Posted on 06/04/2017 2:46:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It seems like as a minority millennial we have our plates so full of daily politics digesting it all is almost impossible. Despite the mountain of legislative missteps that have angered many African Americans our resolve is ancestral and ceaseless. The recent withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement is beyond alarming. As a woman of color living in a post-industrial city, I know all too well the degradation that unchecked industry imparts on living systems; both nature and people. Brown bodies breathe and ingest industrial toxins and pollutants, our food grows adjacent landfills and manufacturing plants all the while living in generational poverty.
What is evident is that the African American position regarding the environment is almost non-existent. When it comes to the state of Blacks and the Environment, there are bits and pieces of our struggle, some solutions to those struggles but little solidarity across the nation.
Have we learned nothing from the 1995 heat wave, Hurricane Katrina, the Flint water crisis and East Chicago, Indiana contamination. At all levels, we are frontline communities advocating for multiple issues in a system that is designed to subsidize sustainability with our poverty. It is our responsibility to lean upon our experts local and international studying the impacts of climate change on our Black communities and our Black bodies because the research is scarce and incomplete.
It is our responsibility to educate our legislators that it is not ok to allow factories to be placed in our communities where urban agriculture is seeding economic growth and land ethic for the revitalization of our neighborhoods.
This is an all call to institutions of higher learning, a call to our spiritual organizations, a call to our social organizations, a call to our media, a call to our health professionals, educators, minority legislators and allies that environmental conversations can no longer be issue based. Basically, we can’t solely wait until a catastrophe occurs to educate and place on our agenda and we can’t afford to not be intersectional.
We must see the connections between lead laced water and criminality and violence in efforts to address both issues. We must address the inequities of the burden of climate change and use the resources that are available to us to educate ourselves and the greater community. Many cities have adopted climate change plans, Chicago has the Chicago Climate Action Plan with accessible information on what the city is doing to hold itself and businesses responsible for a healthier environment. The national NAACP has been stellar at implementing their Environmental and Climate Justice Program which was “created to support community leadership in addressing this as a human and civil rights issue”.
Make no mistake millennial peers, we have our work cut out for us. Our energy towards addressing environmental issues must go beyond earth month and it is time that we develop a strategy for sustaining ourselves under the current administration and standing firm on what we see as a threat to our wellbeing and livelihoods.
Mila K. Marshall is a PhD candidate in Ecology at University of Illinois Chicago. She also serves as the Director of Network Resilience for the the UIC Freshwater Lab and has been integral in advancing the conversation of healthy urban systems for addressing legacy issues of environmental injustice towards African Americans.
Notice how not a word mentioned ‘jobs’.
Yes, the Paris Agreement would have prevented the Flint Water Disaster.
Liberals are fond of conflating numerous unrelated issues to attempt to prove their idiotic theories.
Urban Utopia Rat’s fault.
Idiocy enshrined. she is filled with the muck of Marxism and is incapable of rational thought. Racist, collectivist, statist, feminist, et al. This is a lost soul wandering the halls of academia searching for a truth she cannot find.
Listen, Aunt Jemima, pulling out of the Paris treaty will have minimal to zero negative impact on the environment, but might save some jobs in your community.
Earth warms up — women and minorities hit hardest.
It’s kind mind challenged to read and understand blacks’ logic
[ Listen, Aunt Jemima, pulling out of the Paris treaty will have minimal to zero negative impact on the environment, but might save some jobs in your community. ]
More jobs in America means MORE FREEDOM for the people living in flint to MOVE AWAY FROM THE LIBERAL INFESTED HELL HOLE OF UTOPIAN SOCIALISM DEMOCRAT NEST!
Yeah, paying the EU and UN is gonna help the resident of Flint...... SURE, keep dreaming...
” .... issues of environmental injustice towards African Americans. “
—
Just more victimhood.
END OF THE WORLD TOMORROW!
Women and minorities hardest hit...!
Tell everyone who objects to the Trump withdrawal that there is nothing that says we can’t stop pollution WITHOUT this stupid money and power grab Paris climate deal.
The vast majority of blacks living in the utopia of Africa and Haiti would love to trade their place and come live in America with all its industrial toxins and pollutants.
So much for her argument about environmental injustice.
She looks dumb.
It’s so beyond the normal rules of logic, so utterly silly and crazy I just had to read it to see how anybody could actually come to such a blatantly bizarre conclusion. It boggles my mind just attempting to actually apply any reasons to her arguments!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.