Tainted Tap - by Katrinell M Davis (Paperback)

About the Book

"After a cascade of failures left residents of Flint, Michigan, without a reliable and affordable supply of safe drinking water, citizens spent years demanding action from their city and state officials. Complaints from the city's predominantly African American residents were ignored until independent researchers confirmed dangerously elevated blood lead levels among Flint children and in the city's tap water. Despite a 2017 federal court ruling in favor of Flint residents who had demanded mitigation, such efforts have been incomplete at best. Assessing the challenges that community groups faced in their attempts to advocate for improved living conditions, 'Tainted Tap' offers a rich analysis of conditions and constraints that created the Flint water crisis"--

Book Synopsis

After a cascade of failures left residents of Flint, Michigan, without a reliable and affordable supply of safe drinking water, citizens spent years demanding action from their city and state officials. Complaints from the city's predominantly African American residents were ignored until independent researchers confirmed dangerously elevated blood lead levels among Flint children and in the city's tap water. Despite a 2017 federal court ruling in favor of Flint residents who had demanded mitigation, those efforts have been incomplete at best.

Assessing the challenges that community groups faced in their attempts to advocate for improved living conditions, Tainted Tap offers a rich analysis of conditions and constraints that created the Flint water crisis. Katrinell Davis contextualizes the crisis in Flint's long and troubled history of delivering essential services, the consequences of regional water-management politics, and other forms of systemic neglect that impacted the working-class community's health and well-being. Using ethnographic and empirical evidence from a range of sources, Davis also sheds light on the forms of community action that have brought needed changes to this underserved community.

Review Quotes

"An accessibly written yet detailed account of the ways that national, state, and local policies produce what [Davis] calls a discarded city. . . . To scholars of food studies, [this book] can also serve as a reminder. Investigating the presence or absence of a grocery store is not enough. Inequitable access to food is part of a broader landscape of neighborhood abandonment. . . . We would do well to continue to bring this important context into our work."--Gastronomica

"Davis not only situates the Flint Water Crisis in important historical and political events, but she also unveils entirely new evidence, producing a poignant and convincing analysis . . . . accessible and important for wide-reaching audiences, including activists, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars."--Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

"Davis's analysis makes clear that Flint is not a one-off; rather, the poisoning and ongoing suffering in Flint is the outcome of a system of racialized capitalism that continues to disregard Black communities, families, and children. Tainted Tap provides an important road map for individuals interested in understanding and addressing environmental racism in Flint and beyond." -- Heather Dalmadge, Roosevelt University

"Davis's perspective and positionality bring a much-needed voice to scholarship about the crisis, . . . [widening] the historical specificity of 'crisis' by detailing its configuration through the actions and policy choices of political leaders. . . . Instead of unwarranted optimism, Davis offers a series of warnings, concluding 'Flint Ain't Fixed' and 'It Ain't Just Flint.' If these are unfortunately foreseeable, Davis's analysis offers us original perspective on why that is the case."--Contemporary Sociology

"In this urgent volume, sociologist Katrinell Davis provides a useful framework for examining the dramatic, deadly effects of systemic environmental racism and explores what underserved communities might do to counteract mismanagement and neglect of essential service delivery."--Ms. Magazine

About the Author

Katrinell M. Davis is associate professor of sociology at Florida State University and author of Hard Work Is Not Enough: Gender and Racial Equality in an Urban Workspace.