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Judi Lynn

(160,218 posts)
Fri Feb 17, 2017, 06:55 PM Feb 2017

COMMISSION: 'SYSTEMIC RACISM' AT ROOT OF FLINT WATER CRISIS

Last edited Fri Feb 17, 2017, 08:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Associated Press

Feb 17, 5:44 PM EST

BY JEFF KAROUB
ASSOCIATED PRESS



FLINT, Mich. (AP) -- "Systemic racism" going back decades is at the core of problems that caused a lead-contaminated water crisis in the majority black city of Flint, according to a Michigan Civil Rights Commission report issued Friday.

The report says the commission did not unearth any civil rights law violations and that nobody "intended to poison Flint." But the 130-page report based on the testimony of more than 100 residents, experts and government and community leaders at public hearings and other meetings last year concludes that decisions would have been different had they concerned the state's wealthier, predominantly white communities.

"We are not suggesting that those making decisions related to this crisis were racists ... (but the) disparate response is the result of systemic racism that was built into the foundation and growth of Flint, its industry and suburban area," the report says. "Would the Flint water crisis have been allowed to happen in Birmingham, Ann Arbor or East Grand Rapids? We believe the answer is no, and that the vestiges of segregation and discrimination found in Flint made it a unique target. The lack of political clout left the residents with nowhere to turn, no way to have their voices heard."

To save money while under state control, the impoverished city with a 57 percent black population used water from the Flint River for 18 months without treating it to prevent pipe corrosion. As a result, the water caused lead to leach from old pipes and into homes.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FLINT_WATER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-02-17-17-44-14

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COMMISSION: 'SYSTEMIC RACISM' AT ROOT OF FLINT WATER CRISIS (Original Post) Judi Lynn Feb 2017 OP
Benign Neglect, a la Nixon BumRushDaShow Feb 2017 #1
Flint was a lot more active than benign neglect. People had to know what was happening Squinch Feb 2017 #2
It started as benign BumRushDaShow Feb 2017 #3
K and R...this is a major story of enormous proportions.. Stuart G Feb 2017 #4
Flint isn't the only city lou ky dem Feb 2017 #5

BumRushDaShow

(127,312 posts)
1. Benign Neglect, a la Nixon
Fri Feb 17, 2017, 07:36 PM
Feb 2017
*

Is ‘Benign Neglect’ The Real Nixon Approach?

SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES MARCH 8, 1970

<...>

“Benign neglect, is the phrase that leaped from one of the many private Moynihan memorandums to the President when it came to light last week. All that Mr. Nixon's counselor meant to suggest was that the much debated subject of race relations and tensions could benefit from a period of official de-emphasis.

Writing in. January; at a time when the Justice Department seemed in hot pursuit of the Black Panthers, and suggesting that the American Negro had in fact made remarkable economic and social progress over the last two—Democratic—decades, Pat Moynihan said the nation's pre-occupation with racial conflict had tended to obscure that record and yielded the public forum to extremists of both the left and the right.

Borrowing from the Earl of Durham's prescription in 1839 for the proper British attitude toward Canada, Mr. Moynihan wrote “The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of ‘benign neglect.’ The subject has been too much talked about. The forum has been too much taken over by hysterics, paranoids and boodlers on all sides. We may need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades.”

<...>

http://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/08/archives/is-benign-neglect-the-real-nixon-approach.html


(* Note this is a NYT archive article from the scanned paper where they attempted to convert the graphic to text, so had to make some corrections to the text)

Squinch

(50,774 posts)
2. Flint was a lot more active than benign neglect. People had to know what was happening
Fri Feb 17, 2017, 09:30 PM
Feb 2017

and they had to be willing to let it happen. They had to have done the calculus that told them that poisoning people was worth the money.

BumRushDaShow

(127,312 posts)
3. It started as benign
Fri Feb 17, 2017, 09:40 PM
Feb 2017

when you let systems go for so long without fixes and upgrades, meaning the cost to repair increases yearly the longer you neglect. Then once it got to the point of deploying the GOP orthodoxy of "saving money" (while continuing to complain about the cost of updating the neglected infrastructure), choosing to have the system handle toxic river water, and then pooh-poohing the results of that decision, moved it to active criminal intent from extreme negligence and coverups.

Stuart G

(38,365 posts)
4. K and R...this is a major story of enormous proportions..
Fri Feb 17, 2017, 10:05 PM
Feb 2017

"We are not suggesting that those making decisions related to this crisis were racists ... (but the) disparate response is the result of systemic racism that was built into the foundation and growth of Flint, its industry and suburban area," the report says.... "Would the Flint water crisis have been allowed to happen in Birmingham, Ann Arbor or East Grand Rapids? We believe the answer is no, and that the vestiges of segregation and discrimination found in Flint made it a unique target. The lack of political clout left the residents with nowhere to turn, no way to have their voices heard."
..................that says it all.....................................

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