Living Literature: What the Eyes Don't See

Living Literature 

READING ACROSS RHODE ISLAND 2019 – LIVING LITERATURE PERFORMANCE

Living Literature is proud to present a 60 minute readers theatre of the Reading Across Rhode Island selection for 2019, What the Eyes Don’t See by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. Engaging discussions of the book follow the performances, which benefit both those who have read the book and those who have not had the opportunity.

The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities is a proud Prime Sponsor of the 2019 Reading Across Rhode Island season of the RI Center for the Book. This year’s selection, What the Eyes Don’t See by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha sparks vital conversations about the importance of being an engaged citizen to hold democracy accountable to timely issues of environmental and racial justice.

In late 2015, Michigan state officials admitted the drinking water in Flint was poisoned by lead. The city's move to switch the water supply to the Flint River was corroding pipes and leaching lead into the drinking water. And the public may never have known about any of it if not for the work of one local doctor. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician and researcher at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint. And over the course of several sleepless weeks, she went from knowing nothing about the city's water supply to becoming a whistleblower who scientifically proved that Flint's kids were being exposed to lead. She tells her side of the Flint story in a new book, "What The Eyes Don't See." And I wanted to know more about what that title means.

MONA HANNA-ATTISHA: We literally cannot see lead in water. It's odorless. And it's tasteless. It's clear. We also don't see the consequences for years, if not decades, later. But this book is also beyond Flint. It's about the people, the places and the problems that we choose not to see. Flint was a forgotten city, neglected really for decades. But ultimately, this title is about the ability for all of us to see the problems that are right in front of us and to make a difference in our communities.