - more “free sh!t” (though free to them, not us).
Are you saying there is a difference?
They don’t want the white people; they want the white peoples’ MONEY. “Self-determination” for blacks in American cities brings no better results than it did in Africa when the Europeans left.
Can problems like this just be old city problems for 2021-23? We will have a infrastructure election soon enough.
We saw this across the upper Midwest for the past 40 years as the infrastructure is that much older in the freeze zones. We have much larger multiply bills in expectation of repairs than 20 years ago and the problems are systematic in repair.
Water mains leaking more water than they deliver, the utility payers are to poor to stay current at low rates, nobody wants to tear up the streets and state governments responsibility is not the city infrastructure. None of that has anything to do with race, a big bill is due, time to pay up city citizens.
If you city is not attractive to the middle class, problems appear to be racism. Sorry folks this good old middle class flight and local government unaccountable why econominc development has stopped under local progressive control.
This happens when you don’t put any money into infrastructure for 50 years.
It’s black and white. /s
The city’s population was estimated to be 160,628 in 2019, a decline from 173,514 in 2010.
The racial makeup of the city was 79.4% Black or African American, 18.4% White or European American, 0.1% Native American, 0.4% Asian, and 0.9% from two or more races. 1.6% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Non-Hispanic Whites were 18% of the population in 2010, down from 60% in 1970.
The median income for a household in the city was $30,414, and the median income for a family was $36,003. Males had a median income of $29,166 versus $23,328 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,116. About 19.6% of families and 23.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.7% of those under age 18 and 15.7% of those age 65 or over
Should one draw a head-count Venn Diagram, there’s likely not many outside of the “intersectional” area.
This is what happens when you only teach the Letter D and toss out the rest of the alphabet.
Understood.
A few years back, Newark NJ had a Valentine’s Day property auction where they were offering lots for as low as $1,500.00; it included stipulations that the buyers had to build on the lots within five years or so. Buying into the BS that home ownership translated to wealth (which is true in some areas, but not so much in NJ anymore with the crushing tax burdens), the free sh!t crowd lined up to grab these lots.
Over the next couple of years, the news reported the results of the program, and it was an utter failure; as the gibsmedats realized the purchases would transform them from residents of gubmint housing to taxpaying homeowners, many abandoned the properties or gave them back - THEY HAD NO INTEREST IN CONTRIBUTING TO THEIR OWN UPKEEP, OR THAT OF THE CITY.
Now write the same story for most black urban areas across the country...
Jackson’s mayor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokwe_Antar_Lumumba
His goal?
To make Jackson “the most radical city on the planet.”
Well done, Chokie. Well done.
There are major infrastructure issues all over smaller town Illinois; the local funds are heavily spent on pension costs, and streets don’t get repaired or repaved, other services are being limited, and the pension beast continues to grow. And any money coming from DC is focused on Chicago and other larger municipalities to deal with equity issues. Can’t wait until reparations spending exceeds pension costs...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.