Flint's best hope for justice? The streets | Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

The Flint water crisis hearings were an exercise in blame, but there was little solace for those poisoned by lead

If there is to be justice for the people of Flint, it will not be found inside the halls of Congress. It will come from where it always does: the street. In Thursday's hearings on the poisonings, residents sat in the audience of the hearing room looking to their coiffed representatives for answers, for redress of grievous harm. Amid all the decorum they did not see that they have more courage - and integrity - than those whose help they sought.

A seasoned ear may have heard the nuance, the faint drift among the many accusations leveled during the recent hearings. For the EPA, it was the state. For Michigan, it was the stark budget. For the former mayor, it was the emergency manager. For the Republicans it was President Obama's EPA. For the Democrats, it was the Republican governor, his omnipotent managers. For all of them it was the cameras. It was the Colosseum. And for the residents of Flint, it was the Ides of March - the community got it in the back.