Flint, Michigan is a majority black town with a man-made water crisis. In 2013, officials found out that someone switched out the Flint water supply from Lake Heron to a local lake. However, the pipes were old and caused lead to infiltrate the town's water supply. Soon the water was turning yellow and a blue/green color. Officials told the town's citizens that it was safe to drink. It has gotten national attention. President Obama has declared state of emergency for the town and no one has yet to suffer consequences for what happened.It has gotten strong attention from celebrities. The list of celebs who've now got Flint, Michigan, on their radars — and in their bank accounts — is long and growing: Sean "Diddy" Combs and Mark Wahlberg's co-owned water company AQUAhydrate promised to donate 1 million bottles; Eminem and Wiz Khalifa have also joined their effort. Madonna matched Jimmy Fallon's $10,000 donation
Rapper The Game went on Instagram and announced his personal connection to the crisis. "My younger sister and her children live there," he wrote, before criticizing other celebrities "on here faking using the word 'pledge' in their so-called donations." He then wrote that on behalf of his charity he donated $1 million.
Lead poisoning is irreversible and causes a host of developmental problems in kids. These include poor motor skills, learning delays, difficulty articulating speech and problems controlling behavior. While the extreme government neglect and deceit in Flint made what's happening there its own unique horror story — residents have been exposed to toxic drinking water for more than a year.
But why did they let this crisis go as far as it did? Does something else factor into this environmental emergency?
We must ask this question: Was the city neglected because it is mostly black and about 40% poor?
Several advocates say yes. They charge that Flint residents are victims of "environmental racism" -- that is, race and poverty factored into how Flint wasn't adequately protected and how its water became contaminated with lead, making the tap water undrinkable.
"Would more have been done, and at a much faster pace, if nearly 40 percent of Flint residents were not living below the poverty line? The answer is unequivocally yes," the NAACP said in a statement.
For more information:Lead poisoning is irreversible and causes a host of developmental problems in kids. These include poor motor skills, learning delays, difficulty articulating speech and problems controlling behavior. While the extreme government neglect and deceit in Flint made what's happening there its own unique horror story — residents have been exposed to toxic drinking water for more than a year.
But why did they let this crisis go as far as it did? Does something else factor into this environmental emergency?
We must ask this question: Was the city neglected because it is mostly black and about 40% poor?
Several advocates say yes. They charge that Flint residents are victims of "environmental racism" -- that is, race and poverty factored into how Flint wasn't adequately protected and how its water became contaminated with lead, making the tap water undrinkable.
"Would more have been done, and at a much faster pace, if nearly 40 percent of Flint residents were not living below the poverty line? The answer is unequivocally yes," the NAACP said in a statement.
Others go further.
"While it might not be intentional, there's this implicit bias against older cities -- particularly older cities with poverty (and) majority-minority communities," said Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, who represents the Flint area.
"It's hard for me to imagine the indifference that we've seen exhibited if this had happened in a much more affluent community," he said.
For the record, Flint is 57% black, 37% white, 4% Latino and 4% mixed race; more than 41% of its residents live below the poverty level.
In an interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow this week, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder repeatedly said that he was taking responsibility for the crisis even as she reminded him that his then-chief of staff sent an email in July 2015 to a health department official warning of lead in the Flint drinking water.
The result is a crisis the state of Michigan has spent millions of dollars trying to solve. Believe it or not, their methods — including varying approaches to lead abatement — have led to a significant drop in lead levels in children's blood across the state over the last few years, according to the Center of Michigan.
But things are still bad. The cities where lead poisoning remains the most common vary in terms of their demographic makeup — some, like Detroit and Highland Park, are overwhelmingly black; others, like Lansing and Grand Rapids, are majority white — but most, unsurprisingly, have poverty rates well above the state and national averages.
And as Gov. Rick Snyder scrambles to clean up his mess, it's worth remembering the problem is much bigger than Flint. The children of Michigan — and in other parts of the country — remain among its biggest casualties.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/flint-michigan-water-crisis-race-poverty/
http://mic.com/articles/133777/lead-poisoning-in-other-parts-of-michigan-is-even-worse-than-it-is-in-flint#.6GJQC6eGk
No comments:
Post a Comment