Over two years ago the city of Flint, Michigan made national news for the unsafe conditions of their water after the city switched where they were receiving their water from. While the news surrounding Flint has died down within those two years, the conditions of the city’s water supply haven’t actually gotten any better. Thousands upon thousands of people are still struggling to live their day-to-day lives without clean and safe water. So why isn’t anyone talking about it anymore?
When news of Flint’s water crisis first broke, the American public was disgusted at the levels of lead in the water supply and how little was being done to prevent or ameliorate it. When it was discovered that not only did Flint’s water contain lead, but that children in Flint were showing high amounts of lead in their blood as well, the city issued a lead advisory and then a public health emergency soon after. Not only was the American public disgusted, they were now furious (and rightly so). For the months immediately following, articles and videos of the Flint Water Crisis were circulating among Facebook and Tumblr, #FlintLivesMatter and #FlintWaterCrisis were trending on Twitter, and segments were on the news almost nightly. And while all of the public support for Flint looked promising, Flint ultimately was another trend for people to hop onto and then hop off of once it felt tired. Unfortunately for the residents of Flint, the state of their water was not so easily forgotten about.
Considering the State and Federal Governments have allowed Flint residents to continue to suffer with unusable water, there were talks in March of Flint suing the State of Michigan over the Water Crisis. Since then the city’s Receivership Transition Advisory Board (comprised of five members who are appointed by Michigan’s Governor, Rick Snyder) has made it impossible for Flint to file a lawsuit without first gaining state approval. Not only has Michigan failed the city of Flint, but now it has made holding the State accountable a hopeless effort.
Although Flint has once again had a strong presence on Twitter lately, it was not quite in the way one would hope. A Tweet featuring Little Miss Flint, nine year old Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny, meeting President Barack Obama and Presidential Candidate Donald Trump had gone viral.
Little Miss Flint is all of us in 2016. pic.twitter.com/grsNmSTBnd
— Abraham White (@abwhite7) September 15, 2016
When Little Miss Flint(‘s mom who monitors her Twitter account) notices her newfound Internet fame, she put it to good use. Since her meetings with President Obama and Donald Trump have garnered so much attention online, a new tweet came from Little Miss Flint’s Twitter, reminding everyone what they should be making viral.
Hey world in case you didn’t realize #Flint is still in crisis #LittleMissFlint pic.twitter.com/dJAityto9s
— Little Miss Flint (@LoveMeLuLu22) September 15, 2016
if you can share the #trump photo you can help me raise awareness on the #FlintWaterCrisis #LittleMissFlint #Flint pic.twitter.com/ZHveArWFHt
— Little Miss Flint (@LoveMeLuLu22) September 17, 2016
The sad truth about Miss Flint’s tweets is that up until those pictures of her meeting Donald Trump, the city of Flint had slowly faded out of importance to much of the public. I like Donald Trump jokes just as much as anyone else, but Flint deserves to exist in conversations where it’s not paired with a political punchline.
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