Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich blames decades of racism for the water crises in Jackson, Mississippi; Flint, Michigan; and West Baltimore, Maryland. I wonder, what do the leaders of those three cities all have in common?
Reich declared that the “legacy of segregation” and “decades and decades of racism and neglect” have led to water crises in all three cities. Racism, the nameless, faceless specter that simply looms over the city, is responsible for all of these troubles, according to Reich. There is simply nothing that can be done, apparently.
From Flint, Michigan to Jackson, Mississippi to West Baltimore, a combination of poor infrastructure, the climate crisis, and racism have contributed to a lack of clean drinking water in some of America’s most predominantly Black cities. This is by design.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) September 8, 2022
Of course, Reich is simply trying to turn the failures of his own party into the failures of America. Reich wants to blame “decades and decades” of racism because all three cities have been under decades and decades of Democratic control. It can’t simply be Democratic incompetence that led to these problems. The failures belong to you and me.
Jackson, for example, was failed by its Democratic leadership, which put no effort into hiring new employees for the city’s water system and did not have a crisis plan. That is according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Jackson has been run by Democrats since 1949. The water system had problems dating from the 1900s to 2005, with Mississippi controlled by Democrats for nearly all of those 105 years.
The EPA similarly found problems with Flint’s water supply before that city’s crisis in 2014. Flint’s last Republican mayor left office in 1975, and his title was ceremonial. Since Flint began electing mayors under its 1974 charter, the city has been controlled by Democrats. And Baltimore has been run by Democrats since 1967, with black Democrats serving as mayor since 1987, the lone exception being white Democrat Martin O’Malley, who served eight years in office.
The Democratic leadership of these mostly black cities is, unsurprisingly, mostly black. It has also been mostly incompetent. This is also true in several Democratic cities where black communities face high crime rates. It is not “racism” floating over the city causing homicides or water system failures. It is Democratic politicians who don’t care about improving the lives of residents because they know Democrats will get elected no matter how poor a job they do in these cities.
If Reich weren’t a rabid partisan, he would be asking how cities run by Democrats for decades were not able to get in front of these problems. But he is far more interested in pushing narratives about “systemic racism” and protecting his party from criticism. Nothing is ever the fault of Democrats, not even the failures in cities they have completely controlled for 60 or more years.
