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Length
3:43
Sufjan Stevens on 'Flint (For the unemployed and Underpaid)' :
For many years our family was affected by a procession of economic burdens: we lived in our grandfather’s summer home without heat or insulation, bats lived in the walls, our father worked at the state park (later, doing construction, later, at Wal-Mart), there were six children, three grandchildren, a parade of pets and animals, mouths to feed. Our parents did the best they could with very little income and a few rolls of duct tape.
In the winter, the windows were sealed with plastic, the house was lined with wet wood, the upstairs nailed off with sheets and plywood. Sometimes we slept in one room (after the chimney fire). Sometimes one of us slept in the hall (there was much fighting and bickering then). Sometimes we boiled water for baths. Sometimes we shared bath water. I was the youngest (besides Colin, who was the baby); I bathed last, in lukewarm water as muddy as Miso soup. But we always had food. My father did the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the shopping. Our mother did the thinking. Our parents were an industrious pair, at the very least. They managed things through trial and error.
One week we were washing dishes at the co-op. The next week we were in Al-Anon. One week we were eating Macrobiotic. The next week we were given food allowances: we would devise eating lists and do the shopping on our own. Years later, our parents put a lock on the refrigerator. “You eat too much,” our father said. “All of you are like one big empty stomach.” I cannot imagine the burden we put on our parents. We were always hungry, we were always cold. There was very little money; there was so much work to do.
We never lived in Flint, but we had the capacity to empathize with its economic slump. The industrial scapegoat for the entire state, Flint has not grown old with fortunate grandchildren.
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