Category Archives: structural violence

War and Peace: Intentioning more or less harm on the Palestinian people in Gaza?

[War and peace are the two ends of a continuum when disagreement is present. When methods to resolve conflict by peaceful means appear ineffective or there is not sufficient agreement on all sides to use peaceful means, the movement toward using arms continues. Once a decision is made to use arms to resolve a conflict, those initiating war expect that killing will occur. There are moral principles that anchors war, for example: minimal killing of civilians, targeting less populated areas, maintaining humanitarian structures (water supply, sanitation, hospitals, educational centers), maintaining human rights for prisoners of war. Maintaining these types of moral principles are in line with International Humanitarian Law which provides legal mandates for human rights during war time.]

Peace Walk by Plum Village groups in Washington DC, June 23 2024

Increasing data on the current war on Gaza by the Israel military, following the attack on Israel by Hamas resulting in killing and kidnapping of civilians, question whether the intention of the Israel government is to inflict greater ‘revenge’ harm on the Palestinian people. This is evidenced by reports of little adherence of Israel’s military to the International Humanitarian Law to protect civilians and humanitarian structures. Several research articles published in the last 4 months provide data showing the devastating public health impact due to these human rights violations.

Major public health impact:

Humanitarian structures in Gaza targeted and destroyed

“The first phase of the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip from 7 October through 22 November 2023 resulted in widespread damage to critical civilian infrastructure protected under IHL, including health, education, and water facilities. Spatial statistical analysis suggests widespread damage to critical civilian infrastructure that should have been provided protection under IHL. These findings raise serious allegations of Israeli military violations of IHL, especially in light of Israeli officials’ statements explicitly inciting violence and displacement and multiple widely reported acts of collective punishment against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.” Asi, Y., Mills, D., Greenough, P.G. et al. ‘Nowhere and no one is safe’: spatial analysis of damage to critical civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the Israeli military campaign, 7 October to 22 November 2023. Confl Health 18, 24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13031-024-00580-https://conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13031-024-00580-x#Tab3

Indiscriminate killing of women and children in war on Gaza (since October 2023)

“While large numbers of children and women have been killed in attacks on Gaza over the last 15 years, the proportions during the initial phase of the latest offensive are conspicuously higher (figure 2). Women and children were 30–41% of those killed in attacks on Gaza in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, but they make up 67% killed from 7 October to 24 November. This striking increase in mortality, which suggests an indiscriminate approach to civilian targets, is concordant with the investigative report (11) and Poole and colleagues’ study demonstrating a lack of special protection for hospitals.” Wispelwey B, Mills D, Asi YM, et al. Civilian mortality and damage to medical facilities in Gaza. British Medical Journal Glob Health 2024;9:e014756. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-01475

Aid to Gaza obstructed resulting in widespread starvation of adults and children

“Nearly the entire population of the Gaza strip, or 96% of the population, are facing acute food shortages, with more than 495,000 people including children facing starvation due to an extreme lack of food, according to figures released today by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).” Devastating new figures reveal Gaza’s child hunger catastrophe. June 25 2024. Save the Children. https://www.savethechildren.net/news/devastating-new-figures-reveal-gaza-s-child-hunger-catastrophe

Structural racism as major determinant of Palestinian health inequities

“The structural violence⁹ against Palestinians is rooted in settler and indigenous dynamics that are further complicated by anti-Muslim racism,⁸ serving as mutually reinforcing forms of structural racism. Structural racism is defined as “the totality of ways in which societies foster [racial] discrimination, via mutually reinforcing [inequitable] systems…(e.g., in housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, criminal justice, etc.) that in turn reinforce discriminatory beliefs, values, and distribution of resources”.¹⁰ As with other forms of racism, a system meant to both “structure opportunity” and “assign value” based on the social construct of race,¹¹ this dynamic results in a devaluation of Palestinian life that illuminates widespread Western support for ongoing indiscriminate killing and the withholding of the bare necessities for survival.

Decades of structural violence, racialized discrimination, and human rights violations have stunted Palestinian health care systems across the territories and perpetuated health disparities across populations. The geographical fragmentation of Palestinians has created a hierarchy of Palestinian health outcomes—best among Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI), worse for Palestinians in the West Bank, and significantly worse for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. For Palestinians in the occupied territories, life expectancy is nearly a decade shorter than Israelis’, and child, infant, and maternal mortality are several times higher. Regular exposure to violence, dehumanization, humiliation, and hopelessness creates a significant Palestinian mental health burden.¹² Yet evidence also illustrates discriminatory health access and resulting health disparities for the underserved PCI.¹³ These Palestinians report shorter life expectancies than their Jewish counterparts, higher infant and maternal mortality rates, and greater risk of chronic disease, despite ostensibly having access to the same Israeli health system.^14,15 Although Palestinian refugees are not included in this discussion of Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories, their racialization has prevented many from returning to their homes in Palestine and has cemented their fragmentation…resources are not allocated equally, nor by need, but by race, even within the same geographies. Israel is the only sovereign entity in the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. While the international community continues to recognize Israel as the occupying power of the Palestinian territories, rendering the nation with certain obligations toward Palestinian health and well-being, these obligations remain unfulfilled. Palestinians report significant disparities in terms of health care access, with lower per capita health expenditure ($3,145 in Israel vs. $306 in Palestine in 2017, a 165% difference) and disproportionately fewer physicians, nurses, hospital beds, and facilities for health specialties.” Asi YM, Sharif MZ, Wispelwey B, et al. Racism as a Threat to Palestinian Health Equity. Health Equity. 2024.8,1. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/heq.2024.0027

These studies/reports call into question the intention of the Israel government and military and whether its actions is for greater harm, mass genocide, against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Further investigation is required to assess and act on: the lack of protection of civilians through the International Humanitarian Law and its enforcers, the short and long term plan to rebuild Gaza for return of its Palestinian citizens, the short and long term plan for addressing the trauma of war, displacement, and structural determinants of health inequities on the Palestinians of Gaza and the region, and the short and long term plan for addressing the trauma of war on the Israeli people.

The continuum is still available between war and peace, more or less harm. How do we assure action toward peace, least harm, between the Jewish people of Israel and the region and the Palestinian people of Gaza and the region. Here are some: Donating to “Go Fund Me’ campaigns to help Palestinians in Gaza; here is one example, soup kitchen in North Gaza. Donating to different international organizations providing humanitarian support for the people affected by war in Gaza/writing letters of support to your political leaders for support to be sent to them; one example is the United Nations support arm for Palestinians. Write your political leaders about stopping aid to fund the war. If the US stopped sending funds and war machinery and ammunition to Israel the conflict would change to less harm. Calming yourself through prayers and meditation to see more clearly what is yours to do; and sending healing energies/prayers to those suffering in this conflict. Organize a listening circle to listen with friends and family to support each other in their action toward peace. If you are able to walk, take 20 – 100 steps throughout the day and invite in someone in the conflict zone to walk with your steps in peace and compassion.

Baltimore’s 2023 road to privatization and why we continue to organize and build a people’s movement for public benefit

Baltimore excelled in 2023 in its privatization/neoliberal practices of assuring elite private entities benefit disproportionately at the expense of public control and social good.

[Neoliberal- a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices, such as public:private partnerships (explicit or implicit)] Adapted from David Harvey

Let’s look at some of these privatization redevelopment practices which were camouflaged in the language of ‘benefiting the public’ in Baltimore throughout 2023.

Public:private strategies ignoring public control and social good

Most recently, the unanimous vote in the Planning Commission to allow a private developer, P. David Bramble of MCB Real Estate, LLC, to accumulate more of the Inner Harbor public waterfront space is a typical taking of public land (land owned by the city of Baltimore) for private development and profit. This will allow Bramble’s group to expand their holdings and profit while removing public access to the waterfront. In addition, there is existing legislation which requires that these lands remain accessible for the benefit of the public. Some city council members have already indicated they support amending this legislation to accommodate this privatization of public lands. This is how the state accommodates the private developer, hence neoliberal practices.

Another examples: earlier in 2023 the state of Maryland under the direction of Governor Wes Moore turned over the Orioles baseball stadium-Camden Yards- and management of the land to John Angelos, the Orioles owner. Camden Yards was previously managed by the Maryland Stadium Authority, a public entity. With the turnover to the private owner Angelos, a publicly controlled private entity is now set to work with a profit-making motive. What this means is in order to maximize profits, necessary infrastructure upkeep will need to be minimized to maximize profits. Assuring that the stadium receives the upkeep needed to maximize benefit to the public is of little value because the benefit is turned inward to the private entity and its profit-driven motive. Because of the control that sports franchises have over entertainment we can see this private entity demanding government support to maintain the stadium in the future.

Then there is the upcoming attempt to privatize our water and sewage system, again! [As a reminder, in 2018 Baltimore city voters turned out in high numbers to ban privatization of the city’s water and sewer systems.] And yet five years later in 2023, the neoliberal government (officials who have a responsibility to the public’s health but honor elite corporations) are back at it again with another attempt at privatizing a public resource. This time a Baltimore Regional Water Governance Task Force is making recommendations to allow privatization of our local water and sewage system which would potentially minimize local control of local resources while ensuring profit to private interests. With a suggested $5 – $15 million price tag for this transition, this line from the Task Force’s report leaves the public wide open to foot an indefinitely pricey bill:

Transition costs assumptions are forward-looking and actual costs will be based on resource availability for yet undetermined set of issues, by parties not yet determined that will once formed determine the extent of need for third-party support.
Baltimore Regional Water Governance Task Force

Why couldn’t this ‘undetermined’ cost be better directed to hiring and training up government staff to assure a functioning and adequately maintained water and sewer system? This would allow greater local control of this valuable resource instead of control by a private profit-driven entity: profit margin yet undetermined.

In 2023, Baltimore’s struggle with privatization did not stop with only one utility. We are experiencing the disaster of a profit-driven utility ownership with our gas and electric provider as well. Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) delivers gas and electric utilities to Baltimore city and surrounding counties and presented to the state’s Public Service Commission a rate increase over the next three years. Many residents testified as to the severe hardship this would incur for them, particularly those with lower and set incomes. Regardless of this public rally for fairness and benefit, public officials agreed to BGE’s rate hike resulting in a greater than 3% rate increase each year over the next three years. Besides continuing a reliance on gas through more infrastructure development, the company will receive almost an additional $408 million in revenue. Instead of voting against this severe hike, Maryland Public Service Commission voted to defray some of this cost from customers by using a federal tax credit and assure BGE receives its income. Again, using public funds to assure the company receives the income they want.

At the funding level of the state, Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) continues to misrepresent itself it stating it is supporting local grassroot efforts in impacted communities. Its’ supposed role of assuring equitable development that provides a social good has been slow to manifest. Instead what we see is consistent funding to the Goliaths of anchor institutions with profit-driven motives and little funding to organizations doing community-based cooperative redevelopment in historically low income and Black neighborhoods-legacied by urban renewal and redlining. Unless local community-driven organizations partner with anchor institutions known to the Department, funding is mostly denied. This reliance of the state on anchor institutions to define what equitable development looks like continues historical public:private partnerships that do not serve the public. For example, the Johns Hopkins Medical Complex and its proxy development arm East Baltimore Development Inc. receives yearly grant awards for inequitable development from Maryland’s DHCD (and city funders over the years). This occurs even while such institutions continue to engage in uneven development that disproportionately benefits the institution relative to the local Black community that it is gentrifying. One example of DHCD’s uneven grant funding can be seen in the lack of support for a local Black-led non-profit located in Old Town/Middle East, Village of Love and Resistance (VOLAR), two block from the Johns Hopkins Medical Complex. After four consecutive attempts to receive funding for its affordable cooperative housing and community hub development, it has resigned itself to stop seeking funding from the state which insists that it partner with the likes of Johns Hopkins University, who the state trusts. Meanwhile, the local community does not trust this anchor institution that has systematically exploited the people and the land of East Baltimore.

Organizing for local control and public good

With such clear corporate and elite preferential strategies advantaging private businesses over the public good and local control, organizing to reclaim benefits to local communities has been growing in 2023, extending into 2024.

While the Baltimore Planning Commission has shown their allegiance to elite ownership with little regard for community input in the planned expansion of the Inner Harbor (including increased parking, removing maximum height limits for buildings on the site), residents still have the opportunity to change this. Approval by the city council for the conditions that will allow redevelopment of the Inner Harbor by Bramble’s Team is required; this will require hearings with testimony and hopefully deep listening before a vote is made. The first public hearing will be held on February 13 at 2pm est and public testimony is invited. So 2024 will see residents and activists testifying as to the clear privatization disadvantages to the public good (less green space for public use, lost of view due to increased height of buildings and increased buildings, maintenance that is cost-cutting to assure larger profit margin, lost of flowing design from street to waterfront, city dollars supporting a private developer’s planning process, finding public funds to support a private developer’s development and profit making, lack of a transparent public process for development of this public land). Due to the existing City Charter governing the explicit use of this land for public benefit voters will decide through a ballot in November, whether to amend the City Charter. In addition, developers, activists and residents have organized themselves in the form of the Inner Harbor Coalition. This group hopes to build sufficient support to place an opposing plan on the November ballot for redevelopment of the Inner Harbor. They require 10,000 signatures to place this on the ballot.

The pushback on the attempt to privatize our water and sewage system is another of Baltimore’s growing social movement against privatization and for local control and public benefit. A coalition of organizations sent a clear letter opposing the Water Governance Task Force efforts toward privatization. On January 8^th 2024 the sixth meeting to discuss the Task Force’s report was held by Baltimore City government. The seventh and final meeting will be held on January 25^th at 6pm virtually. Notes from all six meetings can be viewed here (scroll to bottom). Please join the movement in opposing privatization of Baltimore’s water and sewage system by sending your comments (individual or organizations) to this email address: [email protected] and cc [email protected]

Another part of the movement to stop privatization has been 1199 SEIU’s organizing for fair payment by anchor institutions into the city funds, to be redistributed back to local community for investment in public health infrastructure, housing, transportation, education, recreation. This payment program is the PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) agreement that city council officials negotiate with big anchor institutions. Instead of these big institution, such as hospitals and universities, paying property tax like regular citizens or private corporations who own land and/or conduct businesses, they negotiate to pay a percentage of the taxes they would pay were they not in this category. The last PILOT negotiated in 2016-set to expire and renegotiated in 2026- literally gave these anchor institutions a way out of paying their fair share of taxes by paying only 10% of what most people pay. Yes, again Baltimore city government favored capitalist exploitation by not ensuring that big institutions pay their fair share of taxes even while the city continues to provide infrastructure and other city resources to them as it does to regular citizens. However, regular citizens do not get to ‘negotiate’ with the city, state, or federal government how much taxes they should pay. Now we have an opportunity to negotiate a more fair PILOT with these big institutions who, like the Johns Hopkins Institutions, receive grants from the city, state, and federal government (noted above). With decreased payment of taxes and continued grants from the government, these institutions do not pay their fair share into the city and state coffers to assure our city is habitable and safe. The 1199 SEIU campaign is organizing to assure this is on the ballot for voters in November 2024 and require 10,000 signatures. To support this campaign reach out to [email protected] for more information.

Placard reads: YOU’D NEVER GUESS
This forest you are walking through was once a beach. Although beaches always seem to look the same, geologists know that they are constantly changing. Three thousand years ago this was open ocean. Over time, the shoreline has moved to the west, while the cape has moved north, creating land where none existed before. If the same processes continue to operate as they have in the past, Cape Henlopen will join the inner breakwater of Lewes Harbor within the next 50 years.

Not all public officials consistently voted in favor of private wealth gain and neoliberal practices. In 2023 some government officials moved in the direction of increasing public benefit, joining our people’s movement for the social good. For example, state delegate Stephanie Smith consistently advocated for and acquired funding for organizations addressing the result of uneven development in Baltimore City. She fought for $11M in funding for community development and transit improvements across the 45th District, including funds for housing, the Pennsylvania Station redevelopment, and community retail spaces. City Council woman Odette Ramos led the fight for an Inclusionary Housing Bill, and won. The bill requires that any market-rate multi-family development building more than 20 units and receiving government subsidy must have more than 15% of their units as affordable housing (for 30 years). Read more about this legislation here. We look forward to continued public benefit from these individuals and hope that others do similar work in their capacity as public officials.

The year 2023 showed us the imbalance between private profit-driven elite institutions and public and non-profit organizations with a primary mission of assuring the social good in Baltimore and Maryland. The year 2023 also reminded us that those aware of the continued journey toward individualized wealth are rallying forward to stop these continued market-driven, winner-take-all strategies. Will 2024 move scales toward love and justice for the greater good or toward further competition, injustices, and satisfying the greed of the few? It’s up to us to decide how we will act toward justice and balance the social good and individual greed. Baltimore can continue building this people’s movement that aim to benefit the good by challenging the public officials who ignore their voters in favor of elite interests. This is an election year in the city and state and we have the opportunity to vote with our feet. Now that you see this, what is yours to do for the benefit of all?

‘Vacants to Value Program’: Baltimore’s Vacant Properties NOT for Community Control

I wrote about Baltimore’s Vacants to Value program in the past. It is part of a landscape of Baltimore’s community development programs that assures speculative and predatory investors acquire land from the city-with the least hassles. Per the then housing commissioner from that writing in 2017 ‘‘… We are working hand in hand with the developers and mitigating the risk that they would otherwise face.’ This program of Baltimore city’s Housing Department is a cog in the wheel of assuring uneven development continues in our city. There has been multiple complaints from multiple sectors, saying the same thing: the Vacants to Value program caters to big developers and not individual or small community developers. Baltimore’s government-owned vacant property is not available for community control: by all means necessary.

In the backdrop of a city, and state (Maryland), which keeps touting that it has awakened to the history of uneven development enforced by US policies and laws, these deceiving programs like Vacants to Value, continue to assure uneven development.

VOLAR and allies march to Vacants to Value, Baltimore City Housing Department. 2022 Dominic T. Moulden

Village of Love and Resistance (VOLAR) is a Black and Brown-led community development organization in East Baltimore rebuilding toward equity and healing. VOLAR is currently experiencing its own biased treatment as they attempt to acquire a small strip of land – 601 Ensor street– from the city, through the Vacants to Value program. VOLAR has spent the last year in the unfair bureaucracy of the Vacants to Value program, with long wait periods and no answers to acquire this land to renovate into a community park. After 8-9 months, they told VOLAR they could not purchase the property. After pushback, they offered one option to VOLAR: an Exclusive Negotiation Period of 6 months that assured VOLAR continued to be in negotiation for the land. During this time, VOLAR would have to come up with the near $4.5 million dollars to renovate their existing property, adjacent to the strip of land on Ensor street. Note that this was not money for the renovation of the small strip of land on Ensor! This was a requirement by the Vacants to Value program to show redevelopment money for property owned already by VOLAR.

BIAS ALERT: Does the Vacants to Value program require this type of paternalistic scrutiny to all the big developers that acquire land through their program? How is this type of behavior congruent with: ‘We are working hand in hand with the developers and mitigating the risk that they would otherwise face.’

Guards refuse to let three members of VOLAR enter with letters for Vacants to Value. Dominic T. Moulden

Tired of waiting for fair treatment and not receiving a response to the head of the program, Tony Bedon, VOLAR and allies marched to the Baltimore City Housing office where the program is located at 417 E. Fayette street on September 30 2022. Two days before the protest march, VOLAR called and left a message on Bedon’s voicemail asking for someone to come downstairs once VOLAR and allies arrived at the building, to deliver in person: our letter of request, 459 signatures on petitions from local neighbors in regard VOLAR acquiring the property, and individual letters from marchers with same request. Three of VOLAR’s members attempted to enter the building and were stormed by five security guards competing to deliver the message: you cannot come in this building, the building is closed. Right! This was 330pm est on Friday. Baltimore city government offices close at 430pm est. The guards then forced the door close, locked the doors, and would only speak to the three people through the crack between the doors. VOLAR asked that one of the guards call upstairs to Bedon’s office to send someone to engage with the citizens of Baltimore. One of the guards, said she would. After waiting 15 minutes and knocking at the door, VOLAR was told, through the crack between the two doors, that no one was in the office, it was closed. Meanwhile, people were entering and leaving through the door on the otherside of the building on Baltimore street. VOLAR and allies were not deterred. Folks rallied outside, sang and danced, shared food. At 430pm, employees started streaming out of the door. I guess they forgot to let them out at 330pm when they closed the building?

The cowardly behavior of Baltimore city representatives in our housing office is difficult to swallow. Outright ignoring, disrespecting, and lying to citizens who they are being paid to serve is unacceptable.

VOLAR protesting in the streets of Baltimore, reclaiming land for a community park. Dominic T. Moulden

VOLAR is left wondering, why does the program persist in ignoring citizens in low income Black communities when they are ready to reclaim land and steward the land? Are city representatives so afraid of Black people power?

VOLAR exists to right the wrongs of a history and legacy of uneven development-in line with Jim Crow, redlining, urban renewal, gentrification, mass incarceration and police brutality. All these policies and actions have been allowed to run amok in our city, leveraged by the wealth of the elite developers like Johns Hopkins University and Medical Campus, Under Armour/Kevin Plank, Michael Beatty and others.

The corruption and racial and class pandering to white and wealthy developers must stop, if we will ever change our city to one that is more equitable. With all the double talk about racial equity, VOLAR’s experience is evidence that the city of Baltimore continues the settler colonizer tactics to assure white supremacy and its legacy of segregation and inequity continues.

It is time to change those in power. You are invited to vote with your feet and beak people. Line up!

ACLU protests city taxes supporting Port Covington and continued white wealth expansion in the midst of persistent financial racism in Black communities in Baltimore

Today Baltimore city’s Board of Estimate is deciding on a bond to support the controversial Port Covington Project owned by billionaire Kevin Plank of Under Armour. ACLU and other groups are protesting this continued white wealth expansion in Baltimore in the midst of continued financial racism-historic and persistent underfunding of Black communities. Today Wednesday June 17, 9am, the hearing at City Council will decide if City tax bonds should support this infrastructure development at Port Covington. Baltimore’s tax dollars would be part of the $660 million public support from the city for this development voted on in 2016. At that time the Port Covington plan did not show a racial equity analysis benefiting Baltimore’s historically disenfranchised Black communities. In the midst of the economic downturn from the COVID19 pandemic, public support of this gentrification project is even more questionable as nationwide calls for racial justice continue.

The pandemic has further revealed how racially fragmented and segregated our nation is, especially in majority Black cities like Baltimore. Because of the structural violence of segregation and underfunding of the infrastructure that supports these communities, health and economic disparity is severe. The pandemic has disproportionately affected Black and Brown and poor communities resulting in more cases and deaths than white and middle class communities. Public funding to address the necessary resources and infrastructure is necessary to begin to change this legacy of slavery, redlining, urban renewal, gentrification and mass incarceration that has left Black and communities of color with greater levels of unemployment, abandoned housing, health and income disparities.

https://www.mariselabgomez.com/port-covington-or-port-covet-a-ton/

This structural violence perpetuated through policies that continued and continues to segregate and under-resource Black and poor communities can be changed in re-investment into existing communities. The Port Covington Project targets a majority white and well-off population through its planned housing and amenities. Allocation of Baltimore city tax dollars can change this old game by directing funds for more even development, instead of continued gentrification.

Today’s Board of Estimates hearing: June 17 Wednesday at 9AM: Members of the public can call in to listen live at 1-408-418-9388 (Access code: 711 183 482) and/or stream it live using the following link: http://charmtvbaltimore.com/watch-live.

The meetings will be live on CharmTV (Channel 25) as normal.

City Council notice