The Flint Water Crisis : Environmental Racism and the Hidden American Third World Samuel D . Holder | PhD in Law
In April 2014 , Michigan governor Rick Snyder made the historic decision to switch the water supply for Flint , Michigan – a city struggling to recuperate from the auto industry decline in the 1970s and 1980s – from the Detroit Water Treatment Department to the Flint River . Despite intense concerns over contamination , primarily regarding industrial waste from the nowsclerotic manufacturing sector , the Flint City Council approved the switch in an overwhelming 7 : 1 vote . As a result , tens of thousands of residents of the already overburdened city are now enduring the consequences of debilitating lead poisoning . While the governor and city officials are contrite and quick to suggest solutions , they refuse to acknowledge the more insidious element of the switch : the creeping racism of environmental action in the invisible American Third World . Franz Fanon described the condition of violence in colonised spaces as ‘ atmospheric ’. This paper attempts to advance three central arguments : 1 ) The lack of political power and the socioeconomic vulnerability of communities of colour , such as Flint , provide a ripe ground for environmental violence and racism . 2 ) As a near-invisible political space , Flint and its residents offer a chance for the “ exceptional ” nature of colonised action to play out , particularly through ghettoisation . 3 ) Exceptionalising Flint as a subaltern space works by denying residents their most basic human needs in concert with myriad policies stripping subaltern Flint residents of territory , power and dignity , and instead maintains the Global Northern perspective that such spaces are in need of civil rights reform , not human rights . This project attempts to problematise the water crisis in Michigan as illustrative of the larger problem of subaltern American cities , often demonised and punished with the help of neocolonial tools .
Keywords | Flint • subaltern • spatial invisibility • environmental racism • human rights
Introduction
Flint , Michigan has been undergoing a rapid population loss since the 1970s , primarily due to the decline of the automotive industry in the 1970s and 1980s . In a formerly rising urban center of nearly 200,000 residents , the population now hovers below 98,000 . The immense loss of employment during the exit of major manufacturers like General Motors and Buick , further complicated by the white flight of middle-class residents into suburban districts outside the city center , has left the city struggling to meet its tax obligations . The loss of a strong tax base and the marginalisation of a minority community in Flint also complicates the availability and
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