Environmental Racism: The Water Crisis In Flint
Water crisis in Flints The most current example of the environmental racism was the water crisis in Flint. In April of 2014, residents in Flint were exposed to lead-contaminated tape water after Flint switched the water source from Detroit water to Flint River. Most of those residents were black and poor. Michigan’s state government did not immediately response to the issue. White supremacy and capitalism played important roles in this late response. Poor black community had always been placed on the bottom of the hierarchy where the wealthy whites were on the top. They would not have access to resources which were available to the wealthy whites. The wealth whites disaccumulated resources from the poor minorities in order to overaccumulate their
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wealth. “The crisis [of Flint] would have been handled differently if it happened in a ‘white suburb outside of Detroit’” (Craven).
Blacks were treated unequally because they had been marked as “uncivil species” who “were [products] of nurture and environment, not nature” (Fredrickson, 142). Poor and minority communities had always been the target of racial segregation. They had been pushed to industrialized or dilapidated environments with a lot of polluted wastes. Poor and black residents in New Orleans were in the similar situation as those in Flint. “People left behind in New Orleans [after Hurricane Katrina] were predominantly poor and predominantly black” (Bierria, 32). Moreover, heteropatriarchy also played an important role in the crisis. Children and mothers were the most miserable victims from this crisis. More than 10 thousand of Flint’s children who were exposed to contaminated water may experience serious health problems. A 19 year old mother, Sasha Avona Bell, who was the first to sue over the toxic water crisis after her baby boy was poisoned by the contaminated water, found shot to death in her apartment because she was a key female figure in this water crisis. Base on the nuclear family structure norm, men should be the one who held power and women was place under the control of men. Sasha should not be the
first one to sue the crisis.
wealth. “The crisis [of Flint] would have been handled differently if it happened in a ‘white suburb outside of Detroit’” (Craven).
Blacks were treated unequally because they had been marked as “uncivil species” who “were [products] of nurture and environment, not nature” (Fredrickson, 142). Poor and minority communities had always been the target of racial segregation. They had been pushed to industrialized or dilapidated environments with a lot of polluted wastes. Poor and black residents in New Orleans were in the similar situation as those in Flint. “People left behind in New Orleans [after Hurricane Katrina] were predominantly poor and predominantly black” (Bierria, 32). Moreover, heteropatriarchy also played an important role in the crisis. Children and mothers were the most miserable victims from this crisis. More than 10 thousand of Flint’s children who were exposed to contaminated water may experience serious health problems. A 19 year old mother, Sasha Avona Bell, who was the first to sue over the toxic water crisis after her baby boy was poisoned by the contaminated water, found shot to death in her apartment because she was a key female figure in this water crisis. Base on the nuclear family structure norm, men should be the one who held power and women was place under the control of men. Sasha should not be the
first one to sue the crisis.