“WE talk about what is important to hold on to – their connections to their community, the worth of their culture, and the lives of the people they have grown up with; how to be your own person and to choose the people you relate to, yet understand that the working environment you need to be able to work with everyone. We know which values are good for us, and we know which ones aren’t good for us and we’ve got to be public about the ones that we believe aren’t good for us. We need prophetic voices in the system and this is a place where they can learn to acquire and use power responsibly.” – Roy Matthews, Jr., Founder of Passages.
Do we even care to live a righteous life? Must we practice ethical decision making when inappropriate conduct is popularized by reality television?
Do we even care if our government has ethical, honest public officials with qualified experience? Do we evaluate public officials’ actions to reflect our citizens’ interests?
I was taken aback when TIME Magazine’s front cover depicted an African-American boy with this headline: “The Poisoning of An American City: Toxic Water. Sick Kids. And the incompetent leaders who betrayed Flint.”
We sensed an upsurge of national outrage that after 18 months, the Michigan state government reversed its inappropriate decision of switching the water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River to 15,000 service lines, which was described by CNN as a “notorious tributary that runs through town known to locals for its filth.”
The residents reported seeing brown water from their tap. It was not sewage, but iron from Flint River, “considered 19 times more corrosive than Lake Huron according to Virginia Tech researchers,” as reported by CNN. With high iron content, the water mains got corroded. A simple solution of adding an anti-corrosive agent, phosphates, would have cost $100 a day, but the health effects came to be known to Dr. Mona Hanna–Attisha, who saw a cluster of patients with rashes and hair loss. Further testing of the water revealed not just iron but also lead, a neurotoxin, which, according to CNN, causes skin lesions, hair loss, vision loss, memory loss, depression, anxiety and learning disabilities.
Flint has experienced an outflow of jobs since the car manufacturing industry left the city. As jobs left, so did families, that 15 percent of houses today are boarded up. About 100,000 live here, with the poverty rate at 40 percent.
To solve this drinking water crisis, the federal and state governments have now switched back to Lake Huron as the supply source and handed out water filters and hundreds and thousands of drinking water bottle. Three officials who tampered with the lead results have been served with arrest warrants.
One official, Mike Glasgow, saw how lead results went up when the supply source was switched to the Flint River, yet he cooperated with the state Department of Environmental Quality officials. He alleges that Steve Busch and Mike Prysby called him to conceal lead levels higher than federal limits. Glasgow is now cooperating with the State’s Attorney General’s office in exchange for a felony being dropped to no contest plea to a misdemeanor charge.
Will we see justice served to the citizens and children of Flint, Michigan? I hope so and with President Barack Obama’s visit, I hope to see our whole nation’s attention turn to Flint until the full resolution of changing pipes, testing of the affected children and exposing them early to preschool education to reverse any developmental disabilities from drinking the water. Hopefully, parents will stay vigilant in monitoring their children. Four families have joined forces to file a class action lawsuit against the government officials of Flint.
Dishonest brokers of power and chaos
We have many dishonest brokers of power and chaos, insisting that we ignore the laws, rules, regulations, and ethics and even deaden ourselves to the possible effects of the obnoxious, politically incorrect Donald Trump in the highest government office.
But it is not just his mouth, which offends me. It is his thinking that he is a mighty above all thing human — that he feels entitled to look down on Mexicans and to claim that they are mostly drug dealers and criminals, and that Muslims must be banned from America when close to 2 million are integrated in the American life, including fighting for American freedom in wars.
Craig Considine wrote on Huffington Post about some of these decorated American heroes, who happen to be Muslims.
“Muslims served in the U.S. military under the command of General George Washington, who was Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the American War for Independence. Rosters of soldiers serving in Washington’s Army lists names like Bampett Muhammad, who fought for the Virginia Line between the years 1775 and 1783. Another one of Washington’s soldiers, Yusuf Ben Ali, was a North African Arab who worked as an aide to General Thomas Sumter of South Carolina.
“Peter Buckminster, who fought in Boston, is perhaps Washington’s most distinguished Muslim American soldier. Buckminster fired the gun that killed British Major General John Pitcairn at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Years after this famous battle, Peter changed his last name to ‘Salaam,’ the Arabic word meaning ‘peace.’ Peter Salaam later reenlisted in the Continental Army to serve in the Battle of Saratoga and the Battle of Stony Point.”
As of late, we have also allowed the derogation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who served the public for over three decades by attacking her character as that of a puppet of rich millionaires and rich billionaires. I disagree with that characterization as she has shown independent judgment in her service, even if some take issue with her mistakes. But, let me ask this, who amongst the candidates have had the most profound impact in millions of lives, like in children’s health care insurance services?
Clinton has done public service, community service and even beyond to perform international foreign service, which takes cultural sensibilities and sensitivities to get along with many heads of foreign nations.
Even progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders did not have that privilege and honor to be trusted by foreign dignitaries and in his latest mistake, he mischaracterized his courtesy encounter with Pope Francis as a meeting.
Can you imagine if Donald Trump, whose experiences with folks of color are of demonizing Asians, Muslims, Mexicans and even dehumanizing women, gets to face foreign dignitaries?
Right now, we have become the laughing stock of the world, questioning how low, uncouth and unbecoming we have gotten.
Are we a nation submerged in hatred and in chaos, whose broadcast media is salaciously in love with ratings, as to sensationalize political rallies as “mere reality television?”
Even major television channels have become the upscale versions of National Enquirer and lately, if we are to listen to these dishonest brokers of power and chaos, we might believe in their misperceptions that nothing is beautiful about life in America and that “they are the agents of change.”
Reporting on the silent majority in America
The “silent majority” of America is not being reported nor being broadcasted. For example, in April, the academic community lost two beautiful souls, one of which is Don Nakanishi, Ph.D. who mentored hundreds, if not thousands, to grow into rigorous critical thinkers of higher education. Another is Jose Luis Vargas, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) director, who mentored thousands of high school students, who were not accepted into Cal State University, Northridge. Yet, with the EOP, which gave them remedial courses and writing, they qualified for admissions into CSUN and later, even pursued their masters and doctorate degrees, enabling them to pay it forward to thousands more by teaching.
We also came to know about National Teacher of the Year, Jahana Hayes, who not only teaches her students to reach their potentials, but organizes them into doing plays after school and even gets them to volunteer for Relay for Life and now these students have organized more teams and who believes, “It doesn’t matter how bright a student is or where they rank in a class, or what colleges they have been accepted to if they do nothing with their gift to improve the human condition.”
We have got to care about one another — it is the essence of our being human and we must care enough that our leaders of government reflect the best folks in us and the likes of Don, Jose and Jahana.
* * *
Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 9 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.