Welcome to Flint, America
Living through an epic government failure. Again.
Like me, you may be spending good stretches of your days enraged because the US government seems hell-bent on making bad decisions. Whether stupidly, accidentally, purposefully, or all of the above, the result is the same. Whatever is recommended as a decisive, prudent, science and data-based recommended plan of action, America does the opposite.
You may be screaming, as I am, actually and virtually, in response to the bald-faced lies being broadcast daily to the American people. Psycho-level lying: when the liar looks you right in the eye and says, “this isn’t dangerous,” and then, “still not dangerous” which becomes “we didn’t know this was dangerous,” and finally, “I always knew this was dangerous.” Each of those was lies recorded in HD and can be played back in slow motion. No matter, they’re still denied or officially glossed over. Meanwhile, each lie advances a game of pretend with millions of lives at stake.
Yes, it is alarming, this apparent willingness of the government to knowingly leave millions of lives at risk, without access to testing that could diagnose illness, shape interventions, and contain exposure. Instead, our government is acting like a child — covering its official ears and eyes because then it cannot know what it does not hear or see. They pretend that an absence of testing means an absence of exposure. It is disturbing to watch the US government wait for others to fill the testing void, while questioning the validity of said tests.
Even with two months’ head start, America demonstrated an infuriating lack of urgency. In this void, local communities, cities, states have been left to make life and death decisions and to fend for themselves. To fundraise for essentials like masks and food. Individual states, cities, companies, volunteers and journalists across America are now doing what the US government has failed to do thus far on this pandemic. Most days, I wish that Jose Andrés could run for President.
Millions face this epidemic without health coverage, paid leave, with zero financial cushion, and without pay checks. To be sure, the damage will crush unevenly. On a good day, this government has little concern for those at the bottom of the economy, the black and brown and underemployed and uninsured, who are the most vulnerable to biological and economic destruction. And America, this is not a good day.
Rage, incredulity, helplessness, sadness and some serious anxiety have settled in my mind and heart. They took up a familiar spot. On Friday morning, I figured out why.
Until the end of 2018, I lived in Flint, Michigan.
My husband and I moved there in August of 2014, four months after the change in water source began leaching poison into the homes of tens of thousands of residents. August was also five months before the government would actually share this secret. For years, a cascade of government cover-ups, blatant disregard for the people of Flint, political and financial self-interest, and shocking ineptitude kept thousands of lives at risk, lives that were changed forever by prolonged exposure to lead. “Drink the water,” they said. “Nothing to worry about,” said local officials, “this is all being overblown.” And later they said, “We’ve taken care of it, everyone is being tested, everyone has water.” Except they didn’t.
We were terrified. Most of us didn’t know what to drink or if we had already ingested enough lead to rewire our brains. We didn’t know which sources to trust. And people’s very real experiences of things like murky water, test results, and body rashes were discounted by government authorities. This all rushes back as I read thread after thread of pleas across social media, each detailing all they’ve done to try and get tested when they have been exposed, with or without symptoms, when they are trying to do the right thing to keep their families from harm. There are no clear rules or answers and instead, Americans are getting the Flint run around.
Flint’s economy stalled out completely, after barely puttering along before. The most vulnerable, Flint’s black and brown and poor, struggled to figure out how to fend for themselves. Just like the rest of America, the city had been broken for a long time behind a loss of manufacturing jobs, a meager tax base, profound racial and economic inequality, and systematic disinvestment in housing, health, education and infrastructure. The lead crisis put the squeeze on all this dysfunction until it bled out. If you lived it, though, you knew it was a pre-existing condition. Just as America is now “realizing” all of its vulnerability, all of the wage and health and food and housing insecurities that were there before January. Years before.
The state of Michigan, the city of Flint, Genesee county and the federal EPA all failed us. Fights over testing, over liability, and over contracts simmered while day by day, people did not have safe water to drink or to use for bathing, cooking, or washing hands. In an American city, circa 2015. It took independent university researchers testing water and blood to shame the state of Michigan into action.
One Friday afternoon, I met with a White House team that had come to Flint to try and figure out what to do to help the city to turn a corner. This was months into the crisis. We sat in the dark back booth of Soggy Bottom, a hidden lunch spot where we could talk. This was the last day of their visit. Disquiet and disbelief sat with us around that table. In that silence was the erasure of a set of assumptions: Government will proceed in ways that prioritize life and safety of people. The boundless reach and resources of government will be used to bring the best minds and technology to bear on solutions. We are prepared for major emergencies and threats. We will not leave our people to suffer. It may not be perfect, but some level of functional government will prevail.
What unfolded in Flint, America, was a complete failure of government to function or protect the people.
For years, non-profits, universities, foundations, businesses, and researchers battled to do what they could: providing water filters, testing, research, mapping, and economic support. Congressman Dan Kildee fought heroically to get the US government to act on legislation to finance new water and pipe infrastructure. Everyday heroes made water and grocery deliveries. Portable medical clinics and showers appeared. Extraordinary volunteers pieced together resources and strategies as best they could. They filled a void left by a governor, two mayors, multiple state of Michigan departments, county departments, and the Federal EPA whose bad decisions snowballed into a sustained lead pandemic.
This is what Flint taught me, up close, every day, for four years: government without strong, smart, ethical leadership will inflict havoc and destruction on its people. America has gutted the personnel and budgets of governments across the country and there will be high prices to pay. There is widespread disregard of the facts and science that can save us. Health and education have been sacrificed and basic human services and supports are derided as intrusive government. A country that has some of the most advanced minds, industries and systems will not marshal them for health with the same vigor it has shown for war or for profit.
People were appalled and shocked at Flint when it happened, and rightly so. That was the canary, America. Welcome to the coal mine.
