Detroit Water Crisis: The Spirit of “Punkassed-ness…”

After waking up in a bad mood for the third morning straight, I said that I would say something. As a journalist, a mother, a woman, a human being: I just cannot understand why People are leaving the water situation in Detroit as an issue to sweep under the rug. Where are these same people that jumped on the Bandwagon to support Hati? Where are the people that supported the citizen of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina Happened? Al Sharpton is Mighty quiet…I guess water being cut off to hundreds of thousands of people isn’t good enough of a reason to sweat our your edges, let alone speak. No biggie, you only need water to survive…

It is no secret that the city of Detroit has been in political/economic ruin for a while. I remember growing up and reading about cities like Detroit and Chicago being painted as a mobilizing hub or Mecca for Black life. It was back in the day that a lot of Southern’s fled to these northern cities in search of employment opportunities and a better quality of life. The north provided opportunities outside of the hustle known as  sharecropping.

Gentrification happened once: The blacks moved into the cities while the whites moved out to the suburbs… Our cities grew and evolved. The Civil Right’s Movement happened and the industrial revolution proved to really put cities like Detroit on the map. Detroit is known to be the capital for American-made cars.  I’m not sure when this city began to fall from grace. Detroit is a city that has been victimized by greed and shady politics. To be honest, I really don’t care about that… Not when I hear that women can’t even bathe their babies.  When I heard that mother’s and children are being cut off from the cities water supply and are in jeopardy of losing their children, I immediately thought: We the community must do something! It is only right.

When the sisters of Women Unified in Consciousness learned of what is going on this city and we sprang to action. We started stretagizing a plan of action. The number one question was: How can we help? How can we get water to some of these citizen who are going thru this?For us, the answer was simple: We will not let our sisters go thirsty… We instantly started raising funds to carry water to the “D” ourselves. To my surprise, the donations started off kind of slow. The BET awards even aired and no one said anything. It seems like most people either don’t know or care about what is going on. This bothers me on a personal level and this is why: When Atlanta got shut down over 2 inches of ice, not once but twice this past season, everybody from everywhere was doing all kinds of stuff to help. Keep in mind that this is only a couple inches of ice. I’m not picking on Atlanta, I’m just calling the situation as it is.

It didn’t really hit me until later on this evening what is really going on. This is gentrification.. We sit and talk about this subject at the coffeeshop for casual conversation. We call our same old streets new names and we remember the old neighborhoods that we used to have. we revel in the new “condominium/retail life” that is popping up in US cities everywhere. I have been watching gentrification happen closely here in Atlanta for a few years now. It hurts. It’s hard to watch your history be torn down and paved under a parking lot. Am I the only one who is nursing a wounded spirit when it comes down to this situation? Does anybody care?

WHERE IS THE COMMUNITY?

What is with the spirit of “punkassed-ness” that people are adopting? I guess the average person does not care because of this city’s checkered political past.  Am I wrong for feeling? Am I wrong to believe that there is still some hope in the world that chivalry is NOT dead?

#3RDWORLDAMERICA