Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is under fire for joking about Jackson just one day after the city's boil water notice was lifted for its 150,000 residents who were left without clean drinking water for weeks.
On Friday (September 16), Reeves spoke at a groundbreaking event in Hattiesburg amid Jackson's ongoing water crisis.
“I’ve got to tell you it is a great day to be in Hattiesburg. It's also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson,” Reeves said, per Buzzfeed. “I feel like I should take off my emergency management director hat and leave it in the car and take off my public works director hat and leave it in the car.”
Reeves caught heat for his remarks as social media users slammed the governor for mocking the public health emergency that largely impacted Black people, who make up nearly 83 percent of Jackson's population.
“In the most disgraceful Governor sweepstakes, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is a winner,” tweeted Sherrilyn Ifill, a civil rights attorney and the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
"How deep Governor @tatereeves’s contempt for the majority-Black residents of his state’s capital must be to joke about their continued suffering," another Twitter user wrote. "His lack of humanity is obscene. #JacksonWaterCrisis"
Residents of Mississippi's capital city have long endured interferences to their water due to Jackon's outdated infrastructure.
Infrastructure issues all came to a head last month when the city's primary water treatment facility failed following heavy flooding.
Reeves declared the water crisis a public emergency as many residents were left with little to no water pressure in their homes for days.
Though the most recent boil water notice was lifted on Thursday (September 15), long-term solutions are still needed to fix Jackson's aging infrastructure.
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