to have your citizens live in the squalor of rats isn't racist, its only racist if you point it out (and be a republican)
pbs filmed a documentary about rats in Baltimore, 'Rat Film"
the baltimore sun had previous headlines about the infestations and mess in baltimore
a 2016 study of rats in baltimore:
Baltimore, Maryland residents who live in areas with a high rat population are much more likely to report sadness, anxiety and other symptoms of depression, according to a new study.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed interviews regarding depressive symptoms conducted with 448 residents – 87.3 percent of whom were African American – from 2010 and 2011. The interviewees were mostly low-income, and just over half were male.
....
“Nobody likes living around rats. This study provides very strong evidence that rats are an underappreciated stressor that affects how people feel about their lives in low-income neighborhoods,” said Danielle German, an assistant professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Bloomberg School and leader of the study.
“The good news is it’s modifiable. If we can do something to reduce the number of rats in these neighborhoods, we can improve people’s well-being,” German added.
The interviews showed that residents of low-income areas would consistently report rats and trash as big problems near their residences, German said, even as they faced many other issues in their neighborhoods, such as drugs, violence, vacant housing and more. She said the study might indicate that rats should be considered a link to depression more than just a nuisance or disease source.
Conventional thinking about rats
"misses what it feels like to be a resident of a neighborhood where you see rats every day," she said.
"There is no reason why rats should be inherent to areas of poverty.”
Baltimore's ex-mayor:
Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh — who resigned in May amid a corruption scandal — just last year decried the “rats” and “dead animals” that plague Baltimore’s worst neighborhoods.
While canvassing an East Baltimore neighborhood with city leaders, video footage captured by WBFF-TV showed Pugh looking upon endless vacant and run-down housing, the Baltimore Sun
reported.
“What the hell? We should just take all this s**t down,” Pugh said.
“Woah, you can smell the rats,” she said. “Whew, Jesus.”
Later, while walking through one of the area’s most violent neighborhoods, Pugh said: “Oh my God, you can smell the dead animals.”
Nobody wants to talk about Bernie Sander's racist attack on Baltmore
