The Petty Police, Unrest in Iraq, Commemorating Katrina
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi everybody,
We’ve put together a list of other writers whose newsletters or podcasts are on the Substack platform (like ours) that we think are really worth your time. It includes several people we have either had on Shake the Dust or recommended in this newsletter. As always, we’ve tried to center and elevate marginalized voices and perspectives in the list, and you will find no shortage of incredible, informative writing from these authors. Give it a look and please reply with anyone you think we should add!
Now, without further ado, here are this week’s highlights.
Sy’s recommendations:
Since the end of slavery, taxation without providing basic services has been a favored strategy for state governments to extract wealth from Black communities. Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, does not have consistent running water at the moment, and the water that does come is not clean. The government told residents to boil water before using it, and it cannot say when the crisis will be over. There may not be enough water to do mundane but critical things like flushing toilets, or to meet emergencies like fires. State legislators are using porta potties outside their offices. This video from All In with Chris Hayes gives a closer look at the stresses of day-to-day life right now for residents of this overwhelmingly Black city, and crucially contextualizes that story within the history of white flight following desegregation. This article goes further into the history of disinvestment in Jackson, detailing how hostile legislators and underfunded bureaucracies failed to address the water system’s well-known problems. And here is a Twitter thread with ways you can help, both locally and from far away.
As this Bloomberg article explains, the first six months of the Eric Adams mayoral administration in New York City have seen a drastic increase in arrests for misdemeanor and petty offenses. This reverses a consistent downward trend in such arrests since a court ruled the city’s stop-and-frisk policy unconstitutional in 2014. After that ruling, both arrests and crime plummeted in New York. And the city’s crime rates remain about five times lower than thirty years ago. But still, the NYPD is increasing arrests for these misdemeanors, like low-level theft or sleeping on a park bench, often committed by poor people because of poverty. And, as always in NYC, an extremely disproportionate 90% of the arrestees are BIPOC. The article further discusses the “broken windows” theory of policing behind these new arrests, which blames overpoliced people for being poor and allows its adherents to ignore the systemic forces driving poverty. It’s helpful to understand this false narrative, and to think through the idols behind it.
Suzie’s recommendations:
Every year on a single night in January, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development sends out volunteers into the streets to count the unhoused. That number, plus the population in shelters and local homeless management information systems, forms the basis for policy decisions like budget allocations toward homeless services. But that system of data collection is fundamentally flawed. This recent Washington Post article reveals some of the reasons why our measurement of the nation’s current housing crisis is far too small. This includes a lack of acknowledgment of the diverse coping mechanisms that folks employ, including making use of cars and trailers as temporary shelter. The article also suggests some ways to get at the actual numbers while humanizing rather than stigmatizing those who face chronic or occasional homelessness.
An obsession with power wed to religious ideology will always breed violence. This past week in Baghdad, there was an outbreak of unrest in response to political and spiritual leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s resignation. The clashes were between al-Sadr's supporters, who feel he was coerced into stepping down, and the pro-Iran Shia forces that he opposed. This article by Al Jazeera’s Arwa Ibrahim provides a straightforward overview of the political chess these rival religious factions are playing. It’s important to try to grasp the nuances of such power plays lest we give into reductionist narratives of inevitable, perpetual conflict in places like Iraq. In fact, these Shia political groups are currently engaged in a complex tug of war over the center of power, and it’s key players like Muqtada al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani who could largely determine the outcome. But most of all, let us continue to pray for peace and protection for the people of Iraq who are most affected by these machinations.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
In May 2017, I read an illuminating and devastating article by New York Times Reporter Vanessa Barbara explaining that the genocide of the indigenous peoples of Brazil was still in progress. This week, an unnamed indigenous man living alone on his tribe’s land in the Amazon died after resisting outside contact for nearly three decades. Ranchers killed his family and his people to steal their land. So, he lived in total isolation for 26 years. This video is the last known footage of him. The struggle of indigenous people to exist in a world that seeks to destroy them through violence or assimilation often ends in erasure. Because of colonization and the exploitative capitalism that reigns and rules in Brazil, this man has no tribe to mourn him, though he must have spent decades mourning them. I lament at the loss of this man and his people. I invite you to do the same.
Monday was the anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, and Louisiana teacher Chris Dier’s Twitter thread reminds us of the tragic loss of life, the multi-layered injustice of the response, and what solidarity looks like. Inmates died, the Government rejected much-needed aid from Cuba and Venezuela, Blackwater military contractors patrolled the streets, underpaid immigrant laborers came to rebuild the city, and Mexican marines provided medical care because our National Guard troops were at war in Iraq. Like COVID-19, Katrina exposed the race, class, gender, and location-based hierarchies in our society. Followers of Jesus who desire to live out Isaiah 1:17 would do well to study the history of this country to understand how the United States is not the Kingdom we long and work for. This thread helps us do that.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team