Summary: Chapters 24–Epilogue

In Chapter 24, after the water gets switched back, there are still steps to take. The pipes are corroded now and must be fixed. Hanna-Attisha and LaChance must do a new study, one that can be peer-reviewed. Marc Edwards stayed in touch and contributed advice and infectious paranoia. The latter was because his research into the DC crisis had been discredited, hacked, and even stolen. Because of fear of being hacked, they used code names, which made Hanna-Attisha feel like her dissident relatives. Hanna-Attisha’s code name is Fire Ant. They publish the study in October, and since it’s peer-reviewed, it gives it greater credibility. This causes more serious recognition of the crisis.

The governor’s office still downplayed the crisis. They visit to meet with the mayor’s office, along with Senator Ananich. The governor has come from a meeting with Flint pastors and is shaking. They try to spread misinformation, blame seasonality, and seriously downplay the number of kids exposed to lead, saying it is 43 instead of 8,657. The press and the president of Kettering University pick up on this number and use it as if it were true. The university president uses it in a letter to students, to keep them from transferring.

Hanna-Attisha doesn’t have a poker face, which is why she is good at konkan, since it doesn’t involve bluffing. TV cameras capture her in the audience, shaking her head at the misinformation. She immediately writes a letter to the governor’s office, calling out their misinformation and stating they should consider all 8,657 Flint kids exposed to lead. She reflects, “I worried that, if I didn’t protest loudly and persistently, the . . . misinformation would live on.”

The clip of her shaking her head lives on and is all over the news. Rachel Maddow (born 1973) interviews Hanna-Attisha on her show, connecting the water crisis to the undemocratic EM law. She calls Hanna-Attisha a “badass.” Within a week, the state gives in and agrees with Hanna-Attisha’s number.

The new mayor declares a state of emergency, although she has no power to do it. This leads the governor and the president to do the same. They can’t declare it a “disaster” because there hasn’t been a natural disaster. This allows their group to put measures in place to help kids who were exposed. Many people send bottled water, including Girl Scouts in Ohio and a ballroom dance club in Ann Arbor. They come up with a list of interventions to help kids whose development has been harmed by lead to catch up.

In Chapter 25, a few months later, the governor comes to their clinic. He apologizes and announces the measures that will be put in place to help Flint kids. He seems genuinely remorseful, and the measures include almost Hanna-Attisha’s entire list, including better nutrition, more school nurses, medical home access, early intervention, preschools, and expanded behavioral health access.

The governor asks Hanna-Attisha to attend a press conference with him. She’s able to get out of it because she is going to testify about the crisis in front of Congress.

Snyder had been a popular governor who’d considered running for president. His fall from grace was because of Flint. His office ignored red flags and protests. Hanna-Attisha says, “The State of Michigan didn’t need less government; it needed more and better government.” Budget cuts and fiscal responsibility cannot come at the expense of people’s lives and health, she insists. She argues that having an unelected EM showed the government’s disdain for Black Flint residents. American filmmaker Michael Moore (born 1954) stated that this wouldn’t have happened in predominately white Michigan towns like Grosse Pointe or Ann Arbor: “If it were happening in another country, we’d call it an ethnic cleansing.”

The governor appoints a committee, about which Hanna-Attisha is skeptical. However, the committee comes back with a report that blames the governor and the EM, citing the racial makeup of the town. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights made similar claims. Hanna-Attisha says that “Flint falls right into the American narrative of cheapening Black life.” She compares what happened in Flint to the deaths of innocent African Americans who are shot by police or to racially driven mass incarceration. She is happy, though, that it didn’t take years and that the governor saw reason when given the data. The whole process took eight months. The governor asks for her blessing, and she gives it to him.

Hanna-Attisha meets Miguel Del Toral in March 2016. He is supposed to have dinner with her, LeeAnne Walters, and Marc Edwards, but he is having back pain, so they go to meet him in his hotel room. They take a picture; in it they have to hold him up because he can’t stand.

Many state and Flint officials are sued and charged criminally because they covered up the crisis. Dayne Walling loses his reelection bid, and Governor Snyder abandons his bid to seek higher office.

Hanna-Attisha stays in touch with Marc Edwards. She describes him as “like a long-lost brother.” One day, when they’re together, they meet a woman who knows him from the DC water crisis. Her child, who was an infant at the time, has significant learning disabilities. The woman wonders if it was the water. She knows Flint moms will wonder the same. Marc Edwards encourages her to continue her activism and gives the woman a necklace, made from a piece of lead pipe, plated in gold. She always keeps it with her.

Hanna-Attisha meets with Batanzo. Batanzo says that the water crisis made her understand the purpose of her career. But she says that everything she did, she did so that she could be standing in Hanna-Attisha’s kitchen at the right moment.

In Chapter 26, Nakala, the baby Hanna-Attisha saw right before everything happened, comes to the clinic for a checkup. Her mother reveals that she never did give her tap water. Her aunt said it was bad. The aunt’s water was brown and smelled. However, the older daughter, Reeva, had had high lead. Hanna-Attisha draws her blood again. Hanna-Attisha reflects that America has changed since she was a little girl: “There really are two Americas . . . the America I . . . [grew] up in and the other America.” She encourages Grace, Nakala’s mother, to practice good nutrition and recommends her for a well-paying job at a preschool. She says they can overcome a lot of what they were exposed to and that “The most important medication I can prescribe is hope.”

In the epilogue, Hanna-Attisha tells the family story of Haji and the Birds. Haji loved birds and fed them every day. One day, he fell and broke his leg. Nobody came except a small bird who told Haji that he would take him to the doctor. Haji laughed because it was just one little bird, but then other birds came and lifted him up. Haji got better and fed the birds again.

Hanna-Attisha reflects that everyone in the family tells the story a different way. Haji was able to see her become a doctor, get married, and have children. He never wanted to leave Baghdad, but he eventually had to. Even 10 years after his death, Hanna-Attisha can feel Haji, lifting her up.

Analysis: Chapters 24–Epilogue

The story of Haji and the Birds, told at the end, reflects the theme of community values. What may be impossible for one is possible for a group. Hanna-Attisha speaks about this in these final chapters, when she reflects upon the final work she did with her team to get help for the kids who were exposed to lead. Even though they were fighting a giant government bureaucracy, they were able to take it down and reverse course. They were also able to do it relatively quickly. In the beginning, Batanzo warned Hanna-Attisha that this could take years. In the end, it only took eight months. However, this was because they were working with people like Marc Edwards and Batanzo, who had expertise and shared knowledge. But, unlike with the DC water crisis, they had Hanna-Attisha with them, who could show causality through the blood-lead tests. Therefore, each piece supports the whole, just like all the birds carried Haji.

The necklace Marc Edwards gives the woman, made from lead pipe, is a symbol. The lead is strong but also dangerous. The gold coating protects the woman from the lead. The woman carries it with her as a reminder that mothers must protect their children.

Hanna-Attisha analogizes the callous treatment of Flint children in regard to water to the people killed by police or racially driven mass incarceration. This is because, she suggests, many white people over the years have seen Black lives as being disposable. Exposing Black children to lead purposely keeps them down. It can lower children’s IQs, making them less able to access education. It can also cause ADHD and violent behavior, making them less able to concentrate in school or more likely to commit acts of violence, which causes them to be incarcerated. Now, there are programs in place to help these children. Only time will tell if it’s enough.