I’m just referring you to one article this week, with several voices included on the topics at hand: racial, climate, and health injustices.

The article was published on Grist in June: Why racial justice is climate justice: The worst disasters are never colorblind, by Claire Elise Thompson.

She states the premise I’ve been posting for months:

We now know that coronavirus — much like police brutality, mass incarceration, and climate change — is not colorblind. It’s not that the virus itself differentiates by race, but, as with other crises, the factors that make communities of color more susceptible to it are shaped by the United States’ long history of discriminatory policies and practices.

Claire Elise Thompson

Then she introduces five environmental justice leaders, who give their takes on the intertwined problems. I’ll just quote one:

Racism is the sickness this country has never bothered to cure. The injustice, civil unrest, and oppressive use of force we witnessed last weekend clearly shows us that we have a deep need for racial justice. Whether it is a global pandemic, climate change, or policy brutality, people of color — particularly black communities — are always the first and worst hit, and it must end.

Alvaro S. Sanchez: Environmental equity director at The Greenlining Institute, Oakland

I couldn’t say it nearly as well.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about beating a drum to get attention.

MA