Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Rams.
Speaker 2: This's job. He is Rams, this job I am q Woard.
Speaker 2: You are listening to Civic Cyphers.
Speaker 1: Indeed, another great show lined up for you. We are
Speaker 1: going to deal with some stuff as we do. Some
Speaker 1: of this stuff is going to be heavy, and so
Speaker 1: fasten your seat belts and ride along with us as
Speaker 1: we take you through a couple of instances of environmental racism.
Speaker 1: This is a topic that we've danced around on the
Speaker 1: show and we really want to do it right. And
Speaker 1: I won't promise today will be the fully fleshed out
Speaker 1: segment that we really want to bring to you, but
Speaker 1: we will definitely delve into it to a significant degree
Speaker 1: because it is timely and we have to deal with
Speaker 1: some stuff that's going on in Mississippi where a predominantly
Speaker 1: black community is going without drinking water. This is a
Speaker 1: story we've seen time and again in this country, So
Speaker 1: environmental racism stick around to that. We're also going to
Speaker 1: talk about the minor. There's a video that has gone
Speaker 1: viral and in case you haven't seen it, there's a
Speaker 1: Myer nerd that was riding an ATV police tried to
Speaker 1: pull them over. The miner says that he didn't know
Speaker 1: that that was what was going on initially, and then
Speaker 1: when he found out, then he was afraid and kept driving,
Speaker 1: and then they proceeded to pull him off of his
Speaker 1: ATV and beat him up and kick him and all
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff. And he's twelve years old, and
Speaker 1: so we're going to talk about that. That that's kind
Speaker 1: of a sad story. And you know, a common motif
Speaker 1: around here because we often mentioned that black children have
Speaker 1: to grow up before their time, and this is an
Speaker 1: example of how the world seems to make Black children
Speaker 1: into adults well before they're ready. Our way Black history fact,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the Chicago race riot and
Speaker 1: much much more. So a lot in store for you.
Speaker 1: Be sure to stick around once again.
Speaker 2: But first and.
Speaker 1: Foremost, like we always do at this time, let's give
Speaker 1: you some ebony excellence. Q shall we we shall abny excellence.
Speaker 1: This week is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly Media and
Speaker 1: it has brought to you by or it comes via
Speaker 1: Black Enterprise. So it is a new year and more magic,
Speaker 1: Boss Women Media and Capital One return Black Girl Magic
Speaker 1: Digital Summit. So this was created by Marty McDonald in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Boss Women Media is an online membership platform
Speaker 1: and offline women's empowerment and educational community. They create curated
Speaker 1: storytelling content and events to propel boss women forward in
Speaker 1: their careers. You know around here with like Black Girl
Speaker 1: Magic and this sounds like just that. Here's a quote.
Speaker 1: We are on a mission to provide black women with
Speaker 1: the tools and education they need to take the next
Speaker 1: steps toward having more. This was said by Marty McDonald himself.
Speaker 1: Quote with the Black Girl Magic Summit is a pivotal
Speaker 1: part of this mission, as it gives us the stage
Speaker 1: and presence to amplify critical conversations and poignant messages. This
Speaker 1: marks the third consecutive year Capital One is teamed up
Speaker 1: with Boss Women Media for the summit. According to a
Speaker 1: press release, Capital one Business sponsor the Black ro Magic
Speaker 1: Summit pitch competition, providing one hundred thousand dollars in funding
Speaker 1: to three women own businesses small businesses, which is up
Speaker 1: from fifty thousand and twenty twenty one. I want to
Speaker 1: also note that Ebony Excellence this week. It was chosen
Speaker 1: by our very own producer, Maggie aka Maggie b No
Speaker 1: she do she do. And she is another one around
Speaker 1: here that loves to celebrate anything that propels black women forward.
Speaker 1: We recognize and understand that as a community, uplifting black
Speaker 1: women ultimately uplifts all of us. And so once again
Speaker 1: we're going to shout out Martin McDonald and Capital One
Speaker 1: for putting on this event. Now, environmental racism, so that
Speaker 1: if you have never heard that before, it sounds crazy.
Speaker 1: How can an environment be racist?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And it's not that. Think more in terms of racism
Speaker 1: manifested in an environment. Think of it in terms of
Speaker 1: like office place work or work related racism, or sports
Speaker 1: related racism, or you know educational racism, you know healthcare racism. Well,
Speaker 1: this is environmental racism, in other words, something that affects
Speaker 1: a predominantly black, brown, poor, poor, black and brown oftentimes
Speaker 1: community where laws are bent and broken so that corporations
Speaker 1: can dump, so that cities can grow, or you know,
Speaker 1: imminent domain or whatever, and it disproportionately affects black and
Speaker 1: brown people. You know, it factors into the health of
Speaker 1: black and brown people, especially when you're dealing with pollutants
Speaker 1: in the air or in the ground, so forth and
Speaker 1: so on. This is a real thing. It's well documented
Speaker 1: and it goes all the way back to even before
Speaker 1: fair housing was a talking point in this country for
Speaker 1: black and brown people. Because environmental environmental racism is something
Speaker 1: that very much shapes outcomes with respect to the black family.
Speaker 1: The latest instance of environmental racism has come up in Jackson, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: So I will share a bit with you. This one
Speaker 1: comes via Routers. Jackson, Mississippi, will go without reliable drinking
Speaker 1: water indefinitely. Okay, So this is from officials on Monday,
Speaker 1: August twenty ninth, after pumps at the main water treatment
Speaker 1: plant failed, leading to the emergency distribution of bottled water
Speaker 1: and tanker trucks for one hundred and eighty thousand people.
Speaker 1: The city linked the failure to complications from the flooding
Speaker 1: of the Pearl River, but Governor Tate Reeves, who declared
Speaker 1: a state of emergency, said the cause was unknown and
Speaker 1: that the city one run water treatment plant had been
Speaker 1: poorly operated and understaffed for years. All right, let's stop
Speaker 1: right there now. Maybe I'm crazy, Maybe I'm crazy, but
Speaker 1: I remember a story about Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, and
Speaker 1: you know, the levees needed maintenance and they were understaffed
Speaker 1: and underfunded, and on and on and on. But if
Speaker 1: you look at places where, let's say, the population is
Speaker 1: not so colorful, you know, these sorts of things tend
Speaker 1: to be prioritized. These things don't get pushed off, you know.
Speaker 1: Now there have been some notable exceptions I'm well aware of,
Speaker 1: you know, in California, all those mansions and all those
Speaker 1: fires being started because of poor maintenance of electricity poles
Speaker 1: and that sort of stuff. But by and large, we
Speaker 1: can point to a systemic issue that disproportionately affects black
Speaker 1: and brown people. So this is one of the tell
Speaker 1: tale signs, but it doesn't tell the full story because
Speaker 1: lots of things are poorly maintained. We're going to take
Speaker 1: into account how we get there, and then, of course
Speaker 1: what the response is afterwards. And then I think those things,
Speaker 1: combined with other factors, will suggest to you whether or
Speaker 1: not something is an example of environmental racism. I'll continue.
Speaker 1: In any case, the capital city of one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people and thirty thousand in surrounding communities could
Speaker 1: go without running water indefinitely. As official warned, anyone with
Speaker 1: access to tap water should boil it for three minutes. Quote,
Speaker 1: we need to provide water for up to one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty thousand people for an unknown period of time.
Speaker 1: Please stay safe, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said at the
Speaker 1: evening briefing Jackson, the state capital is more than eighty
Speaker 1: percent black or African American, so that is also key.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent black or African American according to US Census data. Again,
Speaker 1: do not drink the water, Reeves told a hastily called
Speaker 1: news conference. In too many cases it is raw water
Speaker 1: from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes. The city said.
Speaker 1: Recent flooding of the Pearl River created complications at the
Speaker 1: Obie Curtis Water Treatment Plant, which sits next to a
Speaker 1: reservoir that drains into the river just north of town.
Speaker 1: The town has been under a boiled water alert for
Speaker 1: a month. Reeves said that the motors powering the plant's
Speaker 1: pumps went out recently, leaving it to operate on backup pumps,
Speaker 1: which failed on Monday. State would establish an incident command
Speaker 1: center at the plant early Tuesday, hoping to re establish operations. Now, cute,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you something. In the United States
Speaker 1: of America, have you ever heard of people not getting
Speaker 1: clean tap water from their sinks and having to boil
Speaker 1: their water. Has that been a story that you've ever
Speaker 1: heard about in this country outside of Mississippi, outside of
Speaker 1: the story we're talking about today. Unfortunately, yes, you've heard
Speaker 1: this story. But boiling the water as the solution is
Speaker 1: the part that stands out to me. Oh okay, I
Speaker 1: hadn't heard especially one's government instruct its people to just
Speaker 1: boil the water for a few minutes. So, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you said that, because I want to lean into
Speaker 1: that for a second. But we do have to get
Speaker 1: back to the main point because I got some real
Speaker 1: important questions to ask. But does it seem like that's
Speaker 1: kind of a lackluster effort to remedy the problem? Because
Speaker 1: you're so kind, I'm just asking you know, this is
Speaker 1: a question I would sure I'll go with lackluster. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's flip this around. Let's say, for instance, in
Speaker 1: Mississippi the population is eighty percent white, just to pick
Speaker 1: a race, could you imagine a governor coming forward and
Speaker 1: saying that we have a problem. There is no solution
Speaker 1: on the horizon, and there you will have to boil
Speaker 1: water indefinitely. Could you see that happening in a community
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: It depends and this is maybe some nuanced, unintendedly always
Speaker 2: injected into the story. Are those people poor? Okay?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Because what we've learned is that if by nature it
Speaker 2: also suppresses the poor black and brown in that community,
Speaker 2: then it would and then poor white people in that
Speaker 2: community are going to have to be affracted by those
Speaker 2: same rules. Unless there's some wealth, even a little bit,
Speaker 2: some people that that that are above the poverty line
Speaker 2: in this country, apex capitalists, maybe all those poor people
Speaker 2: would be instructed to boil their water.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really sad that a lot of times
Speaker 1: our conversations point back to capitalism and that because we
Speaker 1: live in a capitalist model.
Speaker 2: White supremacist capitalist model too, So there you go double down.
Speaker 1: So as a result of that, we don't have that
Speaker 1: ultimately is the end of the conversation. That's the end
Speaker 1: of the trail in most instances. And you know, the
Speaker 1: funny part about it is that you know, I've been
Speaker 1: to the Statue Liberty and there's a line there that says,
Speaker 1: you know, give me your I know we know about
Speaker 1: the huddled masses, but there's the line there says, you
Speaker 1: know you're poor, and I'm just thinking, like, man, that's
Speaker 1: the promise that this country has made to its people.
Speaker 1: Then this country has failed to deliver on that promise.
Speaker 1: Side note, I had a conversation on my other show,
Speaker 1: the Black Information Network Daily Podcast. I wute you to
Speaker 1: check it out. It's on iHeartMedia on the iHeart platforms,
Speaker 1: and I was talking about this very thing, the failure
Speaker 1: of the government to keep its promise to the people.
Speaker 1: And I was doing a discussion about the what is
Speaker 1: it the student loans, So the student loan relief by
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. You know, there's obviously a lot of Republican
Speaker 1: opposition to that, and I heard a lot of talk
Speaker 1: work points, right, but I heard a lot of talking
Speaker 1: points about this. But you know, one talking point that
Speaker 1: I didn't hear was that, well, let's take into account
Speaker 1: what does the government. First off, what is the government
Speaker 1: supposed to do? And my point was, you decide what
Speaker 1: the government is and what it should do based on
Speaker 1: how you vote. And then what is the government's commitment
Speaker 1: to the people, you know what I mean? And for
Speaker 1: that answer, we can look at what the government has
Speaker 1: promised the people in addition to what it is we
Speaker 1: want from our government, the voters, we the voters. And
Speaker 1: the connection that I made that I didn't see made
Speaker 1: anywhere else in popular meat. Yeah ways, I connected it
Speaker 1: with trickle down economics, which was something that you know,
Speaker 1: our conservative facet of this country has sold to the
Speaker 1: masses as being something that will work. Let's make sure
Speaker 1: the rich guys get richer, so that this wealth will
Speaker 1: trickle down to the middle class. Right, And we have
Speaker 1: a now a forty to fifty year experiment that's been running,
Speaker 1: and we've seen after the thirty year mark that it
Speaker 1: does not, in fact produce a stronger middle class, does
Speaker 1: not lift up poor people. The wealth gap is wider
Speaker 1: than it's ever been, and the richest people in this
Speaker 1: country have concentrated all that.
Speaker 2: Wealth and that is its intent. Sure, sure they know
Speaker 2: that they just marketed it, but they had fifty.
Speaker 1: Years of like pulling the wolves over our eyes and
Speaker 1: robbing us all blind us, we the people. So because
Speaker 1: the government has to take responsibility for what the government
Speaker 1: promised to the people, if that responsibility is, hey, you
Speaker 1: know what that trickle down economics thing that didn't really
Speaker 1: work out, and you went to school, and you got
Speaker 1: loans to go to school, and you studied hard, and
Speaker 1: you went out and you got a job, and you
Speaker 1: find yourself not having that American dream that says I
Speaker 1: can have a house, two cars in the garage to
Speaker 1: stay at home spouse, and I can go on vacation
Speaker 1: twice a year, and I can afford to take care
Speaker 1: of a couple of kids. Since you can't do that
Speaker 1: with that college degree, we should probably get you back
Speaker 1: on that college degree. Dad.
Speaker 2: That was our bad.
Speaker 1: And so I'm connecting the government with their responsibility.
Speaker 2: And that'd be tight if they do that well.
Speaker 1: That This is what I'm connecting to Joe Biden's student loan,
Speaker 1: you know, relief thing, you know, little thing. It's not enough,
Speaker 1: but it's nothing. It's got a really low ceiling. But correct,
Speaker 1: it's not nothing. Right, So the statute of liberty says,
Speaker 1: send me you're poor. So why in this country do
Speaker 1: we treat poor people bad? We already know that black people.
Speaker 1: This show exists because this country oftentimes treats black people bad.
Speaker 1: But you know, to your point, yes, poor people get
Speaker 1: treated badly. But I want to continue, Q. Can you
Speaker 1: name the city that had a problem with their water.
Speaker 2: You said had has shouts to my Flint Stones, all
Speaker 2: my people back home in the great mitten shaped state
Speaker 2: of Michigan. But yeah, Flint, Michigan has been dealing with
Speaker 2: a drinking water problem for years now. Once again an
Speaker 2: American city and strange. You know, Jackson, Mississippi is capital city,
Speaker 2: major city, like wow.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you another question. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm a conspiracy theorist. Maybe I see patterns where they
Speaker 1: don't exist. Maybe I connect the lines where they don't
Speaker 1: need to be connected. But never heard of such a thing.
Speaker 1: But I want to ask this question. I really genuinely
Speaker 1: don't know the answer.
Speaker 2: I hope I do.
Speaker 1: Would you guess that there are a significant amount of
Speaker 1: black people that live in Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 2: Without knowing any data, I'm winking my eye for people
Speaker 2: who are listening to us on the radio podcast. Without
Speaker 2: knowing any data, I'd guess that, yes, there are a
Speaker 2: significant number of black people living in Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 1: I would guess the same thing because obviously, I've been
Speaker 1: alive in this country for the past since Obama was
Speaker 1: in office, and I'm well aware of this issue, and
Speaker 1: I'm well aware that Flint is fifty seven percent black.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Maggie for that statistic. Now here's two examples
Speaker 1: of cities that have failed their black, primarily black citizen
Speaker 1: in this way. That's not to say that other cities
Speaker 1: that are predominantly black don't miss the mark. They just
Speaker 1: have not gotten to the point where they're doing this
Speaker 1: for an indefinite amount of time, you know, et cetera.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that other places where the black
Speaker 1: population makes up a significant amount of the population is
Speaker 1: not adversely affected in other ways. Maybe it's not water,
Speaker 1: maybe it's you know, another thing, right, But I think
Speaker 1: that these things again point to environmental racism again. One
Speaker 1: day me and Maggan Q will sit down and really
Speaker 1: flesh this out for you. But we have to talk
Speaker 1: about I just I just, you know, thank you for
Speaker 1: listening every week. I appreciate you listening every week. I
Speaker 1: know that we have to talk about this stuff. And
Speaker 1: the truth is, if you're listening to me, I reckon you,
Speaker 1: my sister, I reckon you, my brother. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: through this together. But this is the sort of thing
Speaker 1: that I cannot see happening unless we're talking about black people.
Speaker 1: If it's a black city, Katrina. People were going to
Speaker 1: stores trying to get relief, trying to get food, trying
Speaker 1: to get whatever. And yes, there were some people trying
Speaker 1: to get whatever. Sure, I'll give you that, but you
Speaker 1: know how many people the police shot? How many? You know?
Speaker 1: I don't even want to go into that. But I
Speaker 1: saw that happen. I was in five when I first
Speaker 1: got in the radio. I saw it happen. And we
Speaker 1: all know Kanye got on TV and he said what
Speaker 1: he said about George Bush. He should have said poor
Speaker 1: people that too, right, But the thing is, it feels
Speaker 1: like more often if a person is poor and white,
Speaker 1: there is more empathy for the person, for the family,
Speaker 1: for the community, well individually, sure, like if someone's having
Speaker 1: a converse with we're looking at.
Speaker 2: A photo of Sure, but the poor white people that
Speaker 2: live in the conditions with the poor black people live
Speaker 2: in the same conditions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they get affected the same way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that obviously is not something where I can furnish
Speaker 1: hard data. That just is kind of generally speaking, the
Speaker 1: way that that has felt to me.
Speaker 2: You you may have the absence of the affirmative right,
Speaker 2: but give us an example. Listeners, Followers, give us an
Speaker 2: example of an affluent white community in the history of
Speaker 2: this country that has ever experienced something like this, so
Speaker 2: we don't have to have the affirmative data that it's happened.
Speaker 2: I don't know of an example that I've ever heard
Speaker 2: of where the truth is the same for an affluent community,
Speaker 2: I won't even have. You don't have to say white
Speaker 2: or black. Right, If it's poor, it's going to have
Speaker 2: a greater black population. That's the way this thing was
Speaker 2: set up. If it's affluent, it's going to have a
Speaker 2: greater white population. It was set up that way on purpose.
Speaker 2: It has flourished in that manner for its entire history. Sure,
Speaker 2: so we don't need the specific data to point to
Speaker 2: the specific place. There's no opposite of it. You're not
Speaker 2: going to call us like, hey, there was this one
Speaker 2: time in bel Air where there was no drinking water.
Speaker 1: And you know, for a weekend, and even if it
Speaker 1: was that, yeah, there would be no indefinite there would
Speaker 1: be no flint where it's been an ongoing thing for years,
Speaker 1: you know, this sort of thing. So, yes, definitely something
Speaker 1: to bear in mind. And then, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: if you feel so inclined, perhaps there's you know, ways
Speaker 1: that you can support beyond just sending water to Mississippi
Speaker 1: to these people. You know, this is a a major
Speaker 1: American city. This could happen to your city. You know,
Speaker 1: this could happen in our city. This is you know,
Speaker 1: it's not something that is beyond the realm of possibilities.
Speaker 1: But the response to it and the reaction to it
Speaker 1: just kind of seems lackluster. And again the connection that
Speaker 1: I slash we are making is that eighty percent black
Speaker 1: kind of checks out. And because we have to talk
Speaker 1: about those things here, here's your conversation. Now, I do
Speaker 1: want to also mention something else. So this comes via
Speaker 1: the Well News. Detroit residents ask Congress to eliminate environmental racism.
Speaker 1: Residents of the Detroit area suggested Thursday during a congressional
Speaker 1: hearing that the Biden administration take care of environmental racism
Speaker 1: before celebrating its recent successes against climate change. They are
Speaker 1: concerned about manufacturing and hazardous waste processing plants that emit pollution,
Speaker 1: particularly in their neighborhoods with predominantly minority and immigrant populations. Quote.
Speaker 1: Our community has been disregarded, said Robert Schob, a Detroit resident,
Speaker 1: who reports respiratory problems from the nearby Stalantes plant. Here
Speaker 1: he goes again, quote everything is based off of finance
Speaker 1: instead of people. He added, I don't go outside as
Speaker 1: much these days to avoid the odor of plants as
Speaker 1: well as coughing and chest pain. This plant is making
Speaker 1: us sick. The Subcommittee on Environments called areas where Americans
Speaker 1: fill their health is sacrificed for the profits of corporate polluters,
Speaker 1: sacrifice zones. The Environmental Protection Agency or the EPA, is
Speaker 1: supposed to control high pollution industries through the permitting processes
Speaker 1: it administers under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
Speaker 1: But again, even in Queue's city of his birth, and
Speaker 1: again there's a lot of black folks there, it just
Speaker 1: kind of seems like, eh, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: got to deal with it, and it moves slow, and
Speaker 1: people are kind of not concerned, and then we end
Speaker 1: up with these outcomes that affect health, quality of life,
Speaker 1: property values, mobility in society, things like this. Environmental racism
Speaker 1: is another sort of invisible force that we have to
Speaker 1: deal with as a Black community. Now again, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to complain about ramses Ques, not trying to complain
Speaker 1: about q but we have to bring issues to the
Speaker 1: forefront so that if you have never heard of these things,
Speaker 1: you at least are aware that they exist. A and B.
Speaker 1: We're not crazy, We're not nobody wants to just complain
Speaker 1: all the time. Nobody like who you know. We're hard workers,
Speaker 1: we don't want anything free. We're men, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And Maggie's woman, you know, so we like
Speaker 1: as an adult woman, you know. So.
Speaker 2: It is, however, exhausting, to have these repetitive truths for
Speaker 2: the entirety of our lives, you know, made to feel
Speaker 2: like we're complaining. Yes, indeed,