16 Time January 31/February 7, 2022
The aparTmenT fire ThaT
killed 17 people, including eight
children, in the Bronx on Jan. 9
was one of the deadliest fires in
modern New York City’s history.
It was also the second major fire
incident of the New Year in the
U.S., after a row house in Philadel-
phia caught fire on Jan. 5, result-
ing in the deaths of 12 people—
nine of whom were children.
The deaths in these incidents,
which took place in predomi-
nantly Black neighborhoods, have
been labeled “accidental.” That
makes them part of a
larger trend: statisti-
cally, the Americans
who typically die as
a result of accidents,
including fires, are
disproportionately
people of color.
Jessie Singer is the
author of the forth-
coming book There
Are No Accidents,
which looks at the
current and historical
racial and economic disparities in
accidental deaths. Singer spoke to
TIME about how fires fit into this
dynamic—and why she believes
the discussion around accidental
deaths should change.
TIME: You’ve studied the
disparities that exist when acci-
dents happen. How does the fire
in the Bronx fit into that story?
SINGER: The accident in the
Bronx could have been prevented
with sprinklers, with self- closing
doors that actually worked, with
a functional alarm system, with
a heating system that worked so
that people didn’t have to use
supplement heat. We know where
these accidents are most likely to
happen—to [people of color] who
live in poverty.
Accidental deaths have been
growing since the early ’90s, and
with that, the racial and economic
disparities are growing. Accident
is just a magic word we use to
delegate some horrors that we’d
rather not look at too closely, and
that we’d rather not talk about.
We can say, “It was just an acci-
dent,” and move on.
Accidental deaths are ex-
tremely affected by deregula-
tion, so as the federal government
shrinks and our agencies that
are meant to protect us become
smaller and more defanged, we
are less protected from accidents
and therefore more likely to die.
Your book explores how we
talk about accidents. What do
you see as the issues with the
current narrative?
By definition, an accident is an
unpredictable, un-
preventable event.
Nothing about [these
kinds of incidents] is
unpredictable or un-
preventable. We’re
focused on what in-
dividuals could have
done, which ignores
the systemic patterns.
Accidents focus
on this idea of human
error, that someone
did something wrong.
If we look at the data, accidents
happen under dangerous condi-
tions. That’s what we should be
focused on.
What is a more constructive
way to talk about accidents?
I think if people hear the word
accident, it should make [them]
ask questions: How was it an ac-
cident? Has it happened before?
Why did it happen again? How
are we going to prevent it from
happening again?
In asking those questions,
we make ourselves aware of the
systemic, deeply racialized and
deeply classist nature of how
these horrible tragedies repeat,
and move on from these simplistic
narratives about the last person to
interact with the accident before
it became deadly.
—JOSiah BaTeSQ&A
What’s behind the
racial disparities in
‘accidental’ deaths
‘If we look
at the data,
accidents
happen
under
dangerous
conditions.’
—JESSIE SINGER