Trump DOJ: Providing Basic Sewer Services to Black People Is Actually "Illegal DEI" - Balls and Strikes

[In It to Win It]

Balls and Strikes

Hookworm, a parasite that lives in the small intestine, was thought to be eradicated in most of the United States decades ago. People generally contract the illness by walking on soil contaminated by human feces, so as the nation’s sanitation infrastructure improved, infections plummeted. But those advancements bypassed the residents of Lowndes County, Alabama, a high-poverty, predominantly Black county where fewer than 1 in 5 residents are served by a conventional municipal sewer system. There, over 30 percent of residents test positive for hookworm. Nearly 60 percent say raw sewage is a severe problem in their community, and over 70 percent have had raw sewage come into their homes—sometimes flooding in when it rains, sometimes bubbling up in toilets, sinks, and bathtubs.

In November 2021, the Biden administration opened an investigation into whether the Lowndes County Health Department and the Alabama Department of Public Health were violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Black residents in the provision of sanitation access. Around a year and a half later, the Justice Department secured a landmark settlement that put Lowndes County on a path to provide Black residents with basic sanitation services that more affluent white communities have long received. “Today starts a new chapter for Black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama, who have endured health dangers, indignities and racial injustice for far too long,” said Kristen Clarke, who was, at that time, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced that, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” it was terminating the settlement immediately. “The DOJ will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, Clarke’s successor in the Civil Rights Division. “Americans deserve a government committed to serving every individual with dignity and respect, and to expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria.”

The sanitation crisis in Lowndes County and the Trump administration’s decision to perpetuate that crisis suggest that is not the government Americans have. Consigning Black people to live in filth is incompatible with serving all Americans with “dignity and respect,” unless Black people don’t count as Americans. Underinvesting in critical sanitation infrastructure in Black neighborhoods is irreconcilable with “expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest,” unless the nation is interested in violating Black people’s human rights.

[Marthe48]

1. All the people there will suffer

Hookworm isn't the only contaminant in raw sewage.

And yes, the administration is racists, sexist, deathmongers

[IzzaNuDay]

2. Dysentery, cholera are coming up next

But that will go over the heads of the felon’s administration….