Buffalo, New York, has long been known as a resilient city of “good neighbors.” From our annual snowfall totals to our sports teams, Buffalonians know how to stick together in challenging times. Many of us are struggling to dig out of the past year fraught with crises of epic proportions.
Nearly two weeks ago, our city was buried under nearly six feet of snow with 70-mph sustained winds at times. More than 30,000 homes were without power and heat for days. Residents complained via social media that the city government failed to adequately prepare for the storm. There was minimal official communication; no updates were made on the city’s website, very few social media posts included directives or updates, and only two warming centers were open in the city limits.
As this once-in-a-generation storm garnered local and national media attention, the focus was seemingly not on recovery efforts nor resources available to residents — but about “looting.” While 30 of our neighbors succumbed to the storm as a result of failed leadership, the mayor of Buffalo said in a press conference “I told you,” and that people struggling to survive were “the lowest of the low.” Resources that should have been used to rescue our most vulnerable and stranded motorists were spent on chasing down petty thefts and nonviolent crimes. After the storm passed, suburban streets and grocery stores were quick to open, but city streets waited days to see a plow.
After the racist massacre on May 14, 2022, all the talk was about racial disparities on the East Side of Buffalo. After the storm, we again we were reminded of our resilience and how those disparities remain unresolved.
Signs with “Buffalo Strong” on them still adorn dilapidated buildings and strangers who give gentle smiles wear the slogan on t-shirts and hoodies. However, not much has changed on the East Side. The data have not yet been released, but anecdotally, Black people on the East Side bore the brunt of this storm, just as we did during the pandemic and with any other crisis this city faces. The aging housing stock, food insecurity and concentrated poverty created conditions of desperation for many and death for others during the storm. Black people represent about 13 percent of the population of our county, yet accounted for more than half of the deaths resulting from the storm.
Once again, mutual aid networks, faith-based organizations and community groups came together to deliver vital food and supplies in the aftermath. Individuals braved the treacherous weather to perform wellness checks on neighbors and opened their personal homes as warming centers. That is the Buffalo I know and love. Unfortunately, we are faced with the reality that the people we keep electing to lead the city not only fail to rectify the conditions that created a segregated, impoverished Buffalo; but they are the ones who created it, and they are the ones who maintain it. My neighbors and the people who make this city livable for one another are “Buffalo Strong.” The elected officials who mishandled this storm (and so many other things) are “Buffalo Wrong.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re shoring up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy