"Structural racism is so deep and leaves nothing untouched including the people’s veins and eats the bodies from the inside. African Americans, communities of color, and poor whites are treated to contaminated water, polluted air, toxic, intensely fertilized and expired food supplies while not forgetting the basic fact that they are confined to rodent and cockroach infested housing. Nothing is incidental in the existing conditions found in the inner cities and in the forgotten and made to be forgotten communities of color, African Americans, and poor whites. Collectively, they are treated as mere “human rejects” based on a long chain of racist distortions rooted in pseudo-scientific evolution and religious rationalization."
Hatem Bazian is a Palestinian-born professor at UC Berkeley. I often refer to him as a two-trick pony because his pet causes are bashing Israel and complaining about Islamophobia in the US. Naturally, he supports the Palestinian intifadas, and in 2004, called for an intifada in the US before a college audience,
Recently, it appears Bazian has found a new nag for his corral. That would be accusing America-his adopted country- of being racist against black people. Of course, America does have a well-documented and acknowledged history in this regard, but Bazian has little or no concept of how this country has evolved over the years even before he washed up on our shores.
Now Bazian has jumped into the Flint, Michigan water controversy. According to him, it is all because of racism that Flint's residents have been hit with contaminated water. Here is his latest screed from his own blog.
http://www.hatembazian.com/content/flint-racism-water/
"Adding insult to injury, the city decided to forgo the use of recommended chemicals that would have prevented the erosion of the old pipes and possibly reduce the leaching of lead into the water supplies. "
Oops. Did you say city and not state?
As you may know, the Obama administration and the left have jumped on this crisis largely because Michigan has a Republican governor named Rick Snyder. Never mind that the state has been under the yoke of the Democratic party for decades. If former failed governor, Jennifer Granholm were still in Lansing, the response from Washington would probably not be so great. (Snyder succeeded Granholm in 2011. Granholm is now employed at UC Berkeley. I don't know whether she has been introduced to Bazian).
How much of the blame goes to Lansing and how much to Flint itself, I do not know. To the extent that city officials in Flint may have erred, we can hardly attribute it to racism. Just about all of the city council is made of up of African-Americans, and the current mayor herself is African American.
https://www.cityofflint.com/city-council/councilmembers/
Aha! He must be the bad guy.
As it turns out, it was the Flint City Council itself that had made the decision to use the Flint River as a source while engaged in a legal battle with the city of Detroit, which opposed the change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
In addition, Mayor Karen Weaver seems to be pleased with Governor Snyder's response to the emergency.
https://www.cityofflint.com/2016/01/13/mayor-weaver-responds-to-governors-order-to-activate-national-guard/
There may be plenty of blame to spread around, and the important thing is that all concerned are working to fix the problem. However, for some agenda-driven professor in far off California to inject race into this crisis is irresponsible. Bazian clearly doesn't know what he is talking about.
1 comment:
So it was the city all along?? Kinda figured that. Sort of like Chicago, Detroit, et al.
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