Flint Michigan Water Crisis Quotes

The average annual Flint residential water bill in 2015 was $864—about $300 more than in any other city in Michigan. In fact, it was the highest in the nation.

In an era when whole cities like Flint, Michigan, have had their water poisoned; when gas companies tell you that fracking is safe, never mind the earthquakes and flammable tap water; when Monsanto lobbies ceaselessly against attempts to ban its herbicide Roundup despite it having been credibly linked with cancer; and when Big Pharma peddled the drugs that set off the opioid crisis, it is entirely rational to be skeptical toward monopolistic power.

Whether she was perceived as hostile to working- and middle-class whites or just indifferent, it wasn’t a big leap from “she doesn’t care about my job” to “she’d rather give my job to a minority or a foreigner than fight for me to keep it.” She and her aides were focused on the wrong issue set for working-class white Michigan voters, and, even when she talked about the economy—rather than her e-mail scandal, mass shootings, or the water crisis in Flint—it wasn’t at all clear to them that she was on their side.

Because children of color are much more likely to be exposed to lead at a young age, it is devastating to think about what will happen to an entire generation of Flint children. What promises can you make to a child about the world of possibility ahead of them when the state has poisoned their bloodstreams and bones such that their behavioral self-control and language comprehension are impaired? How many graves has the government of Michigan set aside for the casualties of the water crisis that will end with a gunshot in fifteen years' time? We all know how cops respond to kids of color with intellectual disabilities or mental illness.

Moreover, plenty of people, pregnant and not, have good reasons not to trust both Big Pharma and Big Government, let alone the two acting in coordination. In an era when whole cities like Flint, Michigan, have had their water poisoned; when gas companies tell you that fracking is safe, never mind the earthquakes and flammable tap water; when Monsanto lobbies ceaselessly against attempts to ban its herbicide Roundup despite it having been credibly linked with cancer; and when Big Pharma peddled the drugs that set off the opioid crisis, it is entirely rational to be skeptical toward monopolistic power. Johnson & Johnson, one of the major vaccine makers, not only is caught up in the opioid lawsuits but also has been ordered to pay out billions in legal settlements in recent years over alleged harm caused by several of its prescription medications and even its ubiquitous talcum powder (found to have contained asbestos). Against this backdrop, and given the lack of debate and allowable questioning of the vaccines in many progressive spaces, it’s no surprise that so many went off to “do their own research”—finding my doppelganger, and many more like her, waiting with their wild claims about vaccine shedding and mass infertility.