What the Eyes Don’t See: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

In February of 2016, while Mona was at work in her office at the clinic, four Michigan state police officers in earpieces and dark suits barged in: they told her that the governor was here for a visit. They swept her office with metal detectors and other “security gizmos,” and then Rick Snyder entered with a “posse” including the Lieutenant Governor and MDHHS director Nick Lyon. The governor apologized to Mona—but by this point, Mona only cared about actions, not empty apologies.

As Snyder went on, though, Mona could see genuine remorse in his eyes. He wanted to discuss the new state budget and his long-term plans for Flint. As he shared the details of the budget with her, Mona was shocked to see that almost all of her nutrition, health, and education initiatives totaling upward of $100 million were included in the new budget.

When Governor Snyder asked Mona if she’d attend the press conference at which he was announcing the new budget the following week, Mona declined. She was going to be testifying about the Flint water crisis before Congress. She knew that Snyder’s support had plummeted in the last several months. But he had only himself to blame, having ignored the crisis and instead tried to engineer a coverup in the name of saving money. Many people in Michigan and throughout the U.S. knew that the water crisis would never have happened in a predominantly white city. “If it were happening in another country,” wrote director Michael Moore in a Time magazine article, “we’d call it an ethnic cleansing.”

The new Flint water task force was made up of five men, and so Mona called it the “Five Guys Committee.” She was skeptical that the committee would hold up their duty to Flint—and pleasantly surprised when, in March of 2016, the Five Guys released a detailed, comprehensive report about what had happened in Flint (and who was responsible). The report clearly stated that race had played a role in this egregious environmental crisis and kept it going long after it should’ve been stopped.

White America was surprised by the crisis in Flint—but for Black Americans, who could easily spot the connection between Flint’s racist history and its present tragedy, there was nothing surprising at all about the government’s negligence. Mona, too, was able to have a unique perspective on the crisis because of her cultural history: she knew that most people in government don’t wake up in the morning planning on poisoning thousands of people, but that the desire to deflect blame and admit fault can make people do (and tolerate) terrible things.

In June of 2016, the three state budget supplements the governor proposed passed; Flint was due to receive about $200 million in aid. The package wouldn’t pass in Congress for another six months, but Mona had, by that point, learned that a life of advocacy is a slow one. The small victories and the crushing disappointments accrue over time, and all one can do is press onward. 

In March of 2016, Miguel Del Toral came to town. His back was bothering him, and so Mona, LeAnne Walters, and Marc Edwards met him at his hotel. Mona was at last able to meet one of her heroes.

In April, a lot was happening in Flint—people at the MDEQ like Brad Wurfel and Dan Wyant were losing their jobs or resigning, and there were many criminal charges that had been filed against state officials in the MDEQ and the MDHHS who’d participated in the coverup. Nick Lyon and Eden Wells would later be charged, too, with involuntary manslaughter for their failure to act in the crisis. Flint city officials like Natasha Henderson and Howard Croft, were charged with felonies and removed from their posts. Mona was heartened by the fact that people were being held accountable for their neglect—but she vowed again to remain focused only on the children of Flint.

Mona looks back on a time when she ran into Marc in D.C.—they were both there for a meeting of the EPA drinking water committee at which the existing Lead and Copper Rule would be up for discussion. On the way to the hearing, a woman who recognized Marc stopped him, introduced herself as a D.C. mother and fellow activist, and thanked him for his activism in the D.C. water crisis. Mona was reminded of her own patients’ parents in Flint who would no doubt be questioning their children’s well-being for years to come.

After a successful hearing, Marc took Mona aside and complimented her on how good she was at advocating for her community. The compliment meant a lot to Mona, but she knew that she couldn’t have done the things she did for Flint without Marc and the rest of her team. Later, Marc would give Mona a necklace made from a slice of lead pipe from a D.C. home, encased in gold.

At lunch with Elin in April of 2016, Mona noticed that her friend’s manner was lighter and easier. Eight months had passed since the barbecue when Elin had first told Mona about the water in Flint. In those months, Mona and Elin had both transformed and had experiences they’d never imagined. Elin told Mona that she felt grateful that her career had coincided with what was happening in their city in the way it did—there was a point, after all, to all the setbacks Elin had faced during her time at the EPA.

Mona, too, began thinking about how her ability to participate in advocacy and activism in the crisis was largely a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Her ancestors’ resilience and her family’s progressive values had readied her for a fight—even a fight that never should have happened in the first place. Mona was just a piece in a much larger puzzle.

When Mona received the Michigan Environmental Council’s Distinguished Service Award, she got to talk with Bunyan Byrant—a renowned environmental justice pioneer. She thanked Byrant for paving the way for people like her. Mona always knew that throughout the Flint crisis, she was standing “on the shoulders of giants” like Marc, Alice Hamilton, John Snow, and Bryant himself.