A Slap In the Face - Environmental Racism in Flint

What does environmental racism taste like?

Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow didn't mince words over the outrageous efforts of Republican senators in Washington to actively obstruct the approval of $600 million in emergency federal funding for the city of Flint, Michigan to address the massive crisis resulting from the city's tainted water system by attaching unrelated partisan spending measures to the passage of the pending energy bill currently being debated on Capitol Hill.


"I personally feel it's an insult, it's being done to embarrass us."

Considering that thousands of children in Flint have potentially been exposed to toxic levels of lead poisoning, it's more than an insult, it's a crime.

As Jordain Carney reported in an article for TheHill.com last week, Jim Inhofe, the climate change- denying Republican Senator from Oklahoma, had the gall to introduce an amendment to the energy bill that would authorize the appropriation of emergency federal relief money for the people of Flint only if that money is taken out of funds that were previously allocated to the Department of Energy's budget for alternative vehicle research.

What do funds to research the development of vehicles that run off of alternative energy sources have to do with safe drinking water for thousands of people in Flint, Michigan? Absolutely nothing.

But some of Inhofe's top campaign contributions in 2013-2014 came from companies, PAC's or individuals with ties to the petroleum industry.

According to campaign finance data tracked by OpenSecrets.org, Inhofe's top contributors include Exxon-Mobil, BP, Koch Industries, Occidental Petroleum, Devon Energy, the American Chemistry Council, WPX Energy and Murray Energy.

Inhofe brings cutting-edge science to the Senate floor

Inhofe, the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, famously brought a snowball onto the floor of the U.S. Senate chamber (really) as scientific evidence that human-influenced climate change does not exist.

Leave it to a guy like that to use the allocation of federal funds for providing fresh water for citizens in Flint and repairing damaged infrastructure as an opportunity to shamelessly shill for the oil industry. Pathetic.

As of last Monday the leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington, said both sides were still at odds on approving funds for Flint to pass the stalled energy bill.

To me, all this politicking and righteous indignation about approving funds for Flint on the part of Republicans is a glaring example of how the issue of environmental racism happens in this country.

Remember, this whole debacle in Flint wouldn't have happened if Republican Governor Rick Snyder hadn't allowed an unelected "emergency manager" to switch the source of the city's water from Detroit's water system to the polluted Flint River as a "cost-saving measure" in the first place.

Actions that are part of the nationwide effort of extremist conservatives to use Republican-dominated state legislatures to shrink the size of government to finance tax relief for the wealthy and gut environmental regulations that protect our water, land and atmosphere to increase the profit margins for the nations biggest polluters.

The language and tactics these conservative politicians use is little more than a ruse.

Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn

According to Carney's Hill.com article, Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn also joined his conservative climate-change-denying cohort Jim Ihofe in politicizing the providing of fresh drinking for the mostly poorer African-American and Hispanic residents of Flint, Michigan.

As Cornyn told members of the press:

"Adding additional debt to our tab, especially for something that's a local and state responsibility...strikes me as a bad idea."

Seriously, when did authorizing emergency funds for fresh water become a "bad idea" in this country?

It shouldn't come as a shocker that Ole' Johnny has raised $46,817,109 from campaign contributions between 2001 - 2016, want to take a guess at who his top five contributors are?

According to OpenSecrets.org they include Exxon-Mobil, JP Morgan Chase and Lock Lorde, LLP - an international law firm based in Dallas with more than 1,000 attorneys that specializes in among other areas, environmental law, antitrust law, banking regulation, securities, white-collar criminal defense and energy laws.

It should also be noted that back in November, John Cornyn was one of four sitting U.S. Senators identified by the global hacktivist collective Anonymous whose names were affiliated with KKK organizations around the nation in a list that was released online.

He denied the allegations of course but when you read about his dismissing the request for emergency funds to address the crisis in Flint as "additional debt to our tab" and a "bad idea", it makes you wonder.

A Flint mom comforts a child being blood tested for lead

In the meantime thousands of middle and low income families and individuals in Flint are stuck in a once-thriving manufacturing hub that is now shackled by high unemployment, bleak job opportunities, plummeting home values and a municipal water system that's so toxic that millions of bottles of drinking water are being shipped in from as far as California until city, state and federal officials can hammer out a strategy to fix it.

So far Republicans have managed to sidestep responsibility for this man-made health crisis.

After all, it's the Republican's unhealthy obsession with shrinking government (which at this point borders on a kind of delusional paranoia), and their alliance with corporate contributers that put fiscal savings ahead of the health and well being of thousands of innocent people and the care and maintenance of critical infrastructure.

As numerous media sources reported earlier this week, serious investigations are gearing up which could put pressure on Washington Republicans to quit stalling and authorize emergency funds for Flint.

On Tuesday Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette, special counsel for the AG's office investigating the crisis Todd Flood, chief investigator Andrew Arena and deputy chief investigator Ellis Stafford held a press conference to announce that involuntary manslaughter charges could be filed against government officials found guilty of gross negligence or breach of duty.

After all, the human cost in Flint is already shocking. At least nine deaths have been attributed to Legionnaire's disease contracted as a result of lead poisoning to the municipal drinking water supply.


According to an informative but heart-wrenching article by Abby Goodnough in The New York Times two weeks ago, a staggering 8,000 children under the age of six years-old could be affected by lead poisoning that could stunt their mental development and have grave physical consequences on their future health.

In the meantime the investigation continues, the bottled water continues to be shipped in and anxious residents can only wait while heartless conservative Republicans like Jim Inhofe and John Cornyn hold their allegiance to the petroleum and energy industry over the health of the residents of Flint, Michigan.

As Democratic Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow told TheHill.com, "It's a slap in the face."

Courts Giveth & Courts Taketh Away - Legal Reforms in Ferguson & 'Unstructured Settlements' For Lead Poisoning Victims in Baltmore

Ferguson Judge Donald McCullin

The recent changes to the way in which the much-derided municipal courts in Ferguson, Missouri fundamentally operate illustrate that while the wheels of the dysfunctional American justice system may be slow to turn, they can indeed rotate in response to the demands of citizens, politicians, activists, clergy and the legal professionals who advocate on behalf of the disadvantaged.     
 
The internal gears of Ferguson's court systems are slowly beginning to grind against ingrained injustice, but it's a positive sign that they no longer grind exclusively against the poor and citizens of color.

It's not a magical cure-all, but perhaps it will lend some measure of meaning to the senseless death of unarmed American teenager Michael Brown at the hands of former Ferguson PD officer Darren Wilson.

On Monday recently-appointed 74-year old Ferguson municipal Judge Donald McCullin (pictured above) ordered sweeping changes to overhaul a court system that was essentially functioning as a revenue machine fueled disproportionately by the targeted persecution of working class and poor black citizens for a laundry list of minor legal infractions unfairly enforced by the Ferguson Police Department.  

McCullin ordered all warrants issued prior to December 2014 to be voided, and also radically altered sentencing for minor infractions like traffic violations with carefully structured payment plans based on defendant's income, or community service options in lieu of fees.

The legal changes, including revoking arrest warrants for 'failure to appear' charges based on minor infractions, represent significant and concrete legal reforms that could serve as a model for other communities in America.

While a number of news outlets covered the story, the coverage paled in comparison to the recent televised coverage of the street protests that accompanied the one year anniversary of Michael Brown's killing.

Does that which might be seen as the potentially negative hold more attraction for mainstream media than the sorts of positive systematic changes to the Ferguson court system ordered by Judge McCullin?

Sample of recent American "riot" headlines - [Photo - AJR]

The old media adage "If it bleeds it leads" seems to hold true these days.

In almost any American city where the potential for civil unrest or protest in the wake of the death of frequently-unarmed citizens of color occurs, a swarm of news trucks, photographers and reporters is quick to materialize; ready to beam carefully-edited images of people of color "rioting" out across the globe and chronicle chaos. 

That coverage is not always objective.



The ghosts of the devastating riots that erupted in cities across the nation in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 still haunt this nation; spawning something of a morbid cautionary fascination with many segments of mainstream media who always seem prepared to cover the worst of urban America when citizen outrage spills over into the streets.

On Monday, Judge McCullin's changes represented an important step in addressing some of that citizen outrage which still simmers in Ferguson.

Anger which can't be expected to simply vanish after decades of no legal redress and no prosecution for Darren Wilson for shooting and killing an unarmed black teen.

McCullin was unanimously appointed by the Ferguson city council back in June to replace Judge Roy Richter who'd been appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court in the wake of the release of the scathing review of the Ferguson courts and police department conducted by the Department of Justice.

McCullin's appointment was part of the comprehensive purge of the Ferguson court system to remove those who'd overseen its years of systematic and targeted abuse of the legal rights of thousands of African-American citizens.

On the law enforcement side, long gone are former Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson and other top officers from the department.

On the court side, also gone is the infamous Ferguson court clerk Mary Ann Twitty, the internal functionary who piously wielded her Magic Wand to make tickets disappear for friends and relatives, or processed the paper work for the thousands of bogus unjustified tickets (for crap like "Manner of Walking"), arrest warrants, inflated court fines and car seizures that overwhelmingly impacted black citizens. 

But while Judge McCullin's overhaul of the Ferguson courts illustrates an example of positive legal reform in an age where the issue of mass incarceration has now come under increased scrutiny, there's clearly still a long way to go.

The wheels of the court system's still grind against justice too.

Lead poisoned Baltimore row houses [Photo-Washington Post]

Terrence McCoy's truly disturbing article in yesterday's Washington Post chronicles how companies specifically target and profit of the lead poisoning of mostly poor African-Americans from Baltimore is an unfortunate reminder that the dysfunction of the American court system runs deep, and in many cases still functions as an accomplice to systematic discrimination based on race and ethnicity.

If you click the link above it's actually a difficult article to read.


As McCoy reveals in his article, companies like Access Funding methodically scour public court records of the financial court settlements awarded to mostly black victims of serious life-altering lead poisoning, then send smooth-talking representatives out into the streets of Baltimore to track them down like prey.    

Many of these lead poisoning victims suffer permanent, diminished intellectual capacity and debilitating mental side affects after years of exposure to the toxic lead paint common in row houses in poor sections of Baltimore like the ones seen in the photo above.

These unsuspecting victims are mislead and manipulated into signing away guaranteed-for life monthly settlement payments in exchange for sketchy one-time 'unstructured settlements' replete with complex contractual language and vague explanations of the financial terms.

In short, many are duped into signing away life-time benefits worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for paltry lump sums that translate into pennies on the dollar.

It's a moral, ethical and legal disgrace, but the companies do it routinely by filing legal documents in courts outside of Baltimore where there's less scrutiny of the terms allowing these companies to rip off people's medical benefits.

McCoy's Washington Post article is Pulitzer Prize-worthy material and not to be missed.

But more importantly it sheds light on the dark corners of the American legal system which continues to be an accomplice to the financial and legal victimization of people of color; a legal system that in this case, truly is blind.