A LESSON IN "ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM"
REQUIREMENT 1:
HAVE MOST OF THE PEOPLE BE BLACK
IN THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
The Black Population of Michigan as of 2010 census
was approximately 14%
The White Population of Michigan as of 2010 census
was approximately 79%
WHILE IN FLINT MICHIGAN
The Black Population of Flint, Michigan as of 2010 census
was approximately 57%
The White Population of Flint, Michigan as of 2010 census
was approximately 37%
SOURCE: U.S. CENSUS
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2629000.html
REQUIREMENT 2:
HAVE MANY OF THE PEOPLE BE POOR
"The past three decades have been rough for Flint. Like many blue-collar Michigan towns, it was fueled by the auto industry. General Motors plants kept it afloat for much of its prosperous history. But in the 1980s and 1990s, those plants began to close their doors, and when the jobs left, so did many of the people.
According to local officials, about 40% of residents are below the poverty rate. Fifteen percent of homes are boarded up and abandoned [which always leads to an dramatic increase in crime]
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tap-water-flint-michigan/
HAVE A REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR
THAT HAS MORE REGARD FOR
MONEY THAN
1) LIVES HE SEES
AS LESS THAN HUMAN
AND
2) THE ENVIRONMENT
Nearly two years ago, in April of 2014 Michigan's Republican Governor Rick Snyder appointed Emergency Manager Darnell Earley and tasked him to balance the budget of Flint. They decided they could save money by switching Flint's water supply from Lake Huron (which they were paying the city of Detroit for), to the Flint River
They did this knowing that the Flint River had served as a dump for industrial waste for decades prior to the Clean Water Act of the 1970s and 1980s.
1. Black
2. Poor
3. Republicans Saving Money (Industrial Waste was dumped there in the first place because the black poor didn't count. And rumor has it, Republicans are trying to block water clean up regulations right now, in 2016)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/15/toxic-water-soaring-lead-levels-in-childrens-blood-create-state-of-emergency-in-flint-mich/
To make things even worse, these men failed to add an anti-lead preventive that is required by the federal government--in order to save money.
I don't know if any of the children are dead of lead poisoning yet. But the children that live will suffer varying degrees of brain damage and other ailments from the lead poisoning.
But there are people dead of Legionnaires Disease in Flint Michigan and all signs point to the water as a source of that too
http://usuncut.com/class-war/people-are-dying-in-flint-all-sings-point-to-water/
Michigan's governor finally switched the water supply back, after 3 months of arguing with Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha over the lead levels she was finding in children's blood due to the tainted water. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint Michigan to help prevent even more lead poisoning in the children and to provide the people of Flint with drinkable water.
* * * * *
Some folks are calling for Governor Rick Snyder to face jail time. I, for one, do not think this is unreasonable. He managed to do what Americans have been afraid Al Qaeda or Isis might do. He managed to poison the water supply to a major American City. He managed to poison the water supply of Michael Moore's beloved Flint Michigan.
An Open Letter From Michael Moore to Rick Snyder:
"To poison all the children in an historic American city is no small feat. Even international terrorist organizations haven’t figured out yet how to do something on a magnitude like this.But you did. Your staff and others knew that the water in the Flint River was poison — but you decided that taking over the city and “cutting costs” to “balance the budget” was more important than the people’s health (not to mention their democratic rights to elect their own leaders). So you cut off the clean, fresh glacial lake water of Lake Huron that the citizens of Flint (including myself) had been drinking for decades and, instead, made them drink water from the industrial cesspool we call the Flint River — a body of “water” where toxins from a dozen General Motors and DuPont factories have been dumped for over a hundred years. And then you decided to put a chemical in this water to “clean” it — which only ended up stripping the lead off of Flint’s aging water pipes, placing that lead in the water and sending it straight into people’s taps..."
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