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How Racism Gets in the Water
Racism in the Flint Water Crisis is up close, and it goes way back. According to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, “The Flint Water Crisis was more than 75 years in the making.”
By 1940, Flint was the most segregated city in the North. In fact, Flint was more segregated than all but two cities in the South. America made Flint with racism.
Then came the racist engineering of white flight to white-only suburbs. White flight yanked and tanked tax revenue; it left properties vacant; it thinned political influence, and it hiked the cost of water. The need for a new water source came from the price of water.
The blight from white flight also made the water crisis worse. Under large and long sections of vacant houses, the corrosive water slowed and stagnated. It accumulated even more toxins from the lead pipes.
The Flint Water Crisis is Jim Crow water. It’s the backwash in water that flows when home loans, money, and political clout go to white people alone. Today, Black people make up 57% of Flint and 40% of the city is below the federal poverty level. Racism made those numbers.
“The officials treated the residents like they treated the entire city.”
