This photo is a moment from the hearing on issues of water affordability and water crisis in the capital of Michigan. Community members share stories of life with contaminated water, unaffordable water service, and life without water with State Representatives.
Blackness and the systemic and multifaceted erasure and plunder of black bodies is so ever present. Being in Detroit, this environment has made me aware of the historic and continued disregard for black life. Initially, I thought the fact of how absurd it was that people were without water. If water is this necessary element to life, a human right, how could you deny so many people this? Even in the light of people telling me how ‘complicated’ this issue is. You know what’s tough is having your child diagnosed with lead poisoning because the issue is “complicated”. It’s tough to know that because of unaffordable water rates, your service is discontinued and you live in fear of losing your home, your dignity and your children, because the issue is ‘complicated’. When these are a FEW of the host of burdens that the over 120,000 people in Detroit estimated to be currently living without the water face, the issue becomes really simple. Survival.
In light of police brutality, pool parties, domestic terrorism, and as the innumerable list of names, faces, that are not longer with us increases, I cannot help but notice how different this place, this socio-political climate is for me as the only black person in my office. Though I know they may express their disgust and dismay for the events which plague and invalidate my people in this nation, I cannot see their pain like I can feel mine. I can’t describe how much of my self is lost as I read the events of the shootings in Charleston. This makes this work that much harder, that much sadder, and that much more crucial for me, because the fight for water affordability is not just about Detroit. It is a testament to the struggle for survival, the right to live, the right to thrive in Blackness in a world that only seeks to destroy it.
Your blog post is just so eloquently written- quickly caught my attention. In today’s day and age, we often come to think of problems in such a minute scale. In the sense that if it is not happening to you or around you it just seizes to exist in the rest of the world. As one of the worlds biggest nations and access to a plethora of data and information it is mind boggling how narrow minded we can be at times. From international issues that are blown up for the sake of economic wealth, to domestic issues in our own backyard masqueraded to seem as insignificant as the weather. We really need to wake up and see the real issues such as water affordability and what they will mean ten to twenty years from now. Like I mentioned before, we often believe that just becuase we can’t see the problem directly in our faces doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about it. When in fact it is just the opposite. Once again, awesome blog and work, keep it up!