I Believe in Flint

There are plenty of reasons to be angry about Flint. The racism, the arrogance, the incredible damage to people, pick one or all. We look at the trajectory of disregard, how State officials brushed off complaints month after month, and it seems incredible. But it confirms what we all really know – all lives matter but some lives don’t matter all that much.

Flint is a Black town. The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that 57% of the population is African American compared to just 14% of the State of Michigan as a whole.

Flint is a poor town. It wasn’t always a poor town. It used to be a heavy duty working class town where the term living wage meant a pretty decent life. Now. the median household income of $24,834 is almost exactly half of the State’s median income of $48,411. (A median income is that point where half of…