When I was 11 my mom would let our neighbor use water from our hose bc his utilities were shut off (he was elderly and living off of SS). Apparently this is illegal, and the cops came to shut off our water as well. It cost $400 to turn our water back on. https://twitter.com/historyofarmani/status/1290484329580130306

My mom didn’t have a job at the time and we couldn’t afford that. I’ll never forget watching the police turn off the water on a single mom and her kid in the middle of the summer.

All of this because we wanted to help our neighbor. All of this over water. That’s why I refuse to believe there are “good cops”. You got paid to wake up and take water away from people already struggling against poverty.

In retrospect, I think about this memory all the time. That my mother and I had the natural instinct to care for our neighbor and we were punished for that.

https://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/18/high-water-rates-cause-angst-texas-town. For those who want more information and context on the water company that did this, this is a great article that was published right around the same timeframe.

There’s a lot to be said about privatized water and the structural forces that allow stories like this to happen.

Feel deeply compelled to shout out @drashleyfarmer @ChristineCBird and @smullinsenglish some of my favorite professors, teachers and mentors! They exposed me to important readings and concepts that have made a very big difference in my growth and radicalization.