'Little Miss Flint' Charms a Visit from President Obama

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FLINT, MI – After her letter charmed President Barack Obama into visiting Flint Wednesday, Little Miss Flint” Amariyanna “Mari” Copney, 8, is excited about the opportunity to speak for those most vulnerable in the Flint water crisis: young children with still developing brains for whom exposure to lead can be a life sentence.

Mainly, she just wants to say this:

“I just want clean water.”

Her simply stated message transcends the politics, criminal charges and the finger-pointing and blame-fixing and shifts attention back to the unknown problems a generation of children could face in the future.

Because Mari drank and bathed in the tainted water — before her mother, Lulu Brezzell, retrained her children not to turn on the taps — she’s statistically at risk for a host of laregely irreversible problems, including learning disabilities, reduced IQ, behavioral changes, antisocial behavior, anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity, and other neurological and behavioral problems.

See Also

• Child’s Email Spurs President Obama to Visit Flint
• Snyder Calls for Visit with Obama in Flint
• Flint Water Crisis Criminal Charges ‘First Wave’
• Flint Water Crisis Whistleblowers ‘TIME 100’ Honorees
• Nation's Toughest Lead Water Rules Proposed in Michigan
• Legionnaires Death Toll Now 12 in Flint Area: Report
• Watch: Congress Eviscerates Rick Snyder Over Flint Water Crisis

Almost immediately after Flint’s public drinking supply was switched to the Flint River from Lake Huron in 2014, the proportion of kids with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled, according to a pediatrician’s study that some state officials tried unsuccessfully to debunk before finally accepting it last fall.

Mari’s and her siblings’ blood tests recently came back negative for lead, but the family hasn’t used tap water for months, so the results aren’t overly reassuring to moms like Brezzell.

“I am worried about what the effect is going to be in the long run,” Brezzell told Patch. “In the short term, wish we could take a bath without getting rashes. I’d like to be able to cook dinner without having to open a bunch of water.”

For Mari, it’s a lot simpler.

“It sucks,” she said.

Mari’s activism began after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Flint in January.

“She asked what we could do to help,” Brezzell said, explaining that she eased Mari, always a community minded child, into protest rallies and marches. Her siblings, a 5-year-old brother and 3-year-old sister, attended rallies as well.

“It was very well received, and they had some very positive experiences,” Brezzell said. “I think people are more receptive to children than they are to adults, especially when you have a kid as friendly and loveable as Mari is.

“I’m so proud of her. She is learning she can change the world, and that’s something I always tell her.”

Mari has marched in rallies, helped with ongoing efforts to distribute the millions of bottles of water that have flowed into Flint in the months since the lead poison scandal became national news, and appeared in a video where she broke down the facts of the crisis.

Mari may have the spotlight after asking in her letter if she could stop by the White House while she was in town to hear Snyder’s testimony in congressional hearings on the crisis, but she’s not the only young person speaking out.

“There are tons of kids on the front lines and trying to talk out,” Brezzell said. “They’re all fighting for the same things, and they’re all pretty good friends.”

It’s unclear exactly when Mari and the president will meet during his visit to Flint to “make sure people like you and your family are receiving the help you need and deserve,” the president wrote in his letter to Mari. While in Flint, Obama will meet with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, a meeting Snyder asked to join “so we can talk about how we can work in a bipartisan fashion to support Flint.”

What would Little Miss Flint want to ask the president?

“I want to know how much more I can do to help.”

The attention is little overwhelming — her interview with Patch early Friday afternoon was her fifth so far that day, and there were more to come — but the experience has left Mari with a heady feeling.

Getting to meet the president is “a little scary” but mostly “exciting,” the confident 8-year-old said. “It makes me feel like I could change the world.”

There’s one other thing Mari wants to say to Obama: “Don’t forget Flint.”

That’s a big worry for Brezzell, that once political gain has been wrung out of the Flint water crisis, the urgency to fix the infrastructure will wane.

“The same thing happened with the debate,” Brezzell said of the Democratic debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Flint in March. “The debate was over, and everybody left. Nothing has changed. Only will it change when we get the water for free.

“I think everybody needs to stop fighting,” she said. “Stop the finger-pointing and start fixing the problems at hand.”

Image and video credit: Lulu Brezzell, via Facebook, used with permission.