Portside

The state’s water crisis hasn’t fully abated, but nobody’s talking about it on the campaign trail.

If our state lawmakers really wanted to help fight crime, they would invest more tax dollars into mental health and anti-poverty programs to better support all of our communities, not finding new ways to oppress and overpower the Black residents of this state.

White representatives vote to create white-appointed court system for Blackest city in America

Congress sent $600 million to Jackson to help fix its water system. Some are warning that new legislation could funnel the money out of the city.

Experts and advocates say what is happening in Jackson - and in towns like Flint in Michigan, where the water supply was contaminated with lead - is a direct legacy of generations of discrimination and segregation.

The water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, was thoroughly preventable. And it’s a vision of a disastrous future.

Flooding in Pakistan is the latest in a long line of climate disasters. Now the 150,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi were ordered to evacuate as flooding hit the city. This weekend, temperatures in California are projected to hit 115°F.

Cooperation Jackson is a long term vision. “We’re going to ultimately have to create our own network of supply and value chain. If we exist in a bubble, we won’t survive. It’s a big experiment in democracy."

For my part, I see value in putting Coates’s and West’s perspectives in dialogue. To be clear, I am not interested in repeating or endorsing West’s critique here, and Coates needs no one to defend him, certainly not me. I believe that the reconciliation of their respective insights might open new directions.

"The Wednesday after the election I woke up in Jackson, Mississippi, and what that means is, no matter whether our country has experienced great boons or busts, in Mississippi, we've always been at the bottom," Mayor-elect Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. "We have to decide that we're going to rescue ourselves. That in places like Jackson, we won't allow it to be havens of oppression which endangers all of us."