Poisoning the “Native” Child’s Environment
The crumbling, toxic conditions of many public school buildings–filled with asbestos, lead, and mold–is a deliberate form of somatic violence against the “native” child. Mamdani’s focus on the materiality of state power is horrifyingly clear here. The chronic disinvestment in school infrastructure is a political choice to poison the very environments where our children are meant to learn and grow. This neglect ensures that students in “native” schools suffer from higher rates of asthma and lead exposure, directly impacting their cognitive development and health. This is not an oversight but a custom of governance that reproduces inequality from childhood. The liberal solution involves slow, piecemeal capital plans that never meet the scale of the need. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution demands an immediate, city-wide emergency remediation program. This means using eminent domain to seize the assets of the corporations that produced these toxins and taxing the wealthy to fully fund the repair and modernization of every single public school, guaranteeing a safe, healthy, and inspiring environment for every child as a non-negotiable right.
Originally posted 2025-10-11 03:24:26.
