Paper Example on Public Scholarship

As facts would have it, everybody has a price to pay. Precisely, every person who does not have their way out of a scenario. But as for children, whose bodies are still in the course of development, they are the most vulnerable since they are hurt most. As gullible as children are, they do not know any better when they bath, breath, or swim in poison, and as in Flint, Michigan, drink the poison in. To a larger perspective, children will also, never know when they suffer in the face of racism. Thus, with regard to Flints water crisis, it is with no doubt that the principle cause of the deadly water crisis lies in the state governments blatant disregard for the health and the overall lives of the poor African-American occupants of this distressed city.

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Dating back to the summer of 2014, at the initial start of the crisis, almost every level of government and its corresponding officials have denied the fact that there, indeed was a problem with Flints drinking water. Worse still, when the truth eventually surfaced and became undeniable, the very government levels fled from owning up to being responsible for the crisis. The disregard and the negligence by the States government were substantiated by a report released by the New York Times in March 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/us/flint-water-crisis.html. According to this report by a task force that was initially appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to conduct an investigation on how Flints water became poisoned with lead, in my opinion, the results of this report makes for chilling reading.

Although no report openly admits to racial discrimination as a primary reason why Flints crisis went unaddressed for quite a long time, the report by the aforementioned task force essentially insinuates to this, by identifying the central role played by both poverty and race, in this particular crisis. As a matter of fact, Flint is a city whose residents are majority black Americans, who live below the poverty line. This being said, Flint, Michigan is considered to be the most impoverished of all United States metropolitan areas, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michigan-flint-water-crisis-lawsuit_us_582e4069e4b030997bbe9ea4. Thus, in a nutshell, the fact that Flints residents did not enjoy the same degree of protection from the states government and the health and environmental hazards, as that accorded to other communities, this can be primarily attributed to racial discrimination and poverty.

While a majority of the state authorities, led by Gov. Snyder, a Republican, have tried to deny the states responsibility for Flints water crisis, the taskforce initially appointed by Gov. Snyder cut through the truth claiming that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, was the most at fault. Well, based on different ideologies raised by various leaders, including the Congressional Republicans such as Jason Chaffetz, the blame on the environmental agency, is arguable. However, despite the varying opinions by different state authorities, the blame boils down to Gov. Snyders office. The fact that the governors office comes in for harsh criticism is justifiable, owing to the fact that his office entirely relied on the assurance given by the environmental department that the water was safe for consumption by the residents. This confidence came despite having mounted evidence that indeed, the lead-contaminated water was poisoning Flints residents.

In conclusion, Flints damage might have been done already. However, this crisis should serve as a crucial lesson to both the racist state governments as well as the Congress, which has overly been antagonistic to environmental protection. In the same vein, based on the lessons learned from this crisis, the Congress should begin to invest in the nation's public works sufficiently.

Works Cited

Abbey-Lambertz, Kate. "Michigan Fights To Avoid Delivering Water To Flint Residents." The Huffington Post, 17 Nov. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michigan-flint-water-crisis-lawsuit_us_582e4069e4b030997bbe9ea4.

Bosman, Julie. "Flint Water Crisis Inquiry Finds State Ignored Warning Signs - The New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, 23 Mar. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/us/flint-water-crisis.html. Accessed 6 Apr. 2017.