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jewfro

So You Want To Help Flint

A

n organizing principle
United Way of Genesee County
of my life is the power
and established at the Community
of volunteerism to turn
Foundation of Greater Flint) to
people’s values into value: Everyday
ensure that children are afforded
people can transcend the transac-
the resources and interventions
tional nature of daily life in order to
to overcome this population-wide
repair the world.
exposure to lead.”
This makes the paralysis I feel
Service as pretext for political
about Flint all the more paralyzing. Ben Falik
inaction. This is a political prob-
First, guilt that my children have
lem that, as cynical as we may
unlimited access to the cleanest tap water
be about our public leadership, requires a
in the world and medical attention at the
political solution. I don’t know what that
first sign of rash or fever. Then shame that
solution is — further federal interven-
I’m now thinking about my kids — the
tion, recalling the governor, scaling back
privileged grandchildren of General Motors emergency management, real transparency,
— rather than theirs. Then a sense that, if
checking Nestle’s bottling of Michigan water,
we are willing to lean into the discomfort
funding government agencies to provide
that we are accessories to this crime, we
sustainable services, lowering barriers to
might be willing and able to pay our debt to regionalism, redrawing legislative district
society.
lines, ending term limits — but I know we
Along the way, our best intentions can
need to demand multiple proposals and
have unintended consequences. Among
demand to have a say in which ones pro-
them:
ceed. The elbow grease of the good people
Water, water everywhere. If you sent
of Michigan and the noblesse oblige of our
bottled water to Flint, you’re in good
elite may feel more immediate and acces-
company with Cher and Rasheed Wallace,
sible; they are not a substitute for the body
among countless others, in reacting to
politic.
human suffering with compassion and
Flint as helpless. The residents of Flint
action. Now you can stop. In the same
are victims of something that, to me, recalls
way that food banks benefit far more from
the banality of evil. They are not help-
financial support than the cans in the back
less. We risk compounding the injustice of
of your pantry, your dollars will flow further poisoning Flint’s children if we infantilize
and last longer than a trunk full of water.
their parents. These are families that have
If you want to give Jewishly, there is a Flint
shown tremendous resilience in the face of a
Emergency Relief Fund at jfmd.org.
problem that stretches back well before the
I made a modest donation with the
world took notice. Lead poisoning is only
confidence that ... “100 percent of all funds
the latest in a long line of indignities that
raised will be donated to the Flint Jewish
those who have stayed in Flint, by choice or
Federation to assist people with needs relat- necessity, have faced. The only acceptable
ed to the crisis, as well as to the Flint Child
solutions to Flint’s problems will be ones
Health & Development Fund (led by the
that engage and empower its residents.

But we are not at liberty to desist from
Flint. To be part of the solution, we should:
Be attentive. The country will experi-
ence Flint Fatigue in the coming weeks
and months. We need to remain vigilant to
ensure that this stays on Michigan’s front
burner, especially when the media moves
on to the next natural or manmade or
electoral disaster.
Be flexible. If — when — you volun-
teer in Flint, as it says at helpforflint.com,
“The most important thing to bring with
you while you volunteer is a good attitude.
There will be a lot of people who want to
help. Not everyone will be able to volunteer
at delivering water door to door. Some peo-
ple will be asked to help by assisting support
groups by sorting donated relief supplies.”
Be advocates. Your service or philan-
thropy should bring you closer to our neigh-
bors in Flint on their long road to recovery.
It does not excuse you from addressing
the root causes — institutionalized rac-
ism, concentrated poverty, globalization
— that conspire against many of our fellow
Michiganders.
Be back. Being an effective volunteer in
Flint will almost definitely mean being a
repeat volunteer in Flint. Each time you go,
I suspect it will feel closer to your commu-
nity, perhaps to a point at which Flint feels
like part of your community.
Be in touch. Want to help? Write me
at ben@werepair.org. We are continuing
to explore ways that Repair the World can
serve in the spirit of Lila Watson: “If you
have come here to help me, you are wasting
your time. But if you have come because
your liberation is bound up with mine, then
let us work together.”

letters

American life.)
Let me quote one of the West Bloomfield
residents, child of an immigrant, who spoke
about her family at the Jan. 25 township
Board of Trustees meeting saying, “We
refuse to become a part of the melting pot
because we don’t believe America was built
on a melting pot scenario. We are part of a
salad bowl. Everyone maintains their iden-
tity, their religion, and then they contribute
to what America is all about.”
Alert: Those “talking points” come right
out of a Welcoming America “Toolkit.”
Susan Downs-Karkos, a Welcoming
America spokesperson, has presented at
a Refugee Resettlement Conference that
“Welcoming America’s job is to help get
American minds ‘right’ about our new
refugee neighbors. Their function is to
adapt American culture to the culture of the

Welcoming America
Has Hidden Agenda

On Feb. 4, you published a commentary on
Welcoming Cities, “What Is A Welcoming
Community?” (page 8). Here is a response
to that puff piece, which did not provide
information that JN readers need to know
about its real purpose.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR) has funded agencies — “voluntary
organizations” — to support its work. One
of those organizations receiving our tax
dollars is Welcoming America, the par-
ent group for the Welcoming Cities and
Counties initiatives.
Q: Why do the ORR and its funded agen-

cies need assistance?
A: To help them squelch “pockets of
resistance” to their lucrative work in drop-
ping countless refugees and unaccompanied
minors into communities across America,
without the communities’ prior knowledge
or agreement.
You see, citizens, hereinafter referred to
as “pockets of resistance” by Welcoming
America, were asking questions about
problems with assimilation, tensions in
communities, crime problems, cost to local
communities, school conflicts, housing
shortages for refugees, etc. — questions that
might disrupt their project.
What constitutes a problem with assimi-
lation? (Dictionary definition: the process
of adapting or adjusting to the culture of
a group or nation, or the state of being so
adapted: assimilation of immigrants into

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February 18 • 2016

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