Over the past year, America has found money for military adventures in Venezuela, the Caribbean, and the Eastern Pacific.
We’re talking about boat strikes, naval deployments, oil blockades, and regime-change — for national security.
Brown University’s Costs of War Project and the Institute for Policy Studies estimate that America’s operations in the region cost at least $4.7 billion between August 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.
That number will likely go up because some costs are missing, ongoing, or classified.
And that’s when I thought about Brownsville, Brooklyn.
A neighborhood where residents earn nearly half the income of the average New Yorker, and the neighborhood’s poverty rate is nearly double the citywide average. People who live in Brownsville are expected to live about ten years less than the rest of the city.
2026 Brownsville was built by decades of disinvestment, economic extraction, and neglect.
But the capstone chapter of Brownville’s story arc would be funny if it wasn’t so wild: the neighborhood is blamed for the problems it has and the neighborhood just needs more police and fewer activists.
Let’s state the obvious: imagine what $4.7 billion can do for Brownsville.
And no, the point isn’t to pretend the Pentagon’s money could be Venmo’d into Brownsville by dinner.
The point is that budgets reveal desire, if not ideology.
America finds money quickly when the mission is to blow stuff up. It becomes oddly philosophical when the mission is housing, health, safety, schools, food, jobs, or helping families keep what little wealth they have.
I’m also not talking about throwing checks in the air and calling it “justice”.
Think job training that moves someone beyond a food delivery gig and into a job with proper wages, benefits, and a future.
Or neighborhood business incubators that teach people how to dream, build, price, hire, borrow, and sell.
Affordable healthy homes where people can stay put without mold, leaks, no heat, or the damoclesian threat of displacement.
Safe public spaces where elders can walk, children can play, and fresh air isn’t a luxury.
Grocery access that makes food deserts extinct.
Proven strategies that reduce violence. And this Chicago experiment doesn’t even ask for more cops.
Financial literacy that also includes credit, savings, homeownership, estate planning, and legal protection — gaping holes in Black and Brown financial wellness.
You get the idea.
These are the kinds of investments that enable community members to earn more, lose less, own more, breathe easier, live longer, and pass something along to the youth dem.
The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe after it was nearly destroyed by bombs during World World II.
How about a similar plan for Brownsville, which has been hit with a different kind of bomb: decades of being ignored by businesses and government, but remains attractive to predatory investors?
Some people will say the investment starts when crime drops.
But show me where that actually happens.
In America, disinvested neighborhoods are usually told to become safe before they are worthy of investment — while safer neighborhoods became safe because they were invested in.
The money was there.
The money’s here.
But not for Brownsville or the other neighborhoods that need the help …
song currently stuck in my head: “são paolo” – flying lotus
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