Environmental Justice & Racial Justice
- Sydney
- Jul 8, 2020
- 4 min read
Everything in the world is connected. Some things we think have nothing to do with each other, are actually intertwined in the need for change. Today I’m going to bring to your attention the connections between stopping climate change and stopping racism.
The climate movement and Black Lives Matter movement (which I will be calling BLM from here on) are both taking storm in recent years. Let me provide some simple definitions of these movements:
The Climate Change Movement: The movement that is working towards preserving our planet by limiting dangerous things and bringing awareness to the mess created by society.
Fighting and protesting for a sustainable and ethical future.
The BLM Movement: The movement that is working towards an equal future. Fighting and protesting for equal treatment regardless of skin type, to get rid of systematic racism, and striving to end police brutality against all people (but right now specifically BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color). It is called the BLM movement not because they want to be put above all other races, but because they are currently being oppressed. Think of it this way; your fridge is broken, so you have your fridge fixed/replaced. You don’t fix/replace the whole kitchen just because the fridge is broken, you focus on the fridge because it needs help. BLM is not an anti-every-other-skin-color movement.
And a couple more terms that I use throughout the article:
Minority: a group of people who are not in the majority. I use this term mostly in reference to people who are not white, are disabled, poor, or anything similar. Not everyone in a minority is the same, so just because you know a rich black person doesn't mean that every black person is, and just because some black people are poor doesn't mean every black person is poor. Stereotypes are often put on these groups. Think of it like how there are poor white people, but when you meet another white person you don't automatically assume they are poor.
White Privilege: White privilege does not mean your life hasn't been hard. It means that the color of your skin has not made it harder.
Now that we know what the goals of these movements are, lets start looking into the long connected history of climate change and racism.
Starting way back in the times of colonization, when America was independent, and many people owned slaves. Slaves were treated as less than human, and were used as a way for people to strip the lands of their natural resources. With colonizing there came tearing down of native lands and misuse of nature, all done by (most often black) slaves to profit the (most often white) slave owners. They not only thought that black people were not equal with white people, they thought the same of the Native Americans, forcing them out of their sacred lands that they had been living on for years. Indigenous lands were taken not for expansion, but to mine for gold and other resources. Racism and mistreatment of the climate are both a large part of history.
Now, in modern times, everyone has equal rights, right? Legally yes. But that says nothing to the unfair treatment that minorities face in our society every day. Simple everyday tasks for us like going to the doctor, getting pulled over, going to work, etc, are scary for people who are not in the majority. White privilege plays into your every day life, in ways you can and can't control. Climate Change will affect you, but it wont affect you as much as it will affect minorities.
When you walk outside your house, can you trust that the air you are breathing is safe? This isn't the case for everyone.
Race is the number one indicator when placing plastic producing facilities in the USA. These facilities release the most toxic chemicals that are produced, into the air. These chemicals are proven to cause cancer, death, damage to the nervous system, birth defects, and more. Since these facilities are mostly placed near minority communities, they are unfairly impacted by them more than majority communities. These people are not always fairly treated for these issues due to their skin color.
Its not just these plastic facilities that tie our climate issue into our racism issue. Communities that are more harshly impacted by pollution, Covid-19, and other things, are also more impacted by natural disasters. Take into account times that harsh hurricanes have hit places like Haiti, where most people don't have proper hurricane shelters. It is a similar case for these communities. Global Warming increases the intensity of hurricanes and other natural disasters. This means that minority communities without proper shelters will be hit harder and more often than they are now, leaving many people homeless, in poverty, and going hungry. Natural disasters already take long to recover from, even with financial help from outside sources, imagine how these already struggling communities will struggle even more to get back up and running.
It also harder for these communities to have access to sustainable options, and climate education. Many people can easily buy a metal straw to make the switch. Majorities like myself have stores that supply sustainable options that are near us. And even if minorities have access to those options, they don't always have an affordable way to use them and make the switch. Sustainability can be an investment that pays off over time, but its not one that everyone can make.
These issues are intertwined in each other. We can't solve one without solving the other. We can't have climate justice until we have racial justice.
Be part of the solution, not the problem.
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Here is a list of all the sources I used while gathering information on this topic. I put a lot of time and effort into making sure this was put together in an appropriate way. If anything in this article is offensive or incorrect, please let me know so I can change it. Also, if you have more resources that might be useful to others, please reach out so I can add them to this list. Thanks!
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