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Chapter 19
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What the Eyes Don’t See, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Environmental Injustice
Truth vs. Corruption
Community Values and Collective Duty
The American Dream
Family, Tradition, and Strength
Summary
Analysis
The backlash began immediately. Even though the city announced its own press conference the following day, the state of Michigan began working right away to undermine and discredit Mona’s findings. Brad Wurfel, the spokesman for the MDEQ, released a statement saying that everything in Flint was fine. He painted Mona as an “irresponsible” rogue researcher. While Mona and her team recognized the MDEQ and state health agency’s attempts to “confuse, distort, and dismiss,” Mona also worried about what the public would think of these state agencies’ words.
This passage shows that even when the truth emerged, Michigan state officials continued walking the path of corruption and denying outright that there was any kind of problem. They smeared Mona and her team rather than admitting to any version of the truth. Corruption, the book suggests, is an insult to honest, hardworking citizens and a blight that must be stamped out with the truth.
Themes
After the press conference, Mona had just a few hours to get ready for Layla’s back-to-school night. Mona knew that her daughters had noticed how distracted she’d been lately. While she understood their frustration with her, she couldn’t focus on anything but Flint’s water. On the way to school, Mona received a call from Andy and Senator Ananich, who told her that the MDHHS’s press department was claiming that the Hurley data had been “spliced and diced.” The accusation felt like a “public stoning”—the health department was actively trying to discredit her work.
Mona’s struggle to balance her ongoing public work as a whistleblower and her domestic life as a wife and mother illustrates the very real demands of community action. Mona knew that her patients needed her most acutely—and yet with every step she took on their behalf, she faced retaliation that prevented her from giving what little energy she had left to her family.
Themes
Mona knew that she’d risked a lot by releasing her study without having it peer-reviewed, but she also knew that if she didn’t release the numbers, it could have taken months or years before anyone took any action on the water crisis. As Mona walked into back-to-school night and sat at Layla’s desk with the other parents, she felt her body shaking. She couldn’t stop checking her phone: the media had found her, and the backlash was beginning. Mona felt herself feeling dark and full of doom: she had told the truth, and now it was possible that no one would listen.
Mona made a lot of difficult decisions in the run-up to her press conference—she was constantly torn between an allegiance to procedure and the urgent, unprecedented nature of the lead-water crisis. Mona knew the truth needed to get out as soon as possible—but by prioritizing speed, she’d left herself vulnerable to a very specific kind of attack from the authorities who were looking for any excuse to deflect blame and keep their corrupt activities concealed.
Themes
Mona left back-to-school night early, overwhelmed by the psychological stress of what had begun to happen. Even though her brother had warned her that this would happen, Mona still felt guilty and uncertain about whether she’d done the right thing in raising her voice after all. She didn’t want to add more anxiety, uncertainty, and pain to her patients’ and their parents’ already stressed lives. That night, after Elliott arrived home from parent-teacher conferences, he comforted Mona by telling her she’d done the right thing and playfully reminding her that her favorite TV show, Scandal, was about to air. But Elliott’s words couldn’t reach Mona—she felt small, ridiculous, and unsure of all her hard work.
In this passage, the book shows how Mona was able to find strength and support in her family’s words and actions even in her darkest moments. This passage is also quietly humorous, as Mona’s husband attempts to distract her by encouraging her to watch Scandal—a television show about a high-powered professional woman who works to expose political corruption at the highest levels of government, knowing the toll her actions might take on her personal life. Mona had the support of her family and the roadmaps of her heroes large and small, but even those things couldn’t erase the fear she was feeling.
Themes
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