Lots of Folks Don’t Have Clean Water & We Stopped Talking About It

August 30, 2022 Mississippi governor shared that his states water crisis was now a state of emergency. A fact that Jackson, Mississippi residents (a population of nearly 150,000) had been experiencing first hand.  Being warned to boil water to make it safe to drink came from local health officials  July 30. Not having enough water pressure to flush toilets was now commonplace. Such     outrageous facts continue to become the lived experiences of Jackson residents—water flowing from faucets went from cloudy to nearly black and bottled water ran out.

Poverty and racism contributing to the poor infrastructure that eventually led to this crisis. The fight for clean water has been a problem for predominantly Black areas from Flint (where lead contamination made access to clean water an emergency) to Jackson, just to name the most recent, it is also encountered on Native Reservations throughout the US and Canada. 

On Indigenous reservations, boiling water warnings are lasting years and widely being ignored by politicians on local and national fronts. 

Things became so bad in Jackson that the bottled water being provided to residents ran out. Years of Lead contamination, poor infrastructure, chemical waste dumping, and unsafe drilling, have created long term effects which have caused years of water pollution for many Black and Native American populations . 

Boiling water notices and brown water are not something that happen overnight. Just like the effects of systemic racism continue to be married to health, wealth, education and occupational opportunities so do human rights like housing—food and water have not disappeared because they are uncomfortable to talk about. 

Water is life and it is clear who’s lives are valued. 

Sources: “The Jackson, Mississippi Water Crisis is a Public Failure Rooted in Systemic Racism,” by Maggie O’Neil and “On Native American reservations, the push for more clean water and sanitation,” by Celina Tebor

Artwork: Offerings and Prayers for Genebek Ziibiing.” Christi Belcort Michif from the Métis Nation 

#waterislife #jackonmississipi #pollution #humanrights #watercrisis #environmentalracism #nativeamerican #firstnationspeople