Friday, January 22, 2016
Flint and Detroit were once bustling manufacturing towns, where millions of autos were made and millions of tax dollars generated. Those tax dollars helped build infrastructure in western and northern Michigan- state highways, bridges, dams, utilities, etc.
Flash forward to a time when Detroit and Flint have shed most of those jobs, lost population, and lost white people (who fled starting in the 1960s).
I visited Gov. Rick Snyder's Facebook page to see what people were saying about the Flint water crisis. The majority of people are calling for him to resign. A minority of white folks from western and northern Michigan are placing the blame mostly on the residents of Flint. It is their fault they had lead pipes, their fault that the city had financial problems caused by the movement of the auto industry elsewhere, their fault because they elected African-American politicians. And similar racist bullshit.
These white folks in places like Holland and Kalamazoo are living in communities enhanced by projects funded by tax dollars created in Flint and Detroit. And yet they have hardly any sympathy for the residents of Flint because they are poor and African-American. All they can do is victim-blame the people being poisoned.
It is really disheartening sometimes to see what a cesspool of hate that has developed because of Fox "News," Rush Limbaugh, and others of that kind.
