Why We Owe Little Miss Flint So Much More
In a recent viral clip, 15-year-old water activist Mari Copeny, or Little Miss Flint as she’s come to be known, broke down into tears during her appearance on The Tamron Hall Show. “I’m sorry, it’s just been really hard trying to get money and stuff for this event because people haven’t been treating me very nice,” the teen says. “And it's just been very hard and it means a lot, really.”
Those of us familiar with Little Miss Flint will recognize the precocious teen from the years she’s spent organizing around the still ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan. At just eight years old, she first gained national attention after then-President Barack Obama replied to the letter she sent him raising awareness of the dire situation in Flint.
\u201cYes I cried on National tv. People tend to think I am always happy, but people sometimes are not nice. This year has been so hard to fundraise and even with the toy donation we still need to get closer to my goal. I have under a week to fundraise. \n\nhttps://t.co/JHat7hAq6F\u201d— Mari Copeny (@Mari Copeny) 1670623972
Since writing that letter, her online presence has been used to track the systemic failure that continues to ravage her community. On Twitter, she holds up a sign showing just how long residents of Flint have been without clean water. “Flint, Michigan, has been without clean water since April 24th, 2014.” Her most recent reminder would come this past April. Eight years later.
It's almost easy to forget behind all her impossible adorableness, that a Black girl has been robbed of her childhood by the evils of environmental racism. No amount of girlhood sweetness can sugarcoat the deep moral rot of a country that coerces Black girls out of their childhood and into a life of defending their right to simply exist. There’s no tidy bow to wrap around how this country would rather see Black girls beg for life-sustaining resources than just simply give it to them.
There are many hands that have steered us in the direction of this particular catastrophe. There’s the Flint, Michigan officials who decided to skim on costs by changing the city’s water supply to a supplier that would eventually lead to poor water quality. There’s Governor Rick Snyder whose gross negligence has only exasperated the water crisis. Then there’s Obama himself, who during his visit to Flint in 2016 drank a cup of what was purportedly Flint’s tap water as a gesture that the crisis was over. It should be noted that the crisis was not and presently is still not over.
The direct impact on the community has been immeasurable. There were all the illnesses from the lead exposure, some of which have resulted in multiple deaths. There’s also the mental strain it has taken on the residents.
Mostly I think about the toll it has taken on the youth of Flint, namely Copeny. If nothing changes, in two years, she will have lived longer without clean water than she lived with it. Another tragedy to add to this catastrophe’s unending list.
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Feature image by Bryan Steffy/WireImage
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Angela Simmons Reveals What She Prayed For Before Meeting Her Current Partner, Rapper Yo Gotti
Hip-hop heiress and entrepreneur Angela Simmons has let us into her life since she was a teenager on MTV’s Run’s House. Through public motherhood and public breakups, Simmons is now opening up about her blooming love life and the prayer that got her there.
Angela Simmons recently stopped by the V-103 Atlanta's Big Tigger Morning Show to take us into her doting relationship with rapper Yo Gotti and what she loves the most about him. “He’s one of my biggest inspirations, and we just get each other,” she said. “He’s a hustler. I love watching him. He inspires me to do better, be better. I’m really happy with him. I think he’s a great person. Not think…I know.”
When asked if she hears the sounds of wedding bells in their future, the 35-year-old disclosed that the two aren’t in any rush and are present and enjoying the relationship moment by moment.
“Whenever,” she says. “I love him, I’m happy, I’m in a great relationship.”
“I’ve learned in life just to go with the pace of where you’re at. You don’t have to rush anything. When things are meant to happen, they happen,” she added. “I’ve just learned to be in my moment. I’m in a really good moment, and I’m happy.”
Back in 2016, the 42-year-old rapper began his public pursuit of Simmons in the song, "Down in the DMs." In the single, he rapped, “Boy, I got a crush on Angela (Simmons),” capturing the internet’s attention. A year later, Simmons became engaged to Sutton Tennyson, with whom she shared a son before Tennyson's untimely death.
Through time, Simmons and Yo Gotti would reconnect, and on New Year's of 2023, the two made their relationship public.
When asked if she ever felt like she would find love again after the loss and heartbreaks of her past, Simmons maintained that releasing her expectations allowed her to receive the love she deserves. “I think it’s a thing of where you just learn to go with life and where you’re at. Right before I got in a relationship with [Yo Gotti],” she explains.
During the interview with Tigger to promote her new line of vegan funnel cake mix, Angela's Cakes, Simmons disclosed the prayer that gave her clarity on her perspective on love and surrender to the process. “I was just like ‘Look, God, I’m cool with whatever it is at this point,’” she says. “'Whether I’m going to be in a relationship or not be in a relationship,' and we just winded up in a relationship together. It was crazy.”
“To me, that was my prayer. I was like, ‘I’m cool, it is what it is.’ I don’t want to be in nothing that isn’t for me. And when that happened, I was like, it’s kind of crazy.”
“I knew what I deserved, and I definitely didn’t settle for anything less. And again, I just believe in timing. I just feel like everything was about the timing.”
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Featured image by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
