Detroit activist Maureen Taylor slams reporter Hank Winchester for misinforming
Maureen Taylor is the hero of the day. She did not allow an obvious shill of the establishment, a shill of the plutocracy to lead the narrative. Reporter Hank Winchester’s bias was immediately obvious to those who understand the narrative he was hoping to get across.
Detroit has taken much flak for their inhumane decision to disconnect water en masse to its citizens. Most of them are poor and disabled in a failing city. Detroit is one of those cities that corporations abandoned after extracting most of the human capital from its soul. Those who are ultimately responsible for the decay of the city moved on to scavenge other cities and countries.
Hank Winchester’s narrative is simple. It is always easy to attack the poor, the minorities, the others. It is easy to make it all their fault all of the times. “Some of these people have a desperate need,” reporter Hank Winchester said. “They need help from state agencies …. But there are other people and this is where it gets controversial who simply don’t want to pay the water bill, who’d rather spend money on cable.”
Hank Winchester then pivots into a defense of the water department stating that they want to work with people. Did he do his journalistic duty to find out if actual citizens received that message? Is it even true?
Maureen Taylor would have none of it. Though she did not say it, she understands that Black, Brown, and poor communities are often maligned by the supposedly fair and balanced media. A few stereotypes from these communities are generally projected on the whole. As such America generally gets a poor impression of these communities that is then reflected as a lack of empathy from otherwise good decent people.
“Before I answer that let me say, shame on Hank, shame on him,” Maureen Taylor said. “for putting that lie and that mis and that disinformation out on the air. To suggest that people don’t want to pay for a water bill is scandalous. What is at stake here is that there are tens of thousands of low income families who cannot pay rising water bill costs. The cost of living is going up. The chances of living is going down. And we’ve got these reporters out here, like this guy, that’s just standing on the side of the people that have money.”
Maureen Taylor then brought up all the corporations that have owed tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands whose water was not shutoff. Somehow the payment delinquency of the rich and affluent is different than the generally forced payment delinquency of the poor.
Maureen Taylor’s final statement in the interview was epic and bold. “The next time you invite me to be here, Maureen Taylor said. “Let’s have some truth and a fair exchange as opposed to Hank who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Gobble up all the time. I’ll talk to you later.”
The Los Angeles Times has one of the most balanced account of the water crisis in Detroit.
In April, the city set a target of cutting service to 3,000 customers a week who were more than $150 behind on their bills. In May, the water department sent out 46,000 warnings and cut off service to 4,531. The city says that cutting off water is the only way to get people to pay their bills as Detroit tries to emerge from bankruptcy — the utility is currently owed $90 million from customers, and nearly half the city’s 300,000 or so accounts are past due.
But cutting off water to people already living in poverty came under criticism last week from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, whose experts said that Detroit was violating international standards by cutting off access to water. “When there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections,” Catarina de Albuquerque, the office’s expert on the human right to water and sanitation, said in the communique.
“Are we the kind of people that resort to shutting water off when there are disabled people and seniors?” said Maureen Taylor, chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. “We live near the Great Lakes, we have the greatest source of fresh water on Earth, and we still can’t get water here.”
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Good catch!!!!! Maureen Taylor and Marion Kramer have been at the forefront of the issue of water access in Michigan for several years. Detroit is not the only municipality in MI with mendacious actions on the part of elected and selected officials. There is a wholesale attempt to take the control of water out of the hands of public and Black hands…This will be happening more and more as water becomes the new oil.
When utilities (or any business with a collection responsibility) change their collection policies, they should collect the oldest unpaid bills first regardless of amount, who owes, or what the unpaid bill is for, until all delinquents are brought to balance. Black hands should be left out of the discussion from here on. If black hands are to be considered, then whose hands let these Detroit bills grow in the first place, whose bills did they choose to let slide, and why? I agree Great Lakes residents must remain in control of Great Lakes water just as Iraq must control Iraq’s oil and there are wholesale attempts to allow corporate control. If control of Great Lakes water was ceded at any point along the lakes, trillions of individual water bottles would be shipped to Phoenix and the Great Lakes become nothing more than Arizona reservoirs. If Arizona, Nestle, and Coca Cola want Great Lakes water, let them collect it in New York, just before it flows into the ocean.
Just pay the water bill before buying cigarettes, alcohol, and other essentials. Or just have the water bill withheld from their government check.
Are you really proud of your advice?
how exactly do you know what these poor families are spending their money? They have little to begin with and you are going to lecture them? Idiot.
I know they are not spending their money paying the water bill Idiot. Is there much out there you need more than water? No. get a brain D A
Food, rent, medical needs, maybe? You never really know their needs unless you actually talk to these people.
Maybe a real look ought to be taken at the cities that are being forced into bankruptcy and /or oversight by an emergency manager in MI. Many/most border water. Lincoln Park borders water. It’s just gone under emergency management. I would like to caution all of you who are so quick to co-sign these actions. Often, loss of privilege, rights, property etc. begins with people of color. However, capitalism being what it is, it may start with dark meat, but it will get to the white meat…and then the bones and then the marrow and then it will chew up the bones. If you can’t find some sense of compassion or solidarity with those whose lots are less than yours, you may well find yourself a lonely victim fighting all by yourself…ijs Look at history. We are fast returning to the gilded age and it was not a good time for man or beast if they were not monied. Look at history…we are doomed to repeat it if we don’t know it…
Mr. Willies: I like your blogs a lot—very clear thinking. However, like many writers today, you are constantly using the pronoun “that” to refer to people, when you should be using “who.” They are really not interchangeable, and your usage can sometimes be confusing. I know that since corporations are people now, it’s confusing, but I’m pretty sure corporations are still “that” while real people are “who.”
Thank you for the note. I will try my best to stop making that grammatical mistake. I have been told that before.
Ok, I’ll bite. What is “water in mass”?
“However, capitalism being what it is, it may start with dark meat, but it will get to the white meat…and then the bones and then the marrow and then it will chew up the bones.”
Then I suggest that the “dark meat” does what the “white meat” does: move somewhere else. Wisconsin gives plenty of welfare. There are still enough white folks there to pay for it. But let’s face it: Detroit done run its white folks off and doesn’t have any money left. Then again, maybe Obama can get some of that federal white folks money to replace the white folks money that Detroit ran off.