June 8, 2022 • 36 mins
Ben Pauli, a Kettering University Political Science Professor, is a water rights activist. Pauli embedded himself with a group of Flint residents during the Flint Water Crisis. This is the group that brought the tainted Flint drinking water problem to the public's attention. The group also was successful in advocating that government fix the cause of the toxic water problem.
Professor Pauli discusses the historical activism that helped Flint survive economically and environmentally for almost 100 years. He concludes that Flint has been fighting David vs. Goliath-type battles for generations which helps it survive. Pauli argues that generational activism is an asset to the city's efforts to overcome the economic crisis for the past 40 years. One lasting change resulted in recognizing drinking water as a right in the Flint City Charter.
Pauli's ethnographical research is done in an academic book, not your typical data-filled one. The book reads like a CIA or police intelligence field analysis of the capability of a group in fostering and accomplishing public policy changes. "Flint Fights Back" is an insightful book and takes an extensive view of the Flint Water Crisis, remarkably different from other books and articles written on the Flint Water Crisis. Most fascinating is Pauli's analysis of the ability of local activists to form an identity and narrative story that sells their cause in the marketplace of public opinion.
Pauli concludes that Flint is a parable, the canary in the coal mine forewarning for other cities and towns in the United States. Many of whom may catch a glimpse of what their futures may be in years to come. Professor Pauli claims that Flint's activism has sparked change that eventually has taken hold in many other places in the U.S.
"Flint Fights Back" is a guide for those who wonder how to bring change to their towns and cities. Rather than see an involved and active public as an asset, many leaders and residents view some in Flint as the "problem." Professor Pauli speculates that, in all likelihood, the Flint Water Crisis would never have been discovered and addressed without the persistent and determined work of the Flint activist. Yes, the same activists who didn't take gaslighting by their Mayor, Governor, and government as the answer to fixing poison in Flint's drinking water.
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RESOURCES AND LINKS
- Pauli's book is FREE to all to download: MIT Press Free Download
- Kettering University is a private non-profit STEM university in Flint, Michigan.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:37):
Hello, this is Arthur Bush, you're listening to
Radio Free Flint.
Today's guest is Professor BenPoley from Kettering University.
Ben has wrote a book about thewater crisis.
Professor Poley embedded himselfwith a group of Flint water
activists during the FlintwaterCrisis and discusses his
(00:59):
experiences.
More importantly, he discussesFlint's capability and capacity
at activism, and theconsequences of his of the
activism that he witnessed andwhat the abilities are of the
people of Flint to actuallybring change.
It's a very interestingconversation that we have about
(01:20):
the future from a politicalscientist's point of view.
I'm sure you'll be fascinated bythe conversation and by
Professor Pole's conclusionsabout the people of Flint and
its culture.
So thank you for listening.
Without any further ado, here'sProfessor Ben Poli.
SPEAKER_02 (01:50):
Thanks very much.
It's my pleasure to be here.
How did you get in doing a bookabout the water crisis?
SPEAKER_03 (01:58):
Well, firstly, it was that it was affecting my
family personally, and I shouldsay the teen.
At that time, there wasn't yetenough water crisis.
There had been some issues withwater and making some tweaks of
the we were not given theimpression that there was any
serious threat to family'shealth.
(02:19):
So we're determined to useFlin's tap water.
We've always been leaders in tapwater.
We had a three-year-old son atthat he was to some extent
always come under.
So when we started to there waslead in her, and that was a
couple of months, that was a bigconcern for our family.
(02:40):
So but we could certainlyidentify what's going through as
people just kind of start tounderstand, figure out what to
do about it on a personal level,but then also figure out what to
do about it on a collectivelevel.
And that was the piece thatreally came to interest me
because once we had a filterinstalled or faucet and more or
(03:01):
less okay as a I started torealize that crisis really
exposed the concerted effort ofcommunity members themselves to
the issues of water quality,attention research, what was
going on placing pressure onpublic officials to take the
situation seriously and respond.
(03:22):
Um that got me really intriguedon a couple of firstly, just as
a concerned resident and as abit of an activist myself, um, I
was curious to see this kind ofsocial movement that was
developed.
Um but then the other part of itis that as a scholar, um, I'm
(03:42):
interested in social movementsin general and particularly
useful ideas and tell tell usabout you.
So I I'm I was actually born inin Madison, so I have Midwest
roots, but I grew up inWashington State.
My mom was uh in a thing outthere, she's actually now the
(04:03):
the city washing so she hasquite a an uh in city
government.
Uh my dad is a geologist.
Certainly as I was writing it, Iwas aware that a crisis books,
and of course I hadn't readthose books yet, the print, so I
was having to imagine a littlebit what we're up to and to try
(04:26):
to stake a claim to my ownparticular angle on the crisis.
And and you know, really I Idon't think I I had to work
terribly hard to figure out whatthat was because I mean the
whole reason why I ended updeciding the first place is that
I ended up in a position forthis.
I was a resident and a parentwho was worried about the
(04:50):
safety.
But I was a newcomer to the Vand still uh bringing a little
bit of that outsider'sperspective.
I also had a foot in this worldof water activism, maybe more
than a foot ultimately waspretty involved on the activist
side, so I was getting to seethe crisis for that.
But then in April of 2016, I wasalso invited to a scientific
(05:13):
team that was doing researchinto water quality issues and so
I had an opportunity to gain akind of front row seat to some
of the scientists.
So um bringing all of thoseperspectives together, you know,
I I think resulted in a prettyadvantage in what was happening.
And that was part of what I wastrying to accomplish in was to
(05:36):
get the crisis from a variety ofangles and to try to give people
a pretty robust and rich analogyto understand what happened.
And the first few chapters ofthe book in particular is offer
a number of different possiblenarratives, a number of
different ways of telling thestory of the crisis, no one of
which is necessarily to theothers, bring out different
(05:58):
elements, suggest differentkinds of lessons that we might
take away from the crisis.
But the other thing I wanted todo is I really wanted to
foreground the perspective of uhwater activists and fluence.
I wanted, you know, their storyreally to be the heart of the
story.
(06:18):
And so their analysis of thecrisis, the one that really gets
the most attention in the book.
Um and I also, to some extent,just try to chronicle the
various ways in which theyresponded to the crisis, drawing
from their assessment of whatits origins was, what its
(06:39):
significance was, and whatneeded to be done in response to
it.
SPEAKER_02 (06:43):
Your book really takes a look at the water crisis
activism, but it also morphs, atleast by the end of this book,
into an assessment of capabilityof collective action.
And at one point in your book,you use the word flint fights
(07:04):
back.
You describe your activity asfighting back collective action.
The assessment of Flint'scapability, the fight back, at
least with respect to the watercrisis, always was fascinating.
SPEAKER_03 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that was frustrating
me a little bit about the way inwhich the story was being
represented, the story of thecrisis was being represented
after it became big nationalnews, is that it tended to get
boiled down to a few exceptionalpersonalities who kind of came
(07:39):
along at the right time andfound each other, and they were
each bringing different thingsto the table, and it was really
their combined efforts thathelped to break the story open
and you know force people to paysome attention to it.
But you know, what I could seehappening on on the ground
around me was was rather morecomplicated than that.
(08:03):
You don't usually get socialchange unless there's a larger
scale mobilization on the partof people in a community like
Flint.
And that's exactly what we see.
When we go back and look youknow, all the way to April of
2014 when the Flint River waterstarted flowing through the
(08:25):
pipes, people started raisingconcerns about that almost
immediately, actually beforeeven it happened.
There was a steady drumbeat,really, of public concern and
outcry and ultimately organizingan activism that created the
conditions under which anyparticular individual was able
(08:46):
to have an effect.
That really was the story that Iwanted to help to tell in the
book was a story about all ofthese people whose names you
know you you don't necessarilyknow, who haven't gotten the
same kind of attention, awards,and accolades and credit and so
forth, but who collectively cametogether and created the
(09:08):
conditions under which thecrisis finally got acknowledged,
ultimately, at least to someextent, addressed.
SPEAKER_02 (09:15):
As you covered that aspect of this, your experiences
beforehand with working who hadbeen involved in trying to be
forward-looking about thischarter, adopting a more modern
approach and governance.
You met many people and you saidyou and then you had the
opportunity to have a realbird's eye view about these
(09:38):
people from your work with Isaacand themselves.
SPEAKER_03 (09:41):
Certainly, yes.
I mean, I I think that you know,in Flint, there's a real kind of
historical sensibility that thatpeople are operating with that's
very striking.
I mean, Flint, as you know, hasa very rich history, and it's
one that is still alive inrespects, and and there's a lot
of pride that people take inaspects of that history,
(10:06):
especially this tendency forFlint residents to band together
and to stand up for themselveswhen they feel like they're
being exploited or abused insome way.
And it you know, it goes all theway back to at the very at the
very least, the sit-down strikeof 1936-37, this idea that you
(10:29):
know, even if we're Davidfighting Goliath, you know,
there are times when you'vereally gotta put your foot down
and stand up for what's right.
And you don't necessarily weighthe odds of victory, just throw
yourself into that fight.
And I think that it's that kindof scrappy mentality that we see
(10:51):
uh as being very central towater activist culture as I see
it here.
SPEAKER_02 (10:57):
Well, it's it's it's endemic to the culture itself,
isn't it?
Of the people at Flint, thishistory that they have of
battling the roller coaster inthe American economy played out
in uh particularly automatic,they do have that what you call
scrappiness.
SPEAKER_03 (11:15):
It certainly has.
I mean, I think it's worthremembering that when these
activists started going toofficially sponsored meetings
about the water after officialswere beginning to admit that
there was some, you know, not soinsignificant issues with water
quality, you know, what theywere told at those meetings was
(11:36):
that there was absolutely nopossibility of the city
switching off the Flint River.
And so it wasn't even worthhaving a conversation about.
And to some extent, you werebetraying just how irrational
and stubborn you were by evenraising that as you, and just
how unreasonable you were,because you weren't willing to
(11:57):
have a serious conversationabout what should be done with
the water.
SPEAKER_02 (12:02):
You know, your voice is obviously part of a choir of
those who looked at this crisisand who have come to the same
fork in their own.
Some of those have beensinger-songwriters, troubadours,
who have wrote the history ofthis crisis in song.
And one of those, Ashley Gubak,a German who's based in Boston,
(12:26):
wrote a beautiful song,Michigan.
And the song talks about thegaslighting that was being done
by those who were essentiallythe lyrics of their song or
something, putting putting somesand in their eyes.
Isn't the notion that you youknow don't believe your lying
eyes, okay?
(12:47):
Don't believe your your taste.
Don't believe your common sense.
This water that you're drinkingis really not what you believe
it is, and you're unreasonable.
SPEAKER_03 (12:59):
I mean, that's really gaslighting and No, I
think that's the right term, andin fact, it's a term that was
used by multiple water activiststalking to me about that.
This is one of the reasons whythe crisis dragged on for as
long as it did.
SPEAKER_02 (13:18):
So you have an administration that wants to
tout their greatness and theirwonderfulness, telling people
that their water's not dirty andtelling something's this, and
you're looking through.
That has an impact on people whoalready have a culture of, as
you referred to, if Flint fightsback.
(13:38):
Wasn't that kind of stuff justputting a red flag in front of a
bull?
SPEAKER_03 (13:44):
For for sure.
I mean, at least again, that Ithat is a mentality that I have
encountered quite a bit here inFlint is this kind of
indignation that people feel atbeing treated that way.
You know, when it happens tothem, they don't just curl up
into a ball and say, oh, sorry,I bothered you, right?
(14:06):
Instead, they start looking forsome kind of workaround.
I think that's what happenedwith these public meetings
around water, is that, you know,when when people realized they
weren't going to be takenseriously there, um, they didn't
give up.
They just turned to differentkinds of tactics.
It wasn't trying to, you know,convince people in positions of
(14:29):
power to do the right thing somuch as it was pressure and
force them to do the rightthing.
And that meant mustering muscle.
And that's something that Flintfolks are good at doing.
SPEAKER_02 (14:41):
Yeah, that goes back to the sit-down strikes when the
bosses didn't want to meet theirdemands as we sat down inside
the even before that, we askedfor reasonable things like
bathroom breaks, on the rightdown, a little heat, ready work,
the winter, and more simplethings like better hours
(15:02):
working.
The people didn't take no for ananswer, did they?
SPEAKER_03 (15:06):
No, and I I I think that that that's the key,
because again, if they had goneto these meetings and they'd
taken for granted this idea thatswitching off of the river was a
non-starter, and they they wouldhave put themselves at the mercy
of people who were makingdecisions on the basis of cost,
(15:27):
who were making decisions on thebasis of convenience, who were
not necessarily prioritizingwhat the people who were
drinking the water wanted toprioritize, which was their
health and and the publichealth.
Rendering that no, right, is areally important moment within
any any social movement becauseit means to some extent it's not
(15:50):
going to work within theconfines of the system and the
way it defines your issue andyour reality.
To some extent, residents had togo out and create this other
reality by collecting their ownevidence of what was going on
and making sure that that was socompelling that people
ultimately had to come around totheir way of seeing things.
SPEAKER_02 (16:13):
Now you described the Flint culture that you
observed inside of the wateractivism as being one of an
activist culture that existed inthe community as a whole, and
you spoke of it in your book asbeing uh intensive localism.
What do you mean by thosedescriptors?
SPEAKER_03 (16:34):
What I've seen since I've lived in Flint is that
we've got a lot of them incommunity uh organizers and
activists who are very, veryactive.
And some of them are activearound issues that I think of
are of very broad significance.
And to some extent, theiractivism isn't issue-based
(16:54):
activism, if I can put it thatway.
Most of what I see going on inthe community is very much
grounded in the kinds of needsand concerns that exist among
Flint residents and onaddressing those needs and
concerns.
You know, again, that that isn'tnecessarily true of every
(17:15):
activist culture, but a lot ofwhat I've seen here is very much
focused on trying to make Flintthe best place it can possibly
be by focusing intensely on theissues that are are going on
right here within our own theexperiences which you had and
which you're describing tell methat you've met the Flintstones.
(17:40):
I'd like to think I have.
I mean, um certainly some of thepeople I've worked with and and
gotten to know and friends andand comrades have been here for,
if not their whole lives, uh inevery case, a very, very long
time.
You know, I'm thinking aboutpeople like Claire McClinton,
(18:00):
who was a union organizer, umwho is in in some ways, although
she doesn't always like beingdescribed this way, sort of the
matriarch of our uh water activeand and pro-democracy activist
community here.
There are uh people like ClaudiaPerkins Milton, who was was also
(18:24):
involved with the union back inthe day, and was uh really a
pioneering figure as a blackwoman within the the union.
They are it's it's folks likethat who are bringing all of
that history to the the thefight, you know, when when they
take on uh an issue like water.
(18:47):
It's not just water isn't theironly point of reference.
I mean, they have this wholerich history of organizing and
activism that they're drawingfrom and any number of issues
that they've confronted over theyears, and they're drawing from
that knowledge and experience indoing what they do.
So I've learned so much fromthem.
(19:10):
That's been really one of thegreat kind of revelations of
moving here to Flint and andbecoming a part of this
community, is that it it's beenanother opportunity to realize
how much I have to learn fromothers.
SPEAKER_02 (19:27):
Let me bring the focus back to the Flint.
You write in your book whenyou're describing what might
have gone better in Flint duringthe water crisis if people had
had a more commonality ofinterest to draw on a greater
collective identity.
(19:47):
Your book isn't throwing shadeon Flint, it's just describing
what what was lacking with thisparticular group of active
dealing with the water crisisitself.
SPEAKER_03 (19:59):
But when you talk of being well, and and as Art would
put it, you need a a story ofus.
One of the anyway, in order tomobilize particular issues, you
need to have a conception weare, who are people.
That's something that doesn't beuh to some extent, you know,
identity as a social constructthat has to be created.
(20:21):
So the the way we tell ourselvesstarting determining how we're
gonna tackle struggle.
And so I think having theoryhelps, and having people like
Claudia, who were have beeninvolved for years, to keep
bringing that back in and kindof reminding us we are when you
look at a guy like uh CharlesReyes III, he's not just that's
(20:45):
right, yeah.
And you know, Art himself hasspent a lot of time studying and
deorganizing, uh, got a degreefrom Harvard, and maybe he has
been writing of work for a longtime.
Inside for many of us, in acommunity like this, I mean,
they they need the kinds ofideas and skills and capacity
(21:06):
that folks like that provide.
Sometimes we're tension involvedin determining what particular
story would be told and who'sgonna be at the center of it and
what kinds of tactic utilize.
I mean, it's a it's a messyprocess.
In chapter eight of the last youknow, part of what I wanted to
try to capture was not only workthat people were were doing
(21:30):
trying to make that happen, butalso in the complication, some
of the limitations of that work,because I wanted to tell a story
that was honest and that was youknow a way for other people
looking from the outside in.
SPEAKER_02 (21:46):
One of the grasps you're finding reactive.
SPEAKER_03 (21:49):
When you're talking about plant water crisis,
environmental justice struggle,often you're where there's some
kind of pressing threat, asubstance that is essential for
life, whether that be water,air, whether that be the part of
injected into this struggle, isthat people really did feel like
(22:11):
they were fighting for theirlives, for the lives of
children, for the future of thisas a whole.
Flint as a city, a city that'sbeen described at times um as a
city that's kind of barelyhanging on to life.
This was a fight, not only on anindividual or family level, but
(22:32):
really a fight for thecommunity.
I think that there was a lot interms of the way people
conceptualized the emergencymanager phenomenon, really to
that to some extent, becausethat was sort of a hostile of me
that had the dissolved the city,and emergency managers have the
(22:53):
power.
The precarious future, I think,was very much in those minds
with uh their own destoxicsubstance that could really kill
them.
SPEAKER_02 (23:03):
The culture that surrounds a willness.
Right or mad hours will be.
SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
Yeah, and and knowing that we in a lot of
industrial uh cities where tosome extent people have patterns
themselves because the state haskind of collapsed, local
government is not able to do allof this that we associate with
the functioning government,whether that be keeping the
(23:28):
parks mode or the trash, fixingthe sidewalks, uh you know, to
extend the absence that thiskind of need for a DIY
mentality.
But again, I think Flint, thatcombined with this other deeply
embedded in Flint's history,going back to what we were
saying before, where when we arefacing some kind of threats to
(23:53):
our well-being, you know, we'renot the kind of people take that
sitting down.
We are the kind of people whostand up and fight back if the
odds are against is thatsomething is different, unique?
SPEAKER_02 (24:05):
I mean, you use words intense local.
SPEAKER_03 (24:08):
I've never heard this be set in some sense as a
model for other pieces that arefatal issues because we know
that other keys are in it.
SPEAKER_02 (24:18):
Are we saying is that Flint's repairable?
It's an object lesson for otherpeople.
SPEAKER_03 (24:24):
That really has been a core theme of Flint's again,
going all the way back to thesit-down strike is what uh
really jump-started the Americanlabor movement as a whole.
You know, what happened here, ithad this kind of wildfire type
effect of spreading.
I think that the the rise andfall of to some extent it
(24:48):
encapsulates the whole idea ofthe American, you know, gone
wrong.
You know, constant the dynamicum and almost exaggerating in
ways that help us to understandwhat's going on in other
countries as well.
It's part of universal street ofthe of the country as a almost
(25:10):
like on the cutting edge ofthat, his showing other
countries where they're going.
SPEAKER_02 (25:16):
A lot of people have wrote books, they've done
documents about an analogytoward whatever about the this
is a city that is full of lifeon on the way toward recovery.
Let's talk about the people atLynn are the unrealistic.
SPEAKER_03 (25:33):
Sometimes there are objectives set for themselves,
the ideals that they're tryingto and this do everything
oneself.
And that's part of what I try,right?
There are times that is onmaking sure that we are the ones
liberating ourselves, solvingproblems as noble as that is,
(25:55):
meant that we didn't have all ofthe capacity to actually tackle
the hand.
Sometimes people were very muchin of outside help, outside
research.
That's a tricky thing tonavigate.
You're starting out with thatkind of pride.
How do you welcome resourcesthat are gonna help you realize
what you're trying to accomplishwithout comproming your
(26:18):
autonomy, without inviting otherinterests in that might clash
interests?
That's that's a reset of you'relooking at at people's
insistence on self-governance,you know, this idea that they
know best right for them, andthat they ought to be the
drivers anytime a decision beingmade that directly impacts their
(26:41):
personal lives.
There's a lot of that that isnot only um that you know people
ought to be self-governing,true, just as a matter of fact.
People often do have a bettersense of you know how water is
in their everyday lives than thequote-unquote expert, and how
(27:03):
impacting their person than anemergency manager does aside.
Sometimes you know, popularlyreactive, it's all about tearing
down experts and you know thesekind of shadowy strings
controlling the world that welive in.
At its core, I think principlesthat are harder to argue with.
(27:25):
Yeah, I mean, I I saw itfirsthand at the water.
I mean, remember, I'm coming asa science PhD that I have
something to offer full analysisof the situation.
And what I realized was that Iwas another body, it was nothing
special uh in terms of how Iwould really buy up.
(27:47):
It wasn't that we're waitingaround for for somebody with a
fancy degree to come and explainthe situation to them.
They already felt like they hada pretty and and you know what?
They were right.
They were way ahead of theirunder their analysis of what was
going on, and that's why again Iwas saying earlier, I've learned
(28:08):
so much.
I've learned more from thepeople I've been working with,
that's for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (28:13):
The really essential scribes are rag tag
extraordinarily fashioned.
I'm gonna set that in.
I mean, these aren't just thegroup side government or people
aren't wanting to hang on.
These are people who arechallenged the system of
governments back to the BostonDeep Park.
That's right.
SPEAKER_03 (28:32):
I think that we're talking about who on one hand,
we're very much mated on anlevel by the threats that the
water pose themselves and theirfamily members.
We don't want to discount thatpart of it.
A lot of people would argue whodo actively deorganizing, that
if you don't have that strongelement of self-interest, it's
(28:56):
gonna be hard to generate a lotof fire to sustain it over time.
It was certainly about more thanjust that.
Part of the indignation thatpeople felt at having their
water contaminated, it wasn'tjust what was being done to
their own body and the body oftheir children.
(29:16):
It was what was being done totheir community.
It was this idea of feeling likethere didn't matter, that this
is the kind of thing you coulddo to Flint and get away with
it.
Certainly on that level to fightback, not just on behalf of
individually, but on behalf ofas a whole.
(29:38):
In terms of how that fits ourlarger national issues.
I mean, again, people in Flint,they were offering a kind of of
what democracy, how a democraticshould function, what that look
in practice.
And a lot of standing up, tryingto not only themselves live up
to a certain set of principles,but to make sure that those in
(30:01):
the power are due, and they failto do that, then you know, you
take matters on hand.
And it's in that sense that Ithink the the social movements
around water can potentiallytruly be a source of inspiration
for other communities.
SPEAKER_02 (30:17):
Man, how do you think the flint stones did in
family?
SPEAKER_03 (30:22):
Well, you know, when you think of all of the things
that probably have happened,people didn't mobilize the they
did, it's a you know fairlylong.
Now, of course, it's alwaysdifficult to counterfactuals to
say what would have happened ifwe removed some variable.
I don't know sitting heretalking about a flint water
(30:45):
crisis at all.
If residents hadn't into theirown hands and really been as
determined as they were toexpose what was going on and
forced people to acknowledge it.
So I think that was really thefirst thing that they
accomplished was to get thecrisis recognized as a crisis.
Beyond that, when you thinkabout the amount of rises that
(31:09):
have come this way in responseto the crisis, it's not
insignificant.
Flint has been the beneficiaryof hundreds of millions of
dollars that people have foughtfor and lobbyed.
It's important to recognize thatthose bills don't get passed act
of creating pressure around.
(31:30):
And so we had activists herethat were very much involved in
that effort.
Right up to the present, youknow, we're trying to get all of
our lead service lines out ofthe ground.
We have activists who are on thefront lines here who are working
diligently to make sure thatpeople don't get left behind.
(31:51):
You know, we have a big watercrisis settlement now.
That's all, and again, it'speople in the community who are
going around making sure thatunderstand that and are signed
up for it and are getting thethat they deserve.
All of that stuff, and we keepgoing down the list, is a
(32:11):
product, a great extent, ofresidents themselves and the
necessary pressure and bringingpublic attention to the issues.
In that sense, I think it's beenpretty cool to have
accomplished.
Does that mean that every movieor that every opportunity was
capitalized on on the way?
(32:33):
No, of course not, especially ina city like Flint, where we
don't have a lot of capacity tobegin with, you know, to take on
every issue.
There were times when I think weprobably would have done more as
an act of immunity if we'd hadmore people, if we'd had more
money.
When you look at just how sickthe crisis came, not only Flint,
(32:57):
but to the whole country, to theworld, it has helped inspire
things outside of don't thinkthat it would have happened to
that extent without the countrypeople mayor.
What do you see as the outcomeof the governance?
One thing that is of note isthat we are placing more empty
(33:17):
on treating water as a rightpeople have, you know,
fundamental human rights.
It's now recognized in ourcharter uh in declaration of
rights at the beginning, andthere are a couple of sh is that
idea is embedded in certainpolicies around water.
Flint has been very proactive,for example, during COVID to
(33:39):
spend water shut off.
Hopefully that's something thatfuture, but it's gonna have to
be something that you knowresidentally fight for.
It's one thing to have it in thecharter, it's another charter to
actually get followed.
That isn't what we have here, isthat we have this governing
document that is consulted forall of the the knocks we've had
(34:01):
over the past few years.
There are a lot going on here tohave hope to even be optimistic.
SPEAKER_02 (34:08):
One of the reasons hope has is I think that's
right.
SPEAKER_03 (34:12):
Yeah, at the end of the day is that people don't
just run away from challenges.
You know, I've met some arenever going.
Flint is their home.
They know that a a lot to aboutweather and that good work to be
done here, and that there aregood things happening the time.
I mean, we don't always get thatside of in fact, we almost never
(34:35):
get that side of, you know, it'snot like wallowing spare day in
and day out.
I mean, in their lives andtrying to make things happen and
having little victories andhaving little setbacks in the
way that in any other community,except again, as you say here,
that fighting's especiallystrong.
And we've got a lot of in thebook, that's kind of where I did
(34:59):
this.
I I definitely did not want tomake it sound like easy for
David to fight Goliath.
That David is always on theright side of every issue
because he's David.
I mean, you know, you again,without trying to turn it into
some sort of uh caricature ofthe the little guys and gals
(35:24):
fighting the system, thatthere's a lot more complexity to
it than that.
SPEAKER_01 (35:59):
Well, the water was brown, smelled like marine,
still the city officials saidthe water was clean.
People broke out in rashes, sowe're losing their hair, they
can blame to the mare, but hejust didn't care.
He said,
Hello, this is Arthur Bush, you're listening to
Radio Free Flint.
Today's guest is Professor BenPoley from Kettering University.
Ben has wrote a book about thewater crisis.
Professor Poley embedded himselfwith a group of Flint water
activists during the FlintwaterCrisis and discusses his
(00:59):
experiences.
More importantly, he discussesFlint's capability and capacity
at activism, and theconsequences of his of the
activism that he witnessed andwhat the abilities are of the
people of Flint to actuallybring change.
It's a very interestingconversation that we have about
(01:20):
the future from a politicalscientist's point of view.
I'm sure you'll be fascinated bythe conversation and by
Professor Pole's conclusionsabout the people of Flint and
its culture.
So thank you for listening.
Without any further ado, here'sProfessor Ben Poli.
SPEAKER_02 (01:50):
Thanks very much.
It's my pleasure to be here.
How did you get in doing a bookabout the water crisis?
SPEAKER_03 (01:58):
Well, firstly, it was that it was affecting my
family personally, and I shouldsay the teen.
At that time, there wasn't yetenough water crisis.
There had been some issues withwater and making some tweaks of
the we were not given theimpression that there was any
serious threat to family'shealth.
(02:19):
So we're determined to useFlin's tap water.
We've always been leaders in tapwater.
We had a three-year-old son atthat he was to some extent
always come under.
So when we started to there waslead in her, and that was a
couple of months, that was a bigconcern for our family.
(02:40):
So but we could certainlyidentify what's going through as
people just kind of start tounderstand, figure out what to
do about it on a personal level,but then also figure out what to
do about it on a collectivelevel.
And that was the piece thatreally came to interest me
because once we had a filterinstalled or faucet and more or
(03:01):
less okay as a I started torealize that crisis really
exposed the concerted effort ofcommunity members themselves to
the issues of water quality,attention research, what was
going on placing pressure onpublic officials to take the
situation seriously and respond.
(03:22):
Um that got me really intriguedon a couple of firstly, just as
a concerned resident and as abit of an activist myself, um, I
was curious to see this kind ofsocial movement that was
developed.
Um but then the other part of itis that as a scholar, um, I'm
(03:42):
interested in social movementsin general and particularly
useful ideas and tell tell usabout you.
So I I'm I was actually born inin Madison, so I have Midwest
roots, but I grew up inWashington State.
My mom was uh in a thing outthere, she's actually now the
(04:03):
the city washing so she hasquite a an uh in city
government.
Uh my dad is a geologist.
Certainly as I was writing it, Iwas aware that a crisis books,
and of course I hadn't readthose books yet, the print, so I
was having to imagine a littlebit what we're up to and to try
(04:26):
to stake a claim to my ownparticular angle on the crisis.
And and you know, really I Idon't think I I had to work
terribly hard to figure out whatthat was because I mean the
whole reason why I ended updeciding the first place is that
I ended up in a position forthis.
I was a resident and a parentwho was worried about the
(04:50):
safety.
But I was a newcomer to the Vand still uh bringing a little
bit of that outsider'sperspective.
I also had a foot in this worldof water activism, maybe more
than a foot ultimately waspretty involved on the activist
side, so I was getting to seethe crisis for that.
But then in April of 2016, I wasalso invited to a scientific
(05:13):
team that was doing researchinto water quality issues and so
I had an opportunity to gain akind of front row seat to some
of the scientists.
So um bringing all of thoseperspectives together, you know,
I I think resulted in a prettyadvantage in what was happening.
And that was part of what I wastrying to accomplish in was to
(05:36):
get the crisis from a variety ofangles and to try to give people
a pretty robust and rich analogyto understand what happened.
And the first few chapters ofthe book in particular is offer
a number of different possiblenarratives, a number of
different ways of telling thestory of the crisis, no one of
which is necessarily to theothers, bring out different
(05:58):
elements, suggest differentkinds of lessons that we might
take away from the crisis.
But the other thing I wanted todo is I really wanted to
foreground the perspective of uhwater activists and fluence.
I wanted, you know, their storyreally to be the heart of the
story.
(06:18):
And so their analysis of thecrisis, the one that really gets
the most attention in the book.
Um and I also, to some extent,just try to chronicle the
various ways in which theyresponded to the crisis, drawing
from their assessment of whatits origins was, what its
(06:39):
significance was, and whatneeded to be done in response to
it.
SPEAKER_02 (06:43):
Your book really takes a look at the water crisis
activism, but it also morphs, atleast by the end of this book,
into an assessment of capabilityof collective action.
And at one point in your book,you use the word flint fights
(07:04):
back.
You describe your activity asfighting back collective action.
The assessment of Flint'scapability, the fight back, at
least with respect to the watercrisis, always was fascinating.
SPEAKER_03 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that was frustrating
me a little bit about the way inwhich the story was being
represented, the story of thecrisis was being represented
after it became big nationalnews, is that it tended to get
boiled down to a few exceptionalpersonalities who kind of came
(07:39):
along at the right time andfound each other, and they were
each bringing different thingsto the table, and it was really
their combined efforts thathelped to break the story open
and you know force people to paysome attention to it.
But you know, what I could seehappening on on the ground
around me was was rather morecomplicated than that.
(08:03):
You don't usually get socialchange unless there's a larger
scale mobilization on the partof people in a community like
Flint.
And that's exactly what we see.
When we go back and look youknow, all the way to April of
2014 when the Flint River waterstarted flowing through the
(08:25):
pipes, people started raisingconcerns about that almost
immediately, actually beforeeven it happened.
There was a steady drumbeat,really, of public concern and
outcry and ultimately organizingan activism that created the
conditions under which anyparticular individual was able
(08:46):
to have an effect.
That really was the story that Iwanted to help to tell in the
book was a story about all ofthese people whose names you
know you you don't necessarilyknow, who haven't gotten the
same kind of attention, awards,and accolades and credit and so
forth, but who collectively cametogether and created the
(09:08):
conditions under which thecrisis finally got acknowledged,
ultimately, at least to someextent, addressed.
SPEAKER_02 (09:15):
As you covered that aspect of this, your experiences
beforehand with working who hadbeen involved in trying to be
forward-looking about thischarter, adopting a more modern
approach and governance.
You met many people and you saidyou and then you had the
opportunity to have a realbird's eye view about these
(09:38):
people from your work with Isaacand themselves.
SPEAKER_03 (09:41):
Certainly, yes.
I mean, I I think that you know,in Flint, there's a real kind of
historical sensibility that thatpeople are operating with that's
very striking.
I mean, Flint, as you know, hasa very rich history, and it's
one that is still alive inrespects, and and there's a lot
of pride that people take inaspects of that history,
(10:06):
especially this tendency forFlint residents to band together
and to stand up for themselveswhen they feel like they're
being exploited or abused insome way.
And it you know, it goes all theway back to at the very at the
very least, the sit-down strikeof 1936-37, this idea that you
(10:29):
know, even if we're Davidfighting Goliath, you know,
there are times when you'vereally gotta put your foot down
and stand up for what's right.
And you don't necessarily weighthe odds of victory, just throw
yourself into that fight.
And I think that it's that kindof scrappy mentality that we see
(10:51):
uh as being very central towater activist culture as I see
it here.
SPEAKER_02 (10:57):
Well, it's it's it's endemic to the culture itself,
isn't it?
Of the people at Flint, thishistory that they have of
battling the roller coaster inthe American economy played out
in uh particularly automatic,they do have that what you call
scrappiness.
SPEAKER_03 (11:15):
It certainly has.
I mean, I think it's worthremembering that when these
activists started going toofficially sponsored meetings
about the water after officialswere beginning to admit that
there was some, you know, not soinsignificant issues with water
quality, you know, what theywere told at those meetings was
(11:36):
that there was absolutely nopossibility of the city
switching off the Flint River.
And so it wasn't even worthhaving a conversation about.
And to some extent, you werebetraying just how irrational
and stubborn you were by evenraising that as you, and just
how unreasonable you were,because you weren't willing to
(11:57):
have a serious conversationabout what should be done with
the water.
SPEAKER_02 (12:02):
You know, your voice is obviously part of a choir of
those who looked at this crisisand who have come to the same
fork in their own.
Some of those have beensinger-songwriters, troubadours,
who have wrote the history ofthis crisis in song.
And one of those, Ashley Gubak,a German who's based in Boston,
(12:26):
wrote a beautiful song,Michigan.
And the song talks about thegaslighting that was being done
by those who were essentiallythe lyrics of their song or
something, putting putting somesand in their eyes.
Isn't the notion that you youknow don't believe your lying
eyes, okay?
(12:47):
Don't believe your your taste.
Don't believe your common sense.
This water that you're drinkingis really not what you believe
it is, and you're unreasonable.
SPEAKER_03 (12:59):
I mean, that's really gaslighting and No, I
think that's the right term, andin fact, it's a term that was
used by multiple water activiststalking to me about that.
This is one of the reasons whythe crisis dragged on for as
long as it did.
SPEAKER_02 (13:18):
So you have an administration that wants to
tout their greatness and theirwonderfulness, telling people
that their water's not dirty andtelling something's this, and
you're looking through.
That has an impact on people whoalready have a culture of, as
you referred to, if Flint fightsback.
(13:38):
Wasn't that kind of stuff justputting a red flag in front of a
bull?
SPEAKER_03 (13:44):
For for sure.
I mean, at least again, that Ithat is a mentality that I have
encountered quite a bit here inFlint is this kind of
indignation that people feel atbeing treated that way.
You know, when it happens tothem, they don't just curl up
into a ball and say, oh, sorry,I bothered you, right?
(14:06):
Instead, they start looking forsome kind of workaround.
I think that's what happenedwith these public meetings
around water, is that, you know,when when people realized they
weren't going to be takenseriously there, um, they didn't
give up.
They just turned to differentkinds of tactics.
It wasn't trying to, you know,convince people in positions of
(14:29):
power to do the right thing somuch as it was pressure and
force them to do the rightthing.
And that meant mustering muscle.
And that's something that Flintfolks are good at doing.
SPEAKER_02 (14:41):
Yeah, that goes back to the sit-down strikes when the
bosses didn't want to meet theirdemands as we sat down inside
the even before that, we askedfor reasonable things like
bathroom breaks, on the rightdown, a little heat, ready work,
the winter, and more simplethings like better hours
(15:02):
working.
The people didn't take no for ananswer, did they?
SPEAKER_03 (15:06):
No, and I I I think that that that's the key,
because again, if they had goneto these meetings and they'd
taken for granted this idea thatswitching off of the river was a
non-starter, and they they wouldhave put themselves at the mercy
of people who were makingdecisions on the basis of cost,
(15:27):
who were making decisions on thebasis of convenience, who were
not necessarily prioritizingwhat the people who were
drinking the water wanted toprioritize, which was their
health and and the publichealth.
Rendering that no, right, is areally important moment within
any any social movement becauseit means to some extent it's not
(15:50):
going to work within theconfines of the system and the
way it defines your issue andyour reality.
To some extent, residents had togo out and create this other
reality by collecting their ownevidence of what was going on
and making sure that that was socompelling that people
ultimately had to come around totheir way of seeing things.
SPEAKER_02 (16:13):
Now you described the Flint culture that you
observed inside of the wateractivism as being one of an
activist culture that existed inthe community as a whole, and
you spoke of it in your book asbeing uh intensive localism.
What do you mean by thosedescriptors?
SPEAKER_03 (16:34):
What I've seen since I've lived in Flint is that
we've got a lot of them incommunity uh organizers and
activists who are very, veryactive.
And some of them are activearound issues that I think of
are of very broad significance.
And to some extent, theiractivism isn't issue-based
(16:54):
activism, if I can put it thatway.
Most of what I see going on inthe community is very much
grounded in the kinds of needsand concerns that exist among
Flint residents and onaddressing those needs and
concerns.
You know, again, that that isn'tnecessarily true of every
(17:15):
activist culture, but a lot ofwhat I've seen here is very much
focused on trying to make Flintthe best place it can possibly
be by focusing intensely on theissues that are are going on
right here within our own theexperiences which you had and
which you're describing tell methat you've met the Flintstones.
(17:40):
I'd like to think I have.
I mean, um certainly some of thepeople I've worked with and and
gotten to know and friends andand comrades have been here for,
if not their whole lives, uh inevery case, a very, very long
time.
You know, I'm thinking aboutpeople like Claire McClinton,
(18:00):
who was a union organizer, umwho is in in some ways, although
she doesn't always like beingdescribed this way, sort of the
matriarch of our uh water activeand and pro-democracy activist
community here.
There are uh people like ClaudiaPerkins Milton, who was was also
(18:24):
involved with the union back inthe day, and was uh really a
pioneering figure as a blackwoman within the the union.
They are it's it's folks likethat who are bringing all of
that history to the the thefight, you know, when when they
take on uh an issue like water.
(18:47):
It's not just water isn't theironly point of reference.
I mean, they have this wholerich history of organizing and
activism that they're drawingfrom and any number of issues
that they've confronted over theyears, and they're drawing from
that knowledge and experience indoing what they do.
So I've learned so much fromthem.
(19:10):
That's been really one of thegreat kind of revelations of
moving here to Flint and andbecoming a part of this
community, is that it it's beenanother opportunity to realize
how much I have to learn fromothers.
SPEAKER_02 (19:27):
Let me bring the focus back to the Flint.
You write in your book whenyou're describing what might
have gone better in Flint duringthe water crisis if people had
had a more commonality ofinterest to draw on a greater
collective identity.
(19:47):
Your book isn't throwing shadeon Flint, it's just describing
what what was lacking with thisparticular group of active
dealing with the water crisisitself.
SPEAKER_03 (19:59):
But when you talk of being well, and and as Art would
put it, you need a a story ofus.
One of the anyway, in order tomobilize particular issues, you
need to have a conception weare, who are people.
That's something that doesn't beuh to some extent, you know,
identity as a social constructthat has to be created.
(20:21):
So the the way we tell ourselvesstarting determining how we're
gonna tackle struggle.
And so I think having theoryhelps, and having people like
Claudia, who were have beeninvolved for years, to keep
bringing that back in and kindof reminding us we are when you
look at a guy like uh CharlesReyes III, he's not just that's
(20:45):
right, yeah.
And you know, Art himself hasspent a lot of time studying and
deorganizing, uh, got a degreefrom Harvard, and maybe he has
been writing of work for a longtime.
Inside for many of us, in acommunity like this, I mean,
they they need the kinds ofideas and skills and capacity
(21:06):
that folks like that provide.
Sometimes we're tension involvedin determining what particular
story would be told and who'sgonna be at the center of it and
what kinds of tactic utilize.
I mean, it's a it's a messyprocess.
In chapter eight of the last youknow, part of what I wanted to
try to capture was not only workthat people were were doing
(21:30):
trying to make that happen, butalso in the complication, some
of the limitations of that work,because I wanted to tell a story
that was honest and that was youknow a way for other people
looking from the outside in.
SPEAKER_02 (21:46):
One of the grasps you're finding reactive.
SPEAKER_03 (21:49):
When you're talking about plant water crisis,
environmental justice struggle,often you're where there's some
kind of pressing threat, asubstance that is essential for
life, whether that be water,air, whether that be the part of
injected into this struggle, isthat people really did feel like
(22:11):
they were fighting for theirlives, for the lives of
children, for the future of thisas a whole.
Flint as a city, a city that'sbeen described at times um as a
city that's kind of barelyhanging on to life.
This was a fight, not only on anindividual or family level, but
(22:32):
really a fight for thecommunity.
I think that there was a lot interms of the way people
conceptualized the emergencymanager phenomenon, really to
that to some extent, becausethat was sort of a hostile of me
that had the dissolved the city,and emergency managers have the
(22:53):
power.
The precarious future, I think,was very much in those minds
with uh their own destoxicsubstance that could really kill
them.
SPEAKER_02 (23:03):
The culture that surrounds a willness.
Right or mad hours will be.
SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
Yeah, and and knowing that we in a lot of
industrial uh cities where tosome extent people have patterns
themselves because the state haskind of collapsed, local
government is not able to do allof this that we associate with
the functioning government,whether that be keeping the
(23:28):
parks mode or the trash, fixingthe sidewalks, uh you know, to
extend the absence that thiskind of need for a DIY
mentality.
But again, I think Flint, thatcombined with this other deeply
embedded in Flint's history,going back to what we were
saying before, where when we arefacing some kind of threats to
(23:53):
our well-being, you know, we'renot the kind of people take that
sitting down.
We are the kind of people whostand up and fight back if the
odds are against is thatsomething is different, unique?
SPEAKER_02 (24:05):
I mean, you use words intense local.
SPEAKER_03 (24:08):
I've never heard this be set in some sense as a
model for other pieces that arefatal issues because we know
that other keys are in it.
SPEAKER_02 (24:18):
Are we saying is that Flint's repairable?
It's an object lesson for otherpeople.
SPEAKER_03 (24:24):
That really has been a core theme of Flint's again,
going all the way back to thesit-down strike is what uh
really jump-started the Americanlabor movement as a whole.
You know, what happened here, ithad this kind of wildfire type
effect of spreading.
I think that the the rise andfall of to some extent it
(24:48):
encapsulates the whole idea ofthe American, you know, gone
wrong.
You know, constant the dynamicum and almost exaggerating in
ways that help us to understandwhat's going on in other
countries as well.
It's part of universal street ofthe of the country as a almost
(25:10):
like on the cutting edge ofthat, his showing other
countries where they're going.
SPEAKER_02 (25:16):
A lot of people have wrote books, they've done
documents about an analogytoward whatever about the this
is a city that is full of lifeon on the way toward recovery.
Let's talk about the people atLynn are the unrealistic.
SPEAKER_03 (25:33):
Sometimes there are objectives set for themselves,
the ideals that they're tryingto and this do everything
oneself.
And that's part of what I try,right?
There are times that is onmaking sure that we are the ones
liberating ourselves, solvingproblems as noble as that is,
(25:55):
meant that we didn't have all ofthe capacity to actually tackle
the hand.
Sometimes people were very muchin of outside help, outside
research.
That's a tricky thing tonavigate.
You're starting out with thatkind of pride.
How do you welcome resourcesthat are gonna help you realize
what you're trying to accomplishwithout comproming your
(26:18):
autonomy, without inviting otherinterests in that might clash
interests?
That's that's a reset of you'relooking at at people's
insistence on self-governance,you know, this idea that they
know best right for them, andthat they ought to be the
drivers anytime a decision beingmade that directly impacts their
(26:41):
personal lives.
There's a lot of that that isnot only um that you know people
ought to be self-governing,true, just as a matter of fact.
People often do have a bettersense of you know how water is
in their everyday lives than thequote-unquote expert, and how
(27:03):
impacting their person than anemergency manager does aside.
Sometimes you know, popularlyreactive, it's all about tearing
down experts and you know thesekind of shadowy strings
controlling the world that welive in.
At its core, I think principlesthat are harder to argue with.
(27:25):
Yeah, I mean, I I saw itfirsthand at the water.
I mean, remember, I'm coming asa science PhD that I have
something to offer full analysisof the situation.
And what I realized was that Iwas another body, it was nothing
special uh in terms of how Iwould really buy up.
(27:47):
It wasn't that we're waitingaround for for somebody with a
fancy degree to come and explainthe situation to them.
They already felt like they hada pretty and and you know what?
They were right.
They were way ahead of theirunder their analysis of what was
going on, and that's why again Iwas saying earlier, I've learned
(28:08):
so much.
I've learned more from thepeople I've been working with,
that's for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (28:13):
The really essential scribes are rag tag
extraordinarily fashioned.
I'm gonna set that in.
I mean, these aren't just thegroup side government or people
aren't wanting to hang on.
These are people who arechallenged the system of
governments back to the BostonDeep Park.
That's right.
SPEAKER_03 (28:32):
I think that we're talking about who on one hand,
we're very much mated on anlevel by the threats that the
water pose themselves and theirfamily members.
We don't want to discount thatpart of it.
A lot of people would argue whodo actively deorganizing, that
if you don't have that strongelement of self-interest, it's
(28:56):
gonna be hard to generate a lotof fire to sustain it over time.
It was certainly about more thanjust that.
Part of the indignation thatpeople felt at having their
water contaminated, it wasn'tjust what was being done to
their own body and the body oftheir children.
(29:16):
It was what was being done totheir community.
It was this idea of feeling likethere didn't matter, that this
is the kind of thing you coulddo to Flint and get away with
it.
Certainly on that level to fightback, not just on behalf of
individually, but on behalf ofas a whole.
(29:38):
In terms of how that fits ourlarger national issues.
I mean, again, people in Flint,they were offering a kind of of
what democracy, how a democraticshould function, what that look
in practice.
And a lot of standing up, tryingto not only themselves live up
to a certain set of principles,but to make sure that those in
(30:01):
the power are due, and they failto do that, then you know, you
take matters on hand.
And it's in that sense that Ithink the the social movements
around water can potentiallytruly be a source of inspiration
for other communities.
SPEAKER_02 (30:17):
Man, how do you think the flint stones did in
family?
SPEAKER_03 (30:22):
Well, you know, when you think of all of the things
that probably have happened,people didn't mobilize the they
did, it's a you know fairlylong.
Now, of course, it's alwaysdifficult to counterfactuals to
say what would have happened ifwe removed some variable.
I don't know sitting heretalking about a flint water
(30:45):
crisis at all.
If residents hadn't into theirown hands and really been as
determined as they were toexpose what was going on and
forced people to acknowledge it.
So I think that was really thefirst thing that they
accomplished was to get thecrisis recognized as a crisis.
Beyond that, when you thinkabout the amount of rises that
(31:09):
have come this way in responseto the crisis, it's not
insignificant.
Flint has been the beneficiaryof hundreds of millions of
dollars that people have foughtfor and lobbyed.
It's important to recognize thatthose bills don't get passed act
of creating pressure around.
(31:30):
And so we had activists herethat were very much involved in
that effort.
Right up to the present, youknow, we're trying to get all of
our lead service lines out ofthe ground.
We have activists who are on thefront lines here who are working
diligently to make sure thatpeople don't get left behind.
(31:51):
You know, we have a big watercrisis settlement now.
That's all, and again, it'speople in the community who are
going around making sure thatunderstand that and are signed
up for it and are getting thethat they deserve.
All of that stuff, and we keepgoing down the list, is a
(32:11):
product, a great extent, ofresidents themselves and the
necessary pressure and bringingpublic attention to the issues.
In that sense, I think it's beenpretty cool to have
accomplished.
Does that mean that every movieor that every opportunity was
capitalized on on the way?
(32:33):
No, of course not, especially ina city like Flint, where we
don't have a lot of capacity tobegin with, you know, to take on
every issue.
There were times when I think weprobably would have done more as
an act of immunity if we'd hadmore people, if we'd had more
money.
When you look at just how sickthe crisis came, not only Flint,
(32:57):
but to the whole country, to theworld, it has helped inspire
things outside of don't thinkthat it would have happened to
that extent without the countrypeople mayor.
What do you see as the outcomeof the governance?
One thing that is of note isthat we are placing more empty
(33:17):
on treating water as a rightpeople have, you know,
fundamental human rights.
It's now recognized in ourcharter uh in declaration of
rights at the beginning, andthere are a couple of sh is that
idea is embedded in certainpolicies around water.
Flint has been very proactive,for example, during COVID to
(33:39):
spend water shut off.
Hopefully that's something thatfuture, but it's gonna have to
be something that you knowresidentally fight for.
It's one thing to have it in thecharter, it's another charter to
actually get followed.
That isn't what we have here, isthat we have this governing
document that is consulted forall of the the knocks we've had
(34:01):
over the past few years.
There are a lot going on here tohave hope to even be optimistic.
SPEAKER_02 (34:08):
One of the reasons hope has is I think that's
right.
SPEAKER_03 (34:12):
Yeah, at the end of the day is that people don't
just run away from challenges.
You know, I've met some arenever going.
Flint is their home.
They know that a a lot to aboutweather and that good work to be
done here, and that there aregood things happening the time.
I mean, we don't always get thatside of in fact, we almost never
(34:35):
get that side of, you know, it'snot like wallowing spare day in
and day out.
I mean, in their lives andtrying to make things happen and
having little victories andhaving little setbacks in the
way that in any other community,except again, as you say here,
that fighting's especiallystrong.
And we've got a lot of in thebook, that's kind of where I did
(34:59):
this.
I I definitely did not want tomake it sound like easy for
David to fight Goliath.
That David is always on theright side of every issue
because he's David.
I mean, you know, you again,without trying to turn it into
some sort of uh caricature ofthe the little guys and gals
(35:24):
fighting the system, thatthere's a lot more complexity to
it than that.
SPEAKER_01 (35:59):
Well, the water was brown, smelled like marine,
still the city officials saidthe water was clean.
People broke out in rashes, sowe're losing their hair, they
can blame to the mare, but hejust didn't care.
He said,
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