Newswise — Noliwe Rooks, associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies at the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences, says that – like in the case of Love Canal in the 1970s - color clearly played a role in the government’s handling of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
Bio: http://www.asrc.cornell.edu/people/rooks.cfm
Rooks says:“It will take years for us to fully understand the human and economic impact of the water crisis to the mostly Black, mostly poor residents of Flint Michigan. From the irreversible effects of lead poisoning to which their children have been subjected, to the collective plummet in the value of their homes, it is clear that with the discovery of the government action regarding their water supply, we have just grazed the tip of an iceberg of unimaginable proportions.
“Until this point, without question, the most devastating example of mass poisoning and environmental tragedy was at Love Canal, in Niagara, New York during the late 1970s and 80s. At that time, however, private industries where wholly to blame.
“At Love Canal, an entire community of private homes was purchased by the federal government. Interestingly, at Love Canal, the public housing residents who were mostly Black and all struggling economically where not relocated, only the private homeowners who were overwhelmingly white were financially compensated.
“If the country has at all heard the collective cries of the Black Lives Matter movement, as we move to make this right this time, disdain and disregard for class and color cannot guide government decision making. Disdain and disregard clearly played a role, in Flint, in the decisions leading to the government choosing to poison masses of its own citizens.”
Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.
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