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The Story Collider

Resistance: Stories about fighting oppression

The Story Collider

Story Collider, Inc.

Performing Arts, Society & Culture, Arts, Personal Journals, Science

4.4824 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2017

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Part 1: Environmental engineer Siddhartha Roy is baffled when the state of Michigan insists the water in Flint is safe to drink despite his scientific evidence. Part 2: Sociologist Ada Cheng learns a surprising lesson about resistance while studying human rights violations in Hong Kong. Siddhartha Roy is an Environmental Engineer and PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. He works with Dr. Marc Edwards researching corrosion failures in potable water infrastructure. Sid also serves as the student leader and communications director for the Virginia Tech “Flint Water Study” research team that helped uncover the Flint Water Crisis. Ada Cheng is a professor-turned storyteller, improviser, and stand-up comic. She was a tenured professor in sociology at DePaul University for 15 years. She resigned from her position to pursue theater and performance full time in 2016. She is a one-time Moth storyslam winner, a presenter at the National Storytelling Conference, and a runner-up at Chicago’s Bughouse Square Debates. She has been featured at storytelling shows in Chicago and Atlanta. She has also told stories at The Moth in Chicago, New York, Denver, and Detroit. Her book, Standing Up: From Renegade Professor to Middle-Aged Comic, published in December 2016 by Difference Press, aims at encouraging people, particularly mid-lifers, to embrace fear about uncertainty and to pursue their passion and dream. Her motto: Make your life the best story you tell. Check out her website www.renegadeadacheng.com for more information.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

A science story, huh?

0:04.8

Is NYU a scientist the...

0:06.6

I felt...

0:07.4

I felt...

0:07.4

I was so...

0:09.0

And I just thought, well...

0:09.6

I figured it out.

0:10.5

It was that golden moment.

0:12.8

Because science was on my side.

0:26.6

Hi, everyone. I'm Ben Lilly, and welcome to the Story Glider, where we bring you true personal stories about science.

0:35.9

This week will bring you two stories about the resistance, from a scientist involved in uncovering the Flint water crisis to a sociologist who finds resistance in an unexpected place.

0:39.0

Our first story this week is from Siddhartha Roy,

0:44.0

who was recorded in February 2017 at the Oberon Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

0:46.6

The theme was light and dark.

0:53.2

So I was really, really angry, livid, in fact.

0:56.7

How could the state of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, MDEQ, insist that the water in Flint, Michigan was safe to drink? What kind of data did they have?

1:05.3

Because our scientific evidence showed there was a clear problem. Come to think of it, where was the EPA? It had been a year

1:14.5

since Flint switched its water source to the Flint River, and they were not treating the water

1:20.0

as per federal law. Consequently, their water had turned orange. It smelled like sewage. There were bacteria problems.

1:29.2

People were complaining of skin rashes and other health problems.

1:33.4

And then there was lead.

1:35.5

Lead is a neurotoxin with no biological function in the body.

...

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