U.N. official: Alabama's poverty, sewage crisis 'very uncommon in First World'
Last edited Mon Dec 11, 2017, 12:19 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: UPI
By Ray Downs | Dec. 10, 2017 at 8:01 PM
Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States visited Alabama last week and said the poverty and sewage system there is some of the worst he has seen in the developed world.
"I think it's very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees," said Philip Alston, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human right, AL.com reported. "I'd have to say that I haven't seen this."
Alston is on a 15-day trip of the United States to investigate poverty and visited several counties in Alabama's "Black Belt" region, an area of several mostly black counties that have long experienced poverty and racial segregation.
One of the issues Alston focused on was the longstanding sewage crisis in that region.
Read more: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/12/10/UN-official-Alabamas-poverty-sewage-crisis-very-uncommon-in-First-World/1681512952225/
Ferrets are Cool
(21,107 posts)Turbineguy
(37,343 posts)Moore's a shoe-in then.
Matthew28
(1,798 posts)Republican anti-government policies end up turning any state or country they touch into.
madaboutharry
(40,212 posts)I feel like crying. These people deserve better.
Matthew28
(1,798 posts)to campaign on in 2018! Republican policies do this to every state they touch and that we can do so much better.
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)sandensea
(21,639 posts)If someone in Hollywood wants to make a good period piece true to the 19th century squalor in the Deep South, that would be the place.
A typical street scene in the Mississippi Delta. Unpaved streets are common.
sandensea
(21,639 posts)Here's a map of the poorest AL counties for reference (all majority African-American:
Permanut
(5,610 posts)The sewage system clearly backed up on February 11, 1947, and created Roy Moore.
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)It is not a surprise to me. The 90s were good for much of here in the US, but the Midwest was crumbling.
Im not traveled through the Deep South, but logically figured they were worse off.
The 2000s happened and I lived here and there, and saw places closing. Circuit City closing was a big warning, and then 2008 happened.
I might have some things wrong, but it was designed to be third world here. It wasnt by hatred for the poor, or hatred of liberal values. It was done by greed and those powerful people who never give a shit to anything than their selves, families, friends, and especially the extent of their own wealth.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)There has always been poverty. It's just that it was hidden from common view outside of occasional "reports" in the media. The internet has helped to show it more widely it's always been here.
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)and Louisiana.
alarimer
(16,245 posts)So improving Alabama and Mississippi by comparison.
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)Oblivious to the suffering around them.
Here in Los Angeles we have so many homeless people. But we are pretty aware of the problem. We just don't have enough housing for all the people who want to live in our city with our warm climate.
democrank
(11,096 posts)Maybe someone from the grassroots wing of our party will find a way to bring attention to these inexcusable conditions. Obviously the powerful in Washington (in either party) have failed. No surprise there, because the folks in these parts of Alabama probably don't send many campaign contributions.
I'm waiting for the day when a political leader spends most of his/her energy in places like this....or with impoverished Native Americans, or in Appalachia, or the Rust Belt or in the zillion other places where people have been forgotten for far too long.
Alabama has consistently voted FOR this. States rights and all.