Mississippi water crisis is ‘racism to the umpteenth degree,’ residents say : politics

That’s unfortunately not a meaningful answer to the residents of Jackson mississippi.

The problem is essentially White flight.

Jackson Mississippi is a majority African american. However, over time most of the white residents who make more money have left and moved out to the suburbs. Leaving the city of Jackson Mississippi itself predominantly poor and even more African-American than it already was.

The low property values and general poverty means that Jackson Mississippi cannot support its own infrastructure. If they attempt to raise property taxes to raise more money, more people will leave or they simply will be unable to collect from poor people.

The answer, is that the state could provide support to Jackson Mississippi to support the city.

However, the state government is controlled by Republicans to a significant degree, and those Republicans would much rather point at the alleged mismanagement of Jackson by its largely African-American city government than actually help. They are effectively a prop to the Republican led state government to argue how bad it could get if they let Democrats be in charge. Never mind that’s not the reality, it’s a useful talking point.