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FLINT, MI —I put my heart, soul, spirit and HOPES in Bernie Sanders.
HOPE that we could restore the wrongs. HOPE, that together, we could take back our government, and make it work for all of us. HOPE, that for my city of Flint, we could restore our dignity, put our people back to work, and stop our home values from falling.
I watched as our State was gerrymandered away from us, when our governor, Rick Snyder, took office, replaced our elected officials, and took steps to appoint ’emergency managers’ to take control of local, financial decisions.
The people HOPED to repeal it in 2012. Republicans, with their gerrymander-protected majorities, simply passed it again, adding a small fiscal appropriation that rendered it immune from a ballot-box veto.
Hillary Clinton came to Flint and created a program called the Flint Water Works, which would train and employ up to 100 young adult Flint residents. I can only find record of one time that 78 people were hired to deliver water and filters.
I gave an elderly woman a ride home from the grocery and noticed she bought two bottles of water. I know she was HOPING someone would deliver water to her? (I took her two cases.)
I called Flint’s Mayor’s office last summer trying to alert them to my concern that donated bottles of water were sitting in direct sun light in high temperatures. I was told they would look into the science of it and get back with me. It is well into Autumn and I am still HOPING for a call.
Last month a sister near the water treatment center had her pipes replaced. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I am trying to get someone to track the cancer rates we are seeing, but have had little success there either. She has HOPE in living.
I had HOPE, that by being an activist, I could unite, in solidarity against the corruption I was seeing inside the Democratic Party. I marched against Monsanto and Enbridge’s line #5, the two 60-year-old pipes, that push through 23 million gallons of oil a day and lies exposed in the water at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac.
Jill Stein is willing to stand up for the Earth, against the two-party system. She gave me RENEWED HOPE that we can leave a better world for our children, but then I heard her say, HOPING isn’t enough! “This new world is not in our HOPES, it’s not in our DREAMS—it’s in our HANDS.” It’s in our hands to turn over the best world we can to future generations, I HOPE many will join us.
