environmental racism
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Extreme Heat, Flooding and Public Health Issues: How Climate Change Is an Existential Threat to Black People
We should all be pretty familiar with the term “climate change” by now. But knowing buzzwords isn’t the same as understanding how the phenomenon affects black people on a global scale in more severe ways than other groups. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Political instability in sub-Saharan Africa. Heatwaves in Chicago. What do these…
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Harriet A. Washington's A Terrible Thing to Waste Injects a Dose of Hard Truth Into the Conversation About Black Lives
Harriet Washington’s 2007 tome, Medical Apartheid, not only outlined the pervasive use of medical experimentation on black Americans throughout history but circumscribed blacks’ credible distrust of the medical establishment. In fact, a large part of why J. Marion Sims’ statue was removed from New York’s Central Park more than a decade later was because of…
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How Ilhan Omar's Daughter Isra Hirsi Is Connecting the Fight Against Climate Change to Black Lives
Teen activists from Johannesburg to Los Angeles are striking today to demand the world take action on climate change. Among the organizers is Isra Hirsi, co-founder of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike and daughter of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. As Vice writes in a recent profile of the 16-year-old organizer, Isra helped launch the U.S.…
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Rihanna Says You’d Be a Fool to Ignore Climate Change
Our world is changing. Weather consistency is a thing of the past and we are clearly dealing with the repercussions of climate change. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, and it’s not looking too good for mother earth. Your country’s current “leadership” scoffs at the idea that climate change is crippling our planet and…
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The Children of Philadelphia Have Been Attending Toxic Schools for Years. This Is a National Crisis
The children of Philadelphia are in dire need of our help. They are at the mercy of a man-made, ticking time bomb that is nearly inescapable. I’m talking about toxic schools. Conditions in Philadelphia schools have needed a remedy for many years. Lead, asbestos, mold and other toxins are far too common in our aging…
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Oglala Sioux Tribe Tells South Dakota Governor ‘You Are Not Welcome’ in Dispute Over Right to Protest Keystone Pipeline
The Oglala Sioux Tribe has yanked the welcome mat right out from under South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s feet, basically telling her to stay off their lawn. In a letter to the Republican governor Thursday, Julian Bear Runner, president of the indigenous nation, told Noem she was no longer welcome on one of the largest…
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'A Gumbo of Unhealthiness': A New Report Reveals How Air Pollution Disproportionately Affects Black Americans
It’s been well documented that while climate change affects everyone, its impact is not evenly shared. In the U.S., black and Latinx communities have been disproportionately hit by environmental disasters like storms and flooding; and a number of recent reports have found even the air they breathe isn’t safe. A new report by the American…
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On Earth Day, Our Fight for Environmental Justice and Against the Trump EPA’s Toxic Agenda Continues
The Trump administration and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler have failed African-American communities. Earth Day is the ideal time to renew our commitment to ensure everyone has equal access to clean air and safe environments regardless of which zip code they live in. It is also a time to remember our history is rooted…
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Study Finds White Americans Primarily Cause Air Pollution, But Black People and Latinx Are the Ones Who Breathe It
America’s racial gap colors every aspect of its landscape: the places we live, the water we drink, and, as a new study shows, the very air we breathe. According to research published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), black people and non-white Hispanics disproportionately breathe air polluted by non-Hispanic…
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For Decades, a Predominantly Black and Latinx Indiana Town Suffered from Toxic Contamination. Mike Pence Looked the Other Way
While many are still speculating about whether it was Vice President Mike Pence who wrote an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times about the “resistance” in the White House, it’s worth remembering who Pence really is—a man who has a pattern of neglecting the lives, issues and well-being of people of color. A new…