Race and poverty in Flint, Michigan

The article I found this time has to do with the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Long story short, the city switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in order to save money. The river was known to be contaminated, but the new water was not properly cleaned. It ended up being highly corrosive and nowhere near safe to drink. In addition, many of the pipes that carry water to the city are made of lead, meaning that the water ate away at the pipes and added lead poisoning to the list of problems. The city has since switched back to the old water supply, but the damage is already done, and many of the pipes will need to be replaced. In addition, ten people have died from drinking the contaminated water, and since the city's entire population has been exposed to it, more cases might come up over time.

Some are arguing that the situation is largely a racial problem. Flint's population is 57% black, and in addition, 40% of the city's people are below the poverty line. Some groups, such as the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement, are claiming that this issue would have been addressed sooner if it had occurred in a predominantly white city. The governor, on the other hand, blames incompetent bureaucrats and their poor decision making.

The topic for this first blog post ended up finding me, rather than the other way around. I found this article on Facebook. It concerns several polls about race in America, and discusses how the results have changed over the last few years.

Basically, the results can be summed up by saying that more people are noticing the issue of race in this country. While there are more non-white Americans than white Americans who would say race is a major issue, the number of whites who acknowledge the problem is higher now than it was a few years ago. One can assume that all the police shootings - and the protests conducted in response - helped bring this issue back to the forefront.

The article also brings up other issues, such as the removal of the Confederate flag from state grounds in South Carolina, and the wealth gap between blacks and whites. All of this is relevant to the nature of our class, and I feel like this would be a good way to start things off as far as my blog is concerned.