Who would be considered the nicest,
After shutting off people’s water
causing a crisis?
Using the devices of power
Hour after hour
To sour the living conditions
of so many.
Three thousand households a week
are facing shutoffs. Can you imagine
how much those bills cost?!
Babies need water.
Children need water.
Youth need water.
Adults need water.
But it’s money over people.
This is a Human Rights issue.
This is a Right to Water issue.
And if this continues imagine
how many lives will be affected.
I’ve heard that gentrification is
connected to these shutoffs.
So it’s about money and land.
Resources changing from hand
to hand. An American pastime
That many poor and people of
color can understand.
Water is in demand.
But shutting it off in
Detroit is their plan.
© Christopher D. Sims
July 8, 2014
Reprinted with permission from the author.
Photo: Mary Ellen Kavanaugh, and her children Abby, second from left, Grace and Owen, right, of Windsor, help carry water jugs to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, July 24, for a water station being set up to help Detroit residents who need water. A small group of Canadians brought 1,000 liters (264 gallons) of water from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit to protest thousands of residential service shutoffs by Detroit’s water department. (AP)
CONTRIBUTOR
Comments