October 6, 2020 • 44 mins
By now it’s an all-too-familiar phenomenon: A woman who dares to defy stereotypes or step out of her “place” gets called “shrill,” “bossy,” “ambitious,” or worse. But more often than not, those are the women who get the job done. Hillary talks to feminist activist Gloria Steinem about her life and career, and sits down with pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who spoke out about the Flint Water Crisis. With each of these gutsy women, she asks what -- or who -- made them think they could make a difference, and how they overcame the obstacles they faced along the way.
Gloria Steinem is a feminist journalist and activist, best known as a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in the 1970s. She began her career in 1962 with groundbreaking pieces about contraception and about her experience going undercover as a Playboy Bunny. Later, she founded Ms. Magazine and was a major figure in the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. Her memoir, My Life on the Road, was recently turned into a film called The Glorias starring Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician and public health advocate who in 2014 helped expose toxic levels of lead in the water in Flint, Michigan. Her book, What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, recounts her experience of the crisis.
A full transcript is here.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
One of my favorite accolades I've received was a Disobedience
Award from m T for like not publishing this research
and a pere of you journal first that can take months,
that can take years, and our kids did not have
another day. We could not afford that time. So I
literally walked out of my clinic with my white coat on,
(00:22):
and I stood up at a press conference sharing this
research and demanding action. I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is
You and Me Both, where I get into some of
today's biggest questions with people I find fascinating. Last week
I got to speak with Kamala Harris, U s Senator
from California, Democratic nominee for Vice President, Tough as Nails.
(00:47):
We dropped that as a special episode, and if you
haven't listened to it yet, I hope that you will
because I want you to get to know this woman
who is going to make history and be our first
woman vice resident. Today we are featuring two other women leaders. Now,
you might guess I have a lot to say about
(01:08):
the subject of women and leadership. I know what happens
to women when we put ourselves out there. You know,
we're told smile more. You smile too much. You know,
your voice is too loud, your voice is too soft.
Why are you wearing that color? Why don't you wear
this color? I mean everything that's ever been said to
(01:29):
me or said behind my back about me. I understand
that it is not easy, but when women lead, we
get the job done. And it is no coincidence that
some of the countries with the best responses to COVID
happened to be led by women. Now, there are lots
(01:49):
of ways to lead. One is running for office, but
it is not the only way. So today I'm talking
to two women who have made a huge impact on
the world, each and her own unique way. Later, I'll
be talking to Dr Mona Hannah a Tsha. She is
the pediatrician from Flint, Michigan, who discovered that the city's
(02:11):
drinking water was contaminated with lead. She spoke out, she advocated,
she stood her ground. It was not easy, as you
will hear. But first, I'm thrilled to talk to my friend, feminist,
icon writer, journalist, activist, advocate Gloria Steinhum You Now, I
(02:35):
first heard about Gloria years and years ago. She just
seems like She's been part of my young adulthood and
the rest of my life. I love the way that
she has pushed open doors for so many women who
have come after her, including me. But more importantly, she
became a leader in the women's rights movement, a strong
(02:58):
leader for a woman's right to choose, and spoke out
about having an abortion herself. At age twenty two, she
helped found miss magazine, which I remember when that happened,
it was like a bombshell. It was so exciting. She
fought for the Equal Rights Amendment, and she's been on
the front lines ever since. She's an extraordinary person with
(03:20):
a gift for summing up what so many are feeling
but may not have the words to say. And one
of my favorite Gloria isms is the truth will set
you free, but first it will piss you off. So
let's jump right in. You know, I wanted to talk
to us a little bit about your journey because I
(03:42):
know you've said you didn't begin your life as an
active feminist. I don't know any anybody who did. Mean
we stood up for ourselves. Maybe that was being a
feminist in our time and age, but were there experiences
looking back now in your childhood that you think prepared
you to speak out and stand up on behalf of
(04:02):
not only yourself, but on feminist issues and politics, particularly
as they affect women and girls. Well, looking back, I
think it was quite fortunate that I didn't go to
school very much until I was about eleven, and that's
because my family was traveling in a house trailer in
the wintertime. It's a long story as to why that
(04:24):
was the case. But I think I missed a certain
amount of Dick and Jane. Remember that Dick and Jane
will do yes. I think I just missed that. So
I think in some ways we're born with a sense
of our value, or you know, are We're not better
than anybody else, but we're not worse either, And unless
(04:47):
that gets educated out of you, I think children hang
onto it. And secondly, I would give great credit to
Louisa may Alcott. I fell in love with Little Women.
I read every word that she wrote, which was you know,
she wrote many more things than that. She was, of course,
(05:08):
a very active, suffrage independent woman, and I'm grateful to her.
You know, I imagined that she was my friend and
that she would come back, and what would I show
her first? And so she was my companion growing up.
I've had so many women, and I myself feel the
same way. Talk about the influence of little Women and
(05:30):
also Nancy Drew. Oh yes, I also read Nancy Drew.
Finding role models in literature was like finding a friend,
somebody that you could relate to, that you could role
model yourself after. And you know, when I think about
growing up at that time, it's hard not to be
(05:50):
focused on all the books that I read because there
weren't very many women in the public arena or even
in my community that we're living, lives outside the home.
So there were my public school teachers, there were the
public librarians, but you know, other than somebody maybe waiting
on you at a store, there just weren't many other
(06:13):
people except in literature that you could go and have
your imagination sparked. Did you see anybody in political life?
I mean, my mother worshiped Eleanor Roosevelt, but of course,
you know, you had to marry a president, you know,
but it wasn't altogether classical. Well, but you know, the
one person that I learned about from reading Life magazine
(06:35):
every Friday at my house when I got home from
school was Margaret Chase Smith, the Republican senator from Maine.
I read about her and I learned about her standing
up to McCarthy. Yes, oh, I so remember that. It was.
It was so impactful to me, you know, part of
the interesting dynamic that you and I share, as we
(06:57):
both went to women's colleges. Yes, and you went to Smith.
I went to Wellesley. How did you decide to do that?
What was it about Smith that attracted you when you
were ready to go to school. Well, my my older
sister nine years older, had gone there, and I was
in Toledo in a terrible high school, and it was
(07:19):
the only one I knew actually, so I was just
following her. And I'm enough older than you, so that
I was there in the nineteen fifties, and the nineteen
fifties were not a great time, to put it mildly,
so there was not a lot of encouragement there. I mean,
I had my courses that I fell in love with,
(07:42):
but the president at the time said they were educating
women in order to have educated children. You know. I
have had that conversation with Madeline Albright, who was at
Wellesley ten years before me, and she says exactly the
same thing. She got married right out of college, and
she graduated one day, she got married the next day.
(08:03):
She said, Look, that's what we were supposed to do.
That's what we were being trained to do. And the
difference in the time I, you know, went to college,
with the Vietnam War, protests, with assassinations, with all kinds
of turmoil in our country, and the women's movement which
you were literally at the forefront of and beginning to
(08:27):
set forth a set of values and principles that provided
an alternative view for girls and women. Well, in a way,
what we're saying is hopeful, because what we're seeing in
our individual experience is the difference a decade makes, and
it's huge when you think about it. Between the fifties
(08:48):
and the sixties. I was rescued from the my fate
of the nineteen fifties. I was engaged, I was going
to get married and so on. So the only way
I could sort of escape from that was to do
something drastic. So I went to India and ended up
Fortunately I had access to a small CHESTI Boles Fellowship,
(09:12):
which was like, I don't know, a thousand dollars or something.
So I just got on a plane and left and
ended up living there for two years, in the midst
of the post independence growth and excitement and so on.
Where were you living in India? Well, first I was
living in Miranda House, which is a women's college at
(09:33):
the University of Delhi. And then I was just traveling
through India. There must be some providence that looks after
naive young women who don't know what they're doing. May
it always be so? And then when you came back,
what was it you were planning to do when you
returned to the United States? How did you see your
(09:54):
future at that time? You know, I had a very
hazy vision of my future. I think, guided partly by
the fact that I had a father who was very
proud of never having a job. I realized that it
was possible to live without a job, and though it
was kind of difficult economically for quite a few years
(10:16):
to be a freelance writer. So you were coming back though,
right in the midst of the civil rights movement, the
beginning of the women's movement, the struggle over the Vietnam War.
You were coming into a lot of ferment when you returned. Yes,
that happened a little bit later, but Actually, my experience
in India stood me in good stead because I knew
(10:40):
Ho Chi Minh was a nice guy and a poet.
Because I had had read an India, right, I sort
of knew early that we were on the wrong side,
you know, not just that it was an unjust war,
but they were actually on the wrong side. Well, didn't
he ask for us support in his uh? He did
dependent struggle against the French? He did initially. I mean
(11:02):
he as a young man went to the League of
Nations and he asked for you as support. And actually,
in the first issue of New York Magazine, which I
believe was night, I wrote a piece about Ho Chi
men in New York because I was trying to humanize him.
And I knew that as a young man, a cabin
boy on a ship, he had come to New York
(11:23):
and lived in New York for several years. So I
tried to track down his and you know, to the
credit of Clay Felker, who you know, was probably not
supposed to let me humanize the enemy at that point,
he let me write a whole piece about Ho Chi
Minh in New York. That's fascinating. We'll be back right
(11:45):
after this quick break. You know another thing you did
is you started a magazine. You started something that had
never really been in the modern world. There had been
women's magazines, obviously, and there had been politic old women's
magazines in the nineteenth century, in the early twentieth century,
(12:05):
but for a lot of the people listening to us,
I don't know that younger people, particularly young women, understood
how momentous it was when you started Miss magazine. I mean,
it was such an explosion of interest and excitement about that. Yes, no,
it really was, And if we've known how difficult it was,
we probably wouldn't have done it. Well, that's true for
(12:27):
a lot of things that I could pick up. But
the women's magazines were and sometimes still are catalogs. They're
about what women are supposed to buy, what we're supposed
to look like, how we're supposed to raise our children, cook,
so on. And because they're supported by advertising and most
of the editorial, then is there really about the advertising categories?
(12:52):
So we said, wait a minute, why can't we have
a women's magazine that's about what women are interested in
reading and it includes fiction and poetry and political articles
and so on. Of course, advertisers on the least interested,
so we were always on our economic uppers. But fortunately
(13:13):
there was there was interest. What kept us going were
the mail bags of letters that came every day with
women saying, you know, MS came into my house and
I feel as if I have a friend and i've
been you know. It was just so moving and so encouraging.
And also they kept us up on all the issues
(13:36):
so we could do a cover story on how women
were waiting later to have babies, you know, because before
it was discernible, it was discernible in our letters. It
was like a big talking circle with our readers, and
somehow we managed to keep going economically, and it's it
still exists thanks to the feminist majority which took it over.
(14:00):
You know, a magazine seems like an artifact from a
very long time ago for most young people, but holding
that magazine, buying it on a newsstand, sharing it with
your friends, it was a huge, huge earthquake in the
lives and minds and thinking and opportunities. And I like
that's a phrase you use often, talking circle. I like
(14:22):
that a lot well. And actually my idea of heaven
is an editorial meeting, because you're all sitting around a
table and you all get to say whatever it is
you think is important and and and what comes out
of the meeting is more and better than any individual
(14:43):
could have done by themselves. It's heaven. I don't it
happens in political campaign absolutely absolutely, and you know, the
diversity of opinion and experience it makes for a better outcome.
I don't know why that's so hard for people to
understand and accept. You know, I was really struck by
(15:03):
the recent series Mrs America, and I think I shared
the reaction you had to it for those listening to
us talk about it. It was a series that primarily
followed Philish Laughley, the anti feminist anti e r A
activist and mouthpiece for a lot of other interests at work,
(15:27):
and I think the series gives her more credit than
she deserves. I mean, she was a player in the
demise at that time of the e R A. But
you actually wrote an article, you know, an outped piece
to express your concerns about the way that series portrayed
the struggle and Laughley in particular. What were the points
(15:49):
you were worried about. Well, I was concerned that it
was the cat fight theory of history. That is, uh,
the idea that the equal Rising it was defeated by
other women, when in fact, at the time I wrote
that together with Ellie Smail, who was more influential and
(16:09):
than I in and working for the Equal Rights Amendment.
And as Ellie said, she could never find that Philoslaflely
determined even one vote. I mean, it was the financial interests,
the insurance industry that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment, and
that employed her as a kind of cover for state
(16:32):
legislators who were voting against the equal rights of enmen. Anyway,
and you know, certainly one op ed can't contend with
you know, all those episodes. But I didn't want women
to think that other women had defeated them, when in
fact it was economic interests that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. Well,
(16:54):
it's so interesting because in this year of the centennial
of the nineteenth Amendment, people also overlook the role that
big corporate interests played in trying to prevent women from
getting the amendment passed. Elaine Weiss's you know, really compelling
book called The Woman's Hour, which zeroes in on the
very final you know, vote, which was in the Tennessee
(17:18):
legislature points out that the liquor industry, the railroad industry,
a lot of big, powerful forces did not want women
to vote. They view that as a direct threat to
their financial interests. Yes, you know one question I hate
getting and don't answer it because people always say, well,
(17:39):
what do you think about your legacy? You know, that
to me implies that we're not still out there, We're
not still working and talking and thinking and you know,
trying to influence events. So I'm not going to ask
you about that, but I want to ask you about
what work is still to come for you. What are
you working on now? Well, what I'm working on now
is with two friends, Beverly Guy Chef Tell and Paula
(18:02):
Gettings women. Perhaps, you know, we all kind of got
mad at the same time, I would say, or we
were permanently met about the fact that the women's movement
is regarded in the public eye as more a white
women's movement than a Black women's movement, especially in its beginnings.
(18:22):
You know, So we are together, the three of us
writing a book about what you might call the missing
figures the black feminists of the sixties, seventies, eighties, that's terrific.
That's a big piece of business, something that is you know,
really needed. It's kind of the way that a lot
of recent writers and historians have tried to write in
(18:44):
black suffragists who had been largely written out, had been overlooked. Yes, exactly,
it's really important that in the I don't know if
it's second wave modern, how are we described the women's
movement of you know, the sixties and on that you
know that there's a real reflection of the entire diversity. Yes,
and I mean, you know, we had that struggle with
(19:05):
statues in Central Park, you know, to make sure that
there wasn't just two white women on a pedestal. And
thank goodness, we've got so journal truth and yes, you know,
the first statuary of actual historic women. Yes, otherwise we
just had Alice in Wonderland in Central Park. Even even
the dog is a guy that you know, you know,
(19:30):
I have I also have to ask you, what have
you thought about when you look at the next year's
had in terms of the challenge of your own keeping
going of being you know, the vibrant person. I mean,
you know, we're all getting older, we know that. But
on the other hand, I don't think we can do
(19:51):
without your voice, without your presence. So are you taking
care of yourself? Are you, you know, working to ensure
that you're you know, physically and spiritually and every other way,
you know, filled up and ready for what comes next? Uh?
I don't know that I'm making a conscious effort. I mean,
I've never been a person who jogged, but I'm lucky
(20:20):
to be healthy. I mean, you know, my back hurts
and a few things are out of it open, I'm okay,
And I think probably what keeps us the healthiest is
loving what we do. Absolutely, and I think our friends,
I mean men as well as women, but especially our
women friends. Right. Yeah, I don't know what I would do.
I don't know how you keep going without your women.
(20:42):
It's a chosen family. It is a chosen family, and
you've You've chosen well. From all of the people that
I know who adore, love and support you and Glory,
I just love talking to you any chance I get,
So thank you for hopping on this podcast. Well, thank you.
I feel invigorated. Maybe I've got to keep going. Write
(21:03):
three pages to learn more about Gloria's life and work.
Pick up her incredible memoir My Life on the Road
and check out The Gloria Is starring Julianne Moore and
Alicia VI Candor, telling the story of Gloria's life. It's
(21:23):
out now on Amazon Prime. My next guest is the
amazing Dr Mona Hannah a Tsha. You know, I cannot
tell you what it's like being in a room with
Dr Mona. I think you'll get a sense of it
as you listen to our conversation. She is one of
the most dynamic, passionate, caring, smart people you will ever
(21:48):
run across. She's best known as the researcher and pediatrician
who has spoken out about the Flint water crisis. She's
testified three times before Congress. It was our advocacy, more
than anything else, that put the nation's eyes on Flint
and raised this horrible problem of how bad decisions made
(22:10):
by government leaders actually contaminated water with lead that was
being drunk by not only the adults, but most poignantly,
the children of Flint. This summer, the residents of Flynn
got some good news for a change. A lawsuit that
they filed against the state of Michigan was settled for
(22:31):
six hundred million dollars the largest settlement in Michigan history,
and nearly eight of those funds are going to the
children whose health and lives have been so impacted. This
is a very important step in the right direction. But
let's be honest, there are flints all over the country
(22:53):
and our work is far from done. And I want
people to understand what it takes to be a citizen
leader an advocate the way Dr Mona was, because I
think we're gonna need a lot of that in the
years to come all over America. Well, first let me
ask you, how are you doing here? We are six
months into the COVID quarantine lockdown pandemic. Uh. You know,
(23:18):
every day is a different day, and it is bizarre.
My kids are upstairs in remote school, my husband's working remotely.
I still get to see patients, so I still get
to go to clinic. But you know, our world, all
of our worlds, are are upside down. And if I recall,
you actually had COVID last spring, didn't you. Yeah, I
had COVID in March and uh fortunately had a more
mild case. Lost my sense of smell and taste for
(23:41):
two months, which was absolutely bizarre, especially for an Arabic person.
Who loves food and spices and eating um, but unfortunately
recovered and donated my plasma three times. Is how hopefully
a tiny way to help others who are a lot sicker. Well,
you mentioned that you are Arabic, so tell us a
(24:02):
little bit about your background. Mona. Yeah, so I'm an immigrant.
I wasn't born here. I'm Iraqi American. We came to
this country when I was four and we were leaving
somewhere terrible the dictatorship of Saddam usean for something better, um,
and I was able to grow up where my diversity
was was celebrated. I thus grew up confident and competent
(24:24):
and really committed to service with this immigrant perspective of
being every day grateful to be in this country, but
also acutely aware of what kind of injustice can be
and what people in power can do to vulnerable populations.
And I think that's one of the reasons that drove
me into into a career in service, into medicine, and
to into social justice and um ultimately into serving vulnerable populations.
(24:49):
So you became a pediatrician and you set up a
practice in Flint, Michigan. Is that right? Yep? In what
year was that. So I came to Flint in two
thousand eleven. UM, but I was first in Flint as
a medical student with Michigan State University. So I did
my clinical training as a medical student in Flint, where
(25:09):
I really fell in love with the city. I fell
in love with the people, with that loyalty and the
grit and the resilience. I left Flint for about a
decade to go to Detroit to do my pediatric training
at the Children's Hospital in Detroit, and then came back
to Flint in two thousand eleven to run the residency
program to really train the next generation of pediatricians. And
(25:29):
so that's what you were doing when what we know
of as the Flint water crisis really began. When did
you first figure out that something was going on? So
I was, you know, practicing as a pediatrician. Moms would
would come in and ask if they should be mixing
their baby's formula with the tap water in Flint. Um.
(25:52):
They'd be concerned about their kids rashes that might have
been related to their water or some other concern. And
for over a year as a pediatrician with my you know,
white coat on, full of confidence, I was reassuring my
patients that, of course our water is okay. I mean, like,
this is America, right, like the twenty one century It's
Michigan is surrounded by the largest source of fresh water
(26:15):
in the world. So all those things were running through
my head when patients were presenting before me with concerns
about the water. And on top of all of that,
I knew that there was rules and laws and people
that when they wake up in in the morning, their
job is to make sure that our public health is safe.
And that all changed for me when I heard about
(26:38):
the possibility of lead being in the water. Well, as
I remember, you became aware of it through a friend
of yours who actually worked for the Environmental Protection Agency.
How did that happen? Yeah, So this is one of
my favorite stories, and it speaks to the power of girlfriends.
My high school girlfriend, of all things, was in town.
(26:59):
She had been in d C for over a decade
working at the e p A or the Focus in
Drinking Water, and so she just happened to be at
my house for a last minute barbecue and our children
were running around and she corners me in my kitchen
and she shares that the water in flint isn't being
treated properly. She had just seen a memo written by
(27:21):
one of her former colleagues at the e p A.
And she shared that this memo said that the water
wasn't being treated with something called corrosion control, and her
eyes lit up and I'm like, I have no idea
what corrosion control is, um. And she also shared that
without that really critical ingredient, there would be lead in
the water. Um. So it was pure serendipity that I
(27:43):
was informed of the possibility of lead, and that really
kind of changed the trajectory of my work. So you
get what I view as an explosive piece of information.
What did you do then? Um? I stopped sleeping, I
stopped eating, like I literally lost thirty pounds, and I
became consumed with this knowledge that something in our water
(28:05):
was literally taking away the potential of our children. And
it was this drive in me that had to protect
my kids. And you know, writing a book has kind
of made me really reflective, like like why like why
did you do that model? Like why why did you
just you know, so many people had closed their eyes
to this. So many people literally closed their eyes and
looked away and couldn't have cared less about what was
(28:27):
happening in flint Um. And I think it was partly
that that immigrant perspective of kind of fighting for justice,
of serving the underserved. My parents have always taught me
to do kind of the right thing, even if it's
the hard thing. Um. It's also that obligation as a
as a physician, you know, as a pediatrician, like I've
literally taken an oath, you know, to protect children. But
(28:48):
more than that, it's you know, a doctor or not.
This is all of our civic responsibility. And I think
that's the biggest lesson of our story, that we all
have this duty to open our eyes to justices that
are happening around us, and more importantly to act um.
And for me it was a choiceless choice. There was
no other option than to go forward. And for me,
(29:09):
going forward was to do the research to see if
it was increasingly in the bodies of our children. And
that's when you started to take blood samples from your
pediatric patients. Because I want to underscore what you said,
there is no safe level of lead in the body,
and of course with children and their smaller bodies, that
(29:32):
becomes even you know, more imperative to name it and
stop it before it affects everything from bodily development to
mental development and behavioral problems. So once you began gathering
your data, what did you do next and how did
(29:52):
you make it public? We conducted the research really in
record pace, over a matter of weeks, which would have
taken kind of months if we had sleft, but obviously
that wasn't an option. Um that we had to figure
out what was going on, and what we found is
that the blood levels of children had increased after the
water switch, and that nothing was happening to the blood
(30:13):
the levels of children outside of the city of Flynt.
It was only happening within the Flint water limits. So
when we knew this research, we tried to get folks
to pay attention, but they didn't pay attention. So I
knew that the only way to get any change to
happen was to go public, and that's not something that
academics and researchers and doctors usually do. And this was
(30:35):
a form of academic disobedience. I think one of my
favorite accolades I've received was a disobedience award from the
Mighty for like not publishing this research and a pure
of view journal first. But any academic will tell you
that takes a long time. Um that can take months,
that can take years to get something finally published in
(30:55):
in an academic journal. And our kids did not have
another day we and not afore that time. So I
literally walked out of my clinic with my white coat on,
and I stood up at a press conference sharing this
research and demanding action. We're taking a quick break. Stay
with us. You know, when I heard about this, I
was so upset because during the course of you know,
(31:19):
my years of working on behalf of kids and families,
and then as a senator from New York, I knew
how dangerous your findings were and how immediately there had
to be a response. I remember, you know, going to
Flint and my Steen campaign before a lot of people
(31:42):
really understood the importance of what you were disclosing. And
I met a young boy named Jalen who had developed
side effects from the poison water. He was jumpy, couldn't concentrate,
he wasn't sleeping well. And that was exactly textbook because
(32:03):
if you look at places that have researched lead poisoning,
they demonstrate all of these side effects and consequences for
little kids. So you had a press conference, you basically
told the world this. But I remember the government of
your state, Michigan, tried to paint you and I quote
(32:24):
as an unfortunate researcher intent on causing near hysteria. Well
that's a mouthful. What was your reaction to that kind
of you know, character assassination. My science was denied, it
was disrespected. I was attacked as a scientist, as a
physician called you know, they said I was causing near
(32:46):
hysteria like you said, which is absolutely sexist as well.
So I felt tiny. I felt small. I began to
second guess myself. I'm like, oh my gosh, maybe I
am wrong. Maybe I should have just kept going about
my busy business as a pediatrician and mom and wife
and uh. And I also began to feel physically sick,
like my heart rate was close to two, my hands
(33:08):
were shaking, and I just could not believe um that
science and facts, like clear facts and prevention on public health,
we're being attacked on behalf of our children. Well, you know,
what you're describing is so resonant with me. Because you
didn't want to get it wrong. You believed you actually
got it right, and you go out there and you
(33:31):
make this presentation, and yes you are. You're attacked in
sexist terms, hysterias always used to diminish and undermine women.
You're attacked on your credentials, You're attacked on the research
that you had done. And of course you're gonna question yourself.
And because you know you're out there, you're vulnerable. You're literally,
(33:52):
you know, putting your life, your reputation, your profession on
the line. How did you find the courage to continue
in you, you know, standing up and speaking out, even
at the risk of jeopardizing your career. So it took
a quick realization that this had nothing to do with
me and nothing nothing, nothing to do with me. They
(34:17):
could go after me all they wanted, but this was
about my children, and my kids in flant like they
are no different than my biological children, Like when I'm
not at home, my children are like moms with our
six thousand siblings. This was about This was about my
kids and every single number in my research, and it
was like all these spreadsheets and exceled documents, every single
(34:39):
number was a child. And it was probably a child
that even seen in the last year, and I had
touched their heads, and I had held their hands, and
I had examined them, and I knew them and I
knew their faces. And it was as if those kids
jumped out of my spreadsheets and lifted me up and
gave me the courage to keep going. So they're the
ones that got me in the fight. It was this
(35:01):
constant grounding in my why and for me, And this
is a grounding that I do to this day, a
practice of like why do I wake up? Why did
I go to school forever? Why am I here? Why
am I doing this interview? Why am I? You know,
working like? It's the kids. It is the kids, the privileged,
the absolute privilege of serving these children. And they gave
me the courage to keep going. And we fought back
(35:23):
because we were right. We fall back with more numbers
and more evidence and more data. Well you know you
write in your book. So, along with a growing team
of doctors and scientists, I held a news conference to
release our findings in demand action. It was an unusual
thing for a local pediatrician to do, but that's what
you do. When nobody's listening, you get louder. Now, actually,
(35:46):
lots of people, especially women, are afraid to get louder.
You know, we're afraid that we're just going to get
even more attacked if we stick to our guns and
we increase the intensity and frankly the volume to try
to communicate and cut through all of the you know,
the static. I can't help but think mona about what's
(36:09):
happened with COVID, because the research is pretty clear countries
run by women have done better. And I honestly believe
it is connected to the ability to relate to the
people who are suffering. It's not abstract, it's not statistics,
it's not you know, numbers on a board somewhere. And
(36:31):
I think that is really at the heart of what
you did. I mean you you just refused to be silenced,
and that, to me is true leadership. And you slowly
began to get some allies who were those allies who
who finally came and said, wait a minute, I want
to hear what she has to say. And you know what,
I think she's right. Yeah, you know, I think so
(36:52):
many people think of the Flint story as a as
a failure of government and so many levels, and and
for me, it's it's an reaffirmation of what government candy
um and when you have a whole democracy, because the
Flint was also a story of what happens when you
take away democracy. We were under emergency management. Folks were
being listened to. There was unelected on accountable folks in charge.
(37:13):
But when you are able to engage your elected officials,
change can happen. And I think one of our greatest
allies was our U S. Senator Debbie Stabin. Now when
she finally kind of understood UM and one of our
other elected officials understood, she never stopped fighting for Flynn.
I mean she held up like the energy bill at
one point, and she continued to advocate to get resources
(37:34):
for our city. And for me, that was a reminder
of kind of a power of democracy when its whole,
when it's complete, when it's representative, UM, you actually have
people fighting for you. But there were so many allies.
We really kind of witnessed the generosity in the heart
of our nation. And we were getting like bottled water
deliveries from the U a W in Ohio and the
(37:56):
Ballroom Dance Club in ann Arbor and Girl Scouts in
Pennsylvan and it was it was so affirming and even
to this day when I have a chance to talk
about the story, you know, people do care. They have
empathy and and they can relate because you know, Flint
isn't is not this one off story of this crazy
thing that happened over there um. But it's also about
(38:17):
other stories that are happening in regards right now, right now,
public health issues and exactly disrespect of science issues and
democracy issues and public health, infrastructure issues and dismissing women issues.
So there's a resonance to the story, and people have
been allies. Oh I just love those stories. And I
(38:37):
want to ask you how you're feeling now? Are you
optimistic in the wake of the six hundred million dollars settlement?
Are you feeling that, you know, finally these wrongs are
being righted, even though there's no compensation that will ever
fully remedy what was done to the people and particularly
to the children. But you know, weird you think things
(39:00):
stand now? You know, people would ask me a lot
about like the investigations and the lawsuits and accountability and
you know, justice, and I would I would refuse to respond.
I'm like, I'm a doctor, I'm not a lawyer. Might
you know, ask the lawyers and the attorney general, like
my job is the kids. And then as I continued
to practice in Flynt and work closely with the folks
most closely impacted by this crisis, I began to realize
(39:23):
how central the concept of restorative justice is to healing
and to health. You can think of it like a
wound that won't close until you have some element of justice.
And there's all these ongoing traumas that just you know,
reopen it and it fails to close. So we have
(39:43):
to have some sort of justice to move forward. The
settlement on the civil cases is a wonderful first sits up,
It's it's not complete. Um. I've also realized that justice
is defined differently by by everybody. You can ask ten
people what was justice and you have ten different responses. Um.
A lot of also want to see the accountability, which
are the criminal cases, and those are still pending where
(40:04):
folks are held accountable for their actions. So I think
we're in the right direction. Recovery is long term. That's
a big part of my job is reminding folks that
this is, you know, a long term crisis that has
long terms to quel a and we need to make
sure that we put into place the resources um to
do this work in the long term. Well, that's a
wonderful way to sum up what you have done. And
(40:26):
I love the phrase restorative justice, and I will never
think of it again without thinking of it as a
wound that needs to be healed. Sometimes their bodily wounds,
sometimes their psychic wounds and spiritual wounds. But at a
time and our nation's history, and really the world's history,
where inequities growing, where impunity is growing, on accountability is growing,
(40:52):
we need to have leaders like you, Dr Mona, who say,
wait a minute, we have a higher calling. We are
better than this, and we need to try, insofar as possible,
to repair and restore what has been damaged and then
try to make it better. I'm so grateful to you,
and uh I can't wait to see what comes next
(41:15):
as you try to exercise restorative justice for the people
and children of Flint. Thank you, Thank you very much.
Dr Mona's memoir of the Flint crisis is called What
the Eyes Don't See, a story of crisis, resistance, and
hope in an American city. You know, I think it's
(41:37):
really important to lift up stories of gutsy women like
Gloria and Dr Mona, because we need that inspiration. We
also need, frankly, to be shown how we're going to
make a difference. There's so many problems and issues that
confront us, and there's opportunities everywhere for people to step
up and make a difference. We could all use some
(42:00):
of that inspiration right now. So I hope these women's
courage will inspire you and maybe let us know if
there's somebody in your life or somebody you admire that
you want us to talk to as the podcast goes on,
because we want to lift up the stories of gutsy women,
because we can all walk a little taller and be
(42:24):
braver in the pursuit of justice and fairness and equality
and truth. So please help us do that. You and
Me Both. Is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Julie Subran and Kathleen Russo, with help
from Kuma Aberdeen, Nikki E Tour, Oscar Flores, Brianna Johnson,
(42:46):
Nick Merrill, Lauren Peterson, Rob Russo and Lona valmro. Our
engineer is Zack McNeice. Original music is by Forest Gray
and a big thanks to Riverside fem just imagine we
needed a recording platform that could help us make a
podcast during a pandemic, and boy did they step up.
(43:10):
If you like you and me both, spread the word,
don't keep it to yourself. You can subscribe to you
and Me both on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there,
leave us a review. It's a great way to help
other people discover us, and we'd love to hear from you,
so send us your questions, your comments, your ideas or
(43:32):
suggestions for future shows about other Gutsy women to you
and Me both pod at gmail dot com. Come back
next week when I'll be talking about resilience with long
distance swimmer Diana and Naiad author Angela Duckworth and the
comedian who's been keeping us laughing this election season, Sarah Cooper.
(43:55):
Don't miss it.
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
One of my favorite accolades I've received was a Disobedience
Award from m T for like not publishing this research
and a pere of you journal first that can take months,
that can take years, and our kids did not have
another day. We could not afford that time. So I
literally walked out of my clinic with my white coat on,
(00:22):
and I stood up at a press conference sharing this
research and demanding action. I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is
You and Me Both, where I get into some of
today's biggest questions with people I find fascinating. Last week
I got to speak with Kamala Harris, U s Senator
from California, Democratic nominee for Vice President, Tough as Nails.
(00:47):
We dropped that as a special episode, and if you
haven't listened to it yet, I hope that you will
because I want you to get to know this woman
who is going to make history and be our first
woman vice resident. Today we are featuring two other women leaders. Now,
you might guess I have a lot to say about
(01:08):
the subject of women and leadership. I know what happens
to women when we put ourselves out there. You know,
we're told smile more. You smile too much. You know,
your voice is too loud, your voice is too soft.
Why are you wearing that color? Why don't you wear
this color? I mean everything that's ever been said to
(01:29):
me or said behind my back about me. I understand
that it is not easy, but when women lead, we
get the job done. And it is no coincidence that
some of the countries with the best responses to COVID
happened to be led by women. Now, there are lots
(01:49):
of ways to lead. One is running for office, but
it is not the only way. So today I'm talking
to two women who have made a huge impact on
the world, each and her own unique way. Later, I'll
be talking to Dr Mona Hannah a Tsha. She is
the pediatrician from Flint, Michigan, who discovered that the city's
(02:11):
drinking water was contaminated with lead. She spoke out, she advocated,
she stood her ground. It was not easy, as you
will hear. But first, I'm thrilled to talk to my friend, feminist,
icon writer, journalist, activist, advocate Gloria Steinhum You Now, I
(02:35):
first heard about Gloria years and years ago. She just
seems like She's been part of my young adulthood and
the rest of my life. I love the way that
she has pushed open doors for so many women who
have come after her, including me. But more importantly, she
became a leader in the women's rights movement, a strong
(02:58):
leader for a woman's right to choose, and spoke out
about having an abortion herself. At age twenty two, she
helped found miss magazine, which I remember when that happened,
it was like a bombshell. It was so exciting. She
fought for the Equal Rights Amendment, and she's been on
the front lines ever since. She's an extraordinary person with
(03:20):
a gift for summing up what so many are feeling
but may not have the words to say. And one
of my favorite Gloria isms is the truth will set
you free, but first it will piss you off. So
let's jump right in. You know, I wanted to talk
to us a little bit about your journey because I
(03:42):
know you've said you didn't begin your life as an
active feminist. I don't know any anybody who did. Mean
we stood up for ourselves. Maybe that was being a
feminist in our time and age, but were there experiences
looking back now in your childhood that you think prepared
you to speak out and stand up on behalf of
(04:02):
not only yourself, but on feminist issues and politics, particularly
as they affect women and girls. Well, looking back, I
think it was quite fortunate that I didn't go to
school very much until I was about eleven, and that's
because my family was traveling in a house trailer in
the wintertime. It's a long story as to why that
(04:24):
was the case. But I think I missed a certain
amount of Dick and Jane. Remember that Dick and Jane
will do yes. I think I just missed that. So
I think in some ways we're born with a sense
of our value, or you know, are We're not better
than anybody else, but we're not worse either, And unless
(04:47):
that gets educated out of you, I think children hang
onto it. And secondly, I would give great credit to
Louisa may Alcott. I fell in love with Little Women.
I read every word that she wrote, which was you know,
she wrote many more things than that. She was, of course,
(05:08):
a very active, suffrage independent woman, and I'm grateful to her.
You know, I imagined that she was my friend and
that she would come back, and what would I show
her first? And so she was my companion growing up.
I've had so many women, and I myself feel the
same way. Talk about the influence of little Women and
(05:30):
also Nancy Drew. Oh yes, I also read Nancy Drew.
Finding role models in literature was like finding a friend,
somebody that you could relate to, that you could role
model yourself after. And you know, when I think about
growing up at that time, it's hard not to be
(05:50):
focused on all the books that I read because there
weren't very many women in the public arena or even
in my community that we're living, lives outside the home.
So there were my public school teachers, there were the
public librarians, but you know, other than somebody maybe waiting
on you at a store, there just weren't many other
(06:13):
people except in literature that you could go and have
your imagination sparked. Did you see anybody in political life?
I mean, my mother worshiped Eleanor Roosevelt, but of course,
you know, you had to marry a president, you know,
but it wasn't altogether classical. Well, but you know, the
one person that I learned about from reading Life magazine
(06:35):
every Friday at my house when I got home from
school was Margaret Chase Smith, the Republican senator from Maine.
I read about her and I learned about her standing
up to McCarthy. Yes, oh, I so remember that. It was.
It was so impactful to me, you know, part of
the interesting dynamic that you and I share, as we
(06:57):
both went to women's colleges. Yes, and you went to Smith.
I went to Wellesley. How did you decide to do that?
What was it about Smith that attracted you when you
were ready to go to school. Well, my my older
sister nine years older, had gone there, and I was
in Toledo in a terrible high school, and it was
(07:19):
the only one I knew actually, so I was just
following her. And I'm enough older than you, so that
I was there in the nineteen fifties, and the nineteen
fifties were not a great time, to put it mildly,
so there was not a lot of encouragement there. I mean,
I had my courses that I fell in love with,
(07:42):
but the president at the time said they were educating
women in order to have educated children. You know. I
have had that conversation with Madeline Albright, who was at
Wellesley ten years before me, and she says exactly the
same thing. She got married right out of college, and
she graduated one day, she got married the next day.
(08:03):
She said, Look, that's what we were supposed to do.
That's what we were being trained to do. And the
difference in the time I, you know, went to college,
with the Vietnam War, protests, with assassinations, with all kinds
of turmoil in our country, and the women's movement which
you were literally at the forefront of and beginning to
(08:27):
set forth a set of values and principles that provided
an alternative view for girls and women. Well, in a way,
what we're saying is hopeful, because what we're seeing in
our individual experience is the difference a decade makes, and
it's huge when you think about it. Between the fifties
(08:48):
and the sixties. I was rescued from the my fate
of the nineteen fifties. I was engaged, I was going
to get married and so on. So the only way
I could sort of escape from that was to do
something drastic. So I went to India and ended up
Fortunately I had access to a small CHESTI Boles Fellowship,
(09:12):
which was like, I don't know, a thousand dollars or something.
So I just got on a plane and left and
ended up living there for two years, in the midst
of the post independence growth and excitement and so on.
Where were you living in India? Well, first I was
living in Miranda House, which is a women's college at
(09:33):
the University of Delhi. And then I was just traveling
through India. There must be some providence that looks after
naive young women who don't know what they're doing. May
it always be so? And then when you came back,
what was it you were planning to do when you
returned to the United States? How did you see your
(09:54):
future at that time? You know, I had a very
hazy vision of my future. I think, guided partly by
the fact that I had a father who was very
proud of never having a job. I realized that it
was possible to live without a job, and though it
was kind of difficult economically for quite a few years
(10:16):
to be a freelance writer. So you were coming back though,
right in the midst of the civil rights movement, the
beginning of the women's movement, the struggle over the Vietnam War.
You were coming into a lot of ferment when you returned. Yes,
that happened a little bit later, but Actually, my experience
in India stood me in good stead because I knew
(10:40):
Ho Chi Minh was a nice guy and a poet.
Because I had had read an India, right, I sort
of knew early that we were on the wrong side,
you know, not just that it was an unjust war,
but they were actually on the wrong side. Well, didn't
he ask for us support in his uh? He did
dependent struggle against the French? He did initially. I mean
(11:02):
he as a young man went to the League of
Nations and he asked for you as support. And actually,
in the first issue of New York Magazine, which I
believe was night, I wrote a piece about Ho Chi
men in New York because I was trying to humanize him.
And I knew that as a young man, a cabin
boy on a ship, he had come to New York
(11:23):
and lived in New York for several years. So I
tried to track down his and you know, to the
credit of Clay Felker, who you know, was probably not
supposed to let me humanize the enemy at that point,
he let me write a whole piece about Ho Chi
Minh in New York. That's fascinating. We'll be back right
(11:45):
after this quick break. You know another thing you did
is you started a magazine. You started something that had
never really been in the modern world. There had been
women's magazines, obviously, and there had been politic old women's
magazines in the nineteenth century, in the early twentieth century,
(12:05):
but for a lot of the people listening to us,
I don't know that younger people, particularly young women, understood
how momentous it was when you started Miss magazine. I mean,
it was such an explosion of interest and excitement about that. Yes, no,
it really was, And if we've known how difficult it was,
we probably wouldn't have done it. Well, that's true for
(12:27):
a lot of things that I could pick up. But
the women's magazines were and sometimes still are catalogs. They're
about what women are supposed to buy, what we're supposed
to look like, how we're supposed to raise our children, cook,
so on. And because they're supported by advertising and most
of the editorial, then is there really about the advertising categories?
(12:52):
So we said, wait a minute, why can't we have
a women's magazine that's about what women are interested in
reading and it includes fiction and poetry and political articles
and so on. Of course, advertisers on the least interested,
so we were always on our economic uppers. But fortunately
(13:13):
there was there was interest. What kept us going were
the mail bags of letters that came every day with
women saying, you know, MS came into my house and
I feel as if I have a friend and i've
been you know. It was just so moving and so encouraging.
And also they kept us up on all the issues
(13:36):
so we could do a cover story on how women
were waiting later to have babies, you know, because before
it was discernible, it was discernible in our letters. It
was like a big talking circle with our readers, and
somehow we managed to keep going economically, and it's it
still exists thanks to the feminist majority which took it over.
(14:00):
You know, a magazine seems like an artifact from a
very long time ago for most young people, but holding
that magazine, buying it on a newsstand, sharing it with
your friends, it was a huge, huge earthquake in the
lives and minds and thinking and opportunities. And I like
that's a phrase you use often, talking circle. I like
(14:22):
that a lot well. And actually my idea of heaven
is an editorial meeting, because you're all sitting around a
table and you all get to say whatever it is
you think is important and and and what comes out
of the meeting is more and better than any individual
(14:43):
could have done by themselves. It's heaven. I don't it
happens in political campaign absolutely absolutely, and you know, the
diversity of opinion and experience it makes for a better outcome.
I don't know why that's so hard for people to
understand and accept. You know, I was really struck by
(15:03):
the recent series Mrs America, and I think I shared
the reaction you had to it for those listening to
us talk about it. It was a series that primarily
followed Philish Laughley, the anti feminist anti e r A
activist and mouthpiece for a lot of other interests at work,
(15:27):
and I think the series gives her more credit than
she deserves. I mean, she was a player in the
demise at that time of the e R A. But
you actually wrote an article, you know, an outped piece
to express your concerns about the way that series portrayed
the struggle and Laughley in particular. What were the points
(15:49):
you were worried about. Well, I was concerned that it
was the cat fight theory of history. That is, uh,
the idea that the equal Rising it was defeated by
other women, when in fact, at the time I wrote
that together with Ellie Smail, who was more influential and
(16:09):
than I in and working for the Equal Rights Amendment.
And as Ellie said, she could never find that Philoslaflely
determined even one vote. I mean, it was the financial interests,
the insurance industry that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment, and
that employed her as a kind of cover for state
(16:32):
legislators who were voting against the equal rights of enmen. Anyway,
and you know, certainly one op ed can't contend with
you know, all those episodes. But I didn't want women
to think that other women had defeated them, when in
fact it was economic interests that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. Well,
(16:54):
it's so interesting because in this year of the centennial
of the nineteenth Amendment, people also overlook the role that
big corporate interests played in trying to prevent women from
getting the amendment passed. Elaine Weiss's you know, really compelling
book called The Woman's Hour, which zeroes in on the
very final you know, vote, which was in the Tennessee
(17:18):
legislature points out that the liquor industry, the railroad industry,
a lot of big, powerful forces did not want women
to vote. They view that as a direct threat to
their financial interests. Yes, you know one question I hate
getting and don't answer it because people always say, well,
(17:39):
what do you think about your legacy? You know, that
to me implies that we're not still out there, We're
not still working and talking and thinking and you know,
trying to influence events. So I'm not going to ask
you about that, but I want to ask you about
what work is still to come for you. What are
you working on now? Well, what I'm working on now
is with two friends, Beverly Guy Chef Tell and Paula
(18:02):
Gettings women. Perhaps, you know, we all kind of got
mad at the same time, I would say, or we
were permanently met about the fact that the women's movement
is regarded in the public eye as more a white
women's movement than a Black women's movement, especially in its beginnings.
(18:22):
You know, So we are together, the three of us
writing a book about what you might call the missing
figures the black feminists of the sixties, seventies, eighties, that's terrific.
That's a big piece of business, something that is you know,
really needed. It's kind of the way that a lot
of recent writers and historians have tried to write in
(18:44):
black suffragists who had been largely written out, had been overlooked. Yes, exactly,
it's really important that in the I don't know if
it's second wave modern, how are we described the women's
movement of you know, the sixties and on that you
know that there's a real reflection of the entire diversity. Yes,
and I mean, you know, we had that struggle with
(19:05):
statues in Central Park, you know, to make sure that
there wasn't just two white women on a pedestal. And
thank goodness, we've got so journal truth and yes, you know,
the first statuary of actual historic women. Yes, otherwise we
just had Alice in Wonderland in Central Park. Even even
the dog is a guy that you know, you know,
(19:30):
I have I also have to ask you, what have
you thought about when you look at the next year's
had in terms of the challenge of your own keeping
going of being you know, the vibrant person. I mean,
you know, we're all getting older, we know that. But
on the other hand, I don't think we can do
(19:51):
without your voice, without your presence. So are you taking
care of yourself? Are you, you know, working to ensure
that you're you know, physically and spiritually and every other way,
you know, filled up and ready for what comes next? Uh?
I don't know that I'm making a conscious effort. I mean,
I've never been a person who jogged, but I'm lucky
(20:20):
to be healthy. I mean, you know, my back hurts
and a few things are out of it open, I'm okay,
And I think probably what keeps us the healthiest is
loving what we do. Absolutely, and I think our friends,
I mean men as well as women, but especially our
women friends. Right. Yeah, I don't know what I would do.
I don't know how you keep going without your women.
(20:42):
It's a chosen family. It is a chosen family, and
you've You've chosen well. From all of the people that
I know who adore, love and support you and Glory,
I just love talking to you any chance I get,
So thank you for hopping on this podcast. Well, thank you.
I feel invigorated. Maybe I've got to keep going. Write
(21:03):
three pages to learn more about Gloria's life and work.
Pick up her incredible memoir My Life on the Road
and check out The Gloria Is starring Julianne Moore and
Alicia VI Candor, telling the story of Gloria's life. It's
(21:23):
out now on Amazon Prime. My next guest is the
amazing Dr Mona Hannah a Tsha. You know, I cannot
tell you what it's like being in a room with
Dr Mona. I think you'll get a sense of it
as you listen to our conversation. She is one of
the most dynamic, passionate, caring, smart people you will ever
(21:48):
run across. She's best known as the researcher and pediatrician
who has spoken out about the Flint water crisis. She's
testified three times before Congress. It was our advocacy, more
than anything else, that put the nation's eyes on Flint
and raised this horrible problem of how bad decisions made
(22:10):
by government leaders actually contaminated water with lead that was
being drunk by not only the adults, but most poignantly,
the children of Flint. This summer, the residents of Flynn
got some good news for a change. A lawsuit that
they filed against the state of Michigan was settled for
(22:31):
six hundred million dollars the largest settlement in Michigan history,
and nearly eight of those funds are going to the
children whose health and lives have been so impacted. This
is a very important step in the right direction. But
let's be honest, there are flints all over the country
(22:53):
and our work is far from done. And I want
people to understand what it takes to be a citizen
leader an advocate the way Dr Mona was, because I
think we're gonna need a lot of that in the
years to come all over America. Well, first let me
ask you, how are you doing here? We are six
months into the COVID quarantine lockdown pandemic. Uh. You know,
(23:18):
every day is a different day, and it is bizarre.
My kids are upstairs in remote school, my husband's working remotely.
I still get to see patients, so I still get
to go to clinic. But you know, our world, all
of our worlds, are are upside down. And if I recall,
you actually had COVID last spring, didn't you. Yeah, I
had COVID in March and uh fortunately had a more
mild case. Lost my sense of smell and taste for
(23:41):
two months, which was absolutely bizarre, especially for an Arabic person.
Who loves food and spices and eating um, but unfortunately
recovered and donated my plasma three times. Is how hopefully
a tiny way to help others who are a lot sicker. Well,
you mentioned that you are Arabic, so tell us a
(24:02):
little bit about your background. Mona. Yeah, so I'm an immigrant.
I wasn't born here. I'm Iraqi American. We came to
this country when I was four and we were leaving
somewhere terrible the dictatorship of Saddam usean for something better, um,
and I was able to grow up where my diversity
was was celebrated. I thus grew up confident and competent
(24:24):
and really committed to service with this immigrant perspective of
being every day grateful to be in this country, but
also acutely aware of what kind of injustice can be
and what people in power can do to vulnerable populations.
And I think that's one of the reasons that drove
me into into a career in service, into medicine, and
to into social justice and um ultimately into serving vulnerable populations.
(24:49):
So you became a pediatrician and you set up a
practice in Flint, Michigan. Is that right? Yep? In what
year was that. So I came to Flint in two
thousand eleven. UM, but I was first in Flint as
a medical student with Michigan State University. So I did
my clinical training as a medical student in Flint, where
(25:09):
I really fell in love with the city. I fell
in love with the people, with that loyalty and the
grit and the resilience. I left Flint for about a
decade to go to Detroit to do my pediatric training
at the Children's Hospital in Detroit, and then came back
to Flint in two thousand eleven to run the residency
program to really train the next generation of pediatricians. And
(25:29):
so that's what you were doing when what we know
of as the Flint water crisis really began. When did
you first figure out that something was going on? So
I was, you know, practicing as a pediatrician. Moms would
would come in and ask if they should be mixing
their baby's formula with the tap water in Flint. Um.
(25:52):
They'd be concerned about their kids rashes that might have
been related to their water or some other concern. And
for over a year as a pediatrician with my you know,
white coat on, full of confidence, I was reassuring my
patients that, of course our water is okay. I mean, like,
this is America, right, like the twenty one century It's
Michigan is surrounded by the largest source of fresh water
(26:15):
in the world. So all those things were running through
my head when patients were presenting before me with concerns
about the water. And on top of all of that,
I knew that there was rules and laws and people
that when they wake up in in the morning, their
job is to make sure that our public health is safe.
And that all changed for me when I heard about
(26:38):
the possibility of lead being in the water. Well, as
I remember, you became aware of it through a friend
of yours who actually worked for the Environmental Protection Agency.
How did that happen? Yeah, So this is one of
my favorite stories, and it speaks to the power of girlfriends.
My high school girlfriend, of all things, was in town.
(26:59):
She had been in d C for over a decade
working at the e p A or the Focus in
Drinking Water, and so she just happened to be at
my house for a last minute barbecue and our children
were running around and she corners me in my kitchen
and she shares that the water in flint isn't being
treated properly. She had just seen a memo written by
(27:21):
one of her former colleagues at the e p A.
And she shared that this memo said that the water
wasn't being treated with something called corrosion control, and her
eyes lit up and I'm like, I have no idea
what corrosion control is, um. And she also shared that
without that really critical ingredient, there would be lead in
the water. Um. So it was pure serendipity that I
(27:43):
was informed of the possibility of lead, and that really
kind of changed the trajectory of my work. So you
get what I view as an explosive piece of information.
What did you do then? Um? I stopped sleeping, I
stopped eating, like I literally lost thirty pounds, and I
became consumed with this knowledge that something in our water
(28:05):
was literally taking away the potential of our children. And
it was this drive in me that had to protect
my kids. And you know, writing a book has kind
of made me really reflective, like like why like why
did you do that model? Like why why did you
just you know, so many people had closed their eyes
to this. So many people literally closed their eyes and
looked away and couldn't have cared less about what was
(28:27):
happening in flint Um. And I think it was partly
that that immigrant perspective of kind of fighting for justice,
of serving the underserved. My parents have always taught me
to do kind of the right thing, even if it's
the hard thing. Um. It's also that obligation as a
as a physician, you know, as a pediatrician, like I've
literally taken an oath, you know, to protect children. But
(28:48):
more than that, it's you know, a doctor or not.
This is all of our civic responsibility. And I think
that's the biggest lesson of our story, that we all
have this duty to open our eyes to justices that
are happening around us, and more importantly to act um.
And for me it was a choiceless choice. There was
no other option than to go forward. And for me,
(29:09):
going forward was to do the research to see if
it was increasingly in the bodies of our children. And
that's when you started to take blood samples from your
pediatric patients. Because I want to underscore what you said,
there is no safe level of lead in the body,
and of course with children and their smaller bodies, that
(29:32):
becomes even you know, more imperative to name it and
stop it before it affects everything from bodily development to
mental development and behavioral problems. So once you began gathering
your data, what did you do next and how did
(29:52):
you make it public? We conducted the research really in
record pace, over a matter of weeks, which would have
taken kind of months if we had sleft, but obviously
that wasn't an option. Um that we had to figure
out what was going on, and what we found is
that the blood levels of children had increased after the
water switch, and that nothing was happening to the blood
(30:13):
the levels of children outside of the city of Flynt.
It was only happening within the Flint water limits. So
when we knew this research, we tried to get folks
to pay attention, but they didn't pay attention. So I
knew that the only way to get any change to
happen was to go public, and that's not something that
academics and researchers and doctors usually do. And this was
(30:35):
a form of academic disobedience. I think one of my
favorite accolades I've received was a disobedience award from the
Mighty for like not publishing this research and a pure
of view journal first. But any academic will tell you
that takes a long time. Um that can take months,
that can take years to get something finally published in
(30:55):
in an academic journal. And our kids did not have
another day we and not afore that time. So I
literally walked out of my clinic with my white coat on,
and I stood up at a press conference sharing this
research and demanding action. We're taking a quick break. Stay
with us. You know, when I heard about this, I
was so upset because during the course of you know,
(31:19):
my years of working on behalf of kids and families,
and then as a senator from New York, I knew
how dangerous your findings were and how immediately there had
to be a response. I remember, you know, going to
Flint and my Steen campaign before a lot of people
(31:42):
really understood the importance of what you were disclosing. And
I met a young boy named Jalen who had developed
side effects from the poison water. He was jumpy, couldn't concentrate,
he wasn't sleeping well. And that was exactly textbook because
(32:03):
if you look at places that have researched lead poisoning,
they demonstrate all of these side effects and consequences for
little kids. So you had a press conference, you basically
told the world this. But I remember the government of
your state, Michigan, tried to paint you and I quote
(32:24):
as an unfortunate researcher intent on causing near hysteria. Well
that's a mouthful. What was your reaction to that kind
of you know, character assassination. My science was denied, it
was disrespected. I was attacked as a scientist, as a
physician called you know, they said I was causing near
(32:46):
hysteria like you said, which is absolutely sexist as well.
So I felt tiny. I felt small. I began to
second guess myself. I'm like, oh my gosh, maybe I
am wrong. Maybe I should have just kept going about
my busy business as a pediatrician and mom and wife
and uh. And I also began to feel physically sick,
like my heart rate was close to two, my hands
(33:08):
were shaking, and I just could not believe um that
science and facts, like clear facts and prevention on public health,
we're being attacked on behalf of our children. Well, you know,
what you're describing is so resonant with me. Because you
didn't want to get it wrong. You believed you actually
got it right, and you go out there and you
(33:31):
make this presentation, and yes you are. You're attacked in
sexist terms, hysterias always used to diminish and undermine women.
You're attacked on your credentials, You're attacked on the research
that you had done. And of course you're gonna question yourself.
And because you know you're out there, you're vulnerable. You're literally,
(33:52):
you know, putting your life, your reputation, your profession on
the line. How did you find the courage to continue
in you, you know, standing up and speaking out, even
at the risk of jeopardizing your career. So it took
a quick realization that this had nothing to do with
me and nothing nothing, nothing to do with me. They
(34:17):
could go after me all they wanted, but this was
about my children, and my kids in flant like they
are no different than my biological children, Like when I'm
not at home, my children are like moms with our
six thousand siblings. This was about This was about my
kids and every single number in my research, and it
was like all these spreadsheets and exceled documents, every single
(34:39):
number was a child. And it was probably a child
that even seen in the last year, and I had
touched their heads, and I had held their hands, and
I had examined them, and I knew them and I
knew their faces. And it was as if those kids
jumped out of my spreadsheets and lifted me up and
gave me the courage to keep going. So they're the
ones that got me in the fight. It was this
(35:01):
constant grounding in my why and for me, And this
is a grounding that I do to this day, a
practice of like why do I wake up? Why did
I go to school forever? Why am I here? Why
am I doing this interview? Why am I? You know,
working like? It's the kids. It is the kids, the privileged,
the absolute privilege of serving these children. And they gave
me the courage to keep going. And we fought back
(35:23):
because we were right. We fall back with more numbers
and more evidence and more data. Well you know you
write in your book. So, along with a growing team
of doctors and scientists, I held a news conference to
release our findings in demand action. It was an unusual
thing for a local pediatrician to do, but that's what
you do. When nobody's listening, you get louder. Now, actually,
(35:46):
lots of people, especially women, are afraid to get louder.
You know, we're afraid that we're just going to get
even more attacked if we stick to our guns and
we increase the intensity and frankly the volume to try
to communicate and cut through all of the you know,
the static. I can't help but think mona about what's
(36:09):
happened with COVID, because the research is pretty clear countries
run by women have done better. And I honestly believe
it is connected to the ability to relate to the
people who are suffering. It's not abstract, it's not statistics,
it's not you know, numbers on a board somewhere. And
(36:31):
I think that is really at the heart of what
you did. I mean you you just refused to be silenced,
and that, to me is true leadership. And you slowly
began to get some allies who were those allies who
who finally came and said, wait a minute, I want
to hear what she has to say. And you know what,
I think she's right. Yeah, you know, I think so
(36:52):
many people think of the Flint story as a as
a failure of government and so many levels, and and
for me, it's it's an reaffirmation of what government candy
um and when you have a whole democracy, because the
Flint was also a story of what happens when you
take away democracy. We were under emergency management. Folks were
being listened to. There was unelected on accountable folks in charge.
(37:13):
But when you are able to engage your elected officials,
change can happen. And I think one of our greatest
allies was our U S. Senator Debbie Stabin. Now when
she finally kind of understood UM and one of our
other elected officials understood, she never stopped fighting for Flynn.
I mean she held up like the energy bill at
one point, and she continued to advocate to get resources
(37:34):
for our city. And for me, that was a reminder
of kind of a power of democracy when its whole,
when it's complete, when it's representative, UM, you actually have
people fighting for you. But there were so many allies.
We really kind of witnessed the generosity in the heart
of our nation. And we were getting like bottled water
deliveries from the U a W in Ohio and the
(37:56):
Ballroom Dance Club in ann Arbor and Girl Scouts in
Pennsylvan and it was it was so affirming and even
to this day when I have a chance to talk
about the story, you know, people do care. They have
empathy and and they can relate because you know, Flint
isn't is not this one off story of this crazy
thing that happened over there um. But it's also about
(38:17):
other stories that are happening in regards right now, right now,
public health issues and exactly disrespect of science issues and
democracy issues and public health, infrastructure issues and dismissing women issues.
So there's a resonance to the story, and people have
been allies. Oh I just love those stories. And I
(38:37):
want to ask you how you're feeling now? Are you
optimistic in the wake of the six hundred million dollars settlement?
Are you feeling that, you know, finally these wrongs are
being righted, even though there's no compensation that will ever
fully remedy what was done to the people and particularly
to the children. But you know, weird you think things
(39:00):
stand now? You know, people would ask me a lot
about like the investigations and the lawsuits and accountability and
you know, justice, and I would I would refuse to respond.
I'm like, I'm a doctor, I'm not a lawyer. Might
you know, ask the lawyers and the attorney general, like
my job is the kids. And then as I continued
to practice in Flynt and work closely with the folks
most closely impacted by this crisis, I began to realize
(39:23):
how central the concept of restorative justice is to healing
and to health. You can think of it like a
wound that won't close until you have some element of justice.
And there's all these ongoing traumas that just you know,
reopen it and it fails to close. So we have
(39:43):
to have some sort of justice to move forward. The
settlement on the civil cases is a wonderful first sits up,
It's it's not complete. Um. I've also realized that justice
is defined differently by by everybody. You can ask ten
people what was justice and you have ten different responses. Um.
A lot of also want to see the accountability, which
are the criminal cases, and those are still pending where
(40:04):
folks are held accountable for their actions. So I think
we're in the right direction. Recovery is long term. That's
a big part of my job is reminding folks that
this is, you know, a long term crisis that has
long terms to quel a and we need to make
sure that we put into place the resources um to
do this work in the long term. Well, that's a
wonderful way to sum up what you have done. And
(40:26):
I love the phrase restorative justice, and I will never
think of it again without thinking of it as a
wound that needs to be healed. Sometimes their bodily wounds,
sometimes their psychic wounds and spiritual wounds. But at a
time and our nation's history, and really the world's history,
where inequities growing, where impunity is growing, on accountability is growing,
(40:52):
we need to have leaders like you, Dr Mona, who say,
wait a minute, we have a higher calling. We are
better than this, and we need to try, insofar as possible,
to repair and restore what has been damaged and then
try to make it better. I'm so grateful to you,
and uh I can't wait to see what comes next
(41:15):
as you try to exercise restorative justice for the people
and children of Flint. Thank you, Thank you very much.
Dr Mona's memoir of the Flint crisis is called What
the Eyes Don't See, a story of crisis, resistance, and
hope in an American city. You know, I think it's
(41:37):
really important to lift up stories of gutsy women like
Gloria and Dr Mona, because we need that inspiration. We
also need, frankly, to be shown how we're going to
make a difference. There's so many problems and issues that
confront us, and there's opportunities everywhere for people to step
up and make a difference. We could all use some
(42:00):
of that inspiration right now. So I hope these women's
courage will inspire you and maybe let us know if
there's somebody in your life or somebody you admire that
you want us to talk to as the podcast goes on,
because we want to lift up the stories of gutsy women,
because we can all walk a little taller and be
(42:24):
braver in the pursuit of justice and fairness and equality
and truth. So please help us do that. You and
Me Both. Is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Julie Subran and Kathleen Russo, with help
from Kuma Aberdeen, Nikki E Tour, Oscar Flores, Brianna Johnson,
(42:46):
Nick Merrill, Lauren Peterson, Rob Russo and Lona valmro. Our
engineer is Zack McNeice. Original music is by Forest Gray
and a big thanks to Riverside fem just imagine we
needed a recording platform that could help us make a
podcast during a pandemic, and boy did they step up.
(43:10):
If you like you and me both, spread the word,
don't keep it to yourself. You can subscribe to you
and Me both on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there,
leave us a review. It's a great way to help
other people discover us, and we'd love to hear from you,
so send us your questions, your comments, your ideas or
(43:32):
suggestions for future shows about other Gutsy women to you
and Me both pod at gmail dot com. Come back
next week when I'll be talking about resilience with long
distance swimmer Diana and Naiad author Angela Duckworth and the
comedian who's been keeping us laughing this election season, Sarah Cooper.
(43:55):
Don't miss it.
Host
Hillary Clinton
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.