Weekly Ingest: Newsletter
Each week I will curate a newsletter for all my listeners that is comprised of article that are of interest to the topics I talk about the podcast. This newsletter also brings national and international news about sustainability and climate change they may often get over looked, forgotten about, or is unheard of to the community I serve.
Black Lives Matter Resources
Clockwise, from top left: Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, Michelle Alexander, Margaret Mitchell, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Thomas Jefferson. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Stowe); Associated Press (Walker); Getty Images North America (Alexander); Atlanta History Center (Mitchell); Bettmann/Corbis/Associated Press Images (Burroughs); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Jefferson)
A History of Race and Racism in America, in 24 Chapters
From The New York Times, Ibram X. Kendi
Many Americans might not know the more polemical side of race writing in our history. The canon of African-American literature is well established. Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin are familiar figures. Far less so is Samuel Morton (champion of the obsolete theory of polygenesis) or Thomas Dixon (author of novels romanticizing Klan violence). It is tempting to think that the influence of those dusty polemics ebbed as the dust accumulated. But their legacy persists, freshly shaping much of our racial discourse.
On the occasion of Black History Month, I’ve selected the most influential books on race and the black experience published in the United States for each decade of the nation’s existence — a history of race through ideas, arranged chronologically on the shelf. (In many cases, I’ve added a complementary work, noted with an asterisk.) Each of these books was either published first in the United States or widely read by Americans. They inspired — and sometimes ended — the fiercest debates of their times: debates over slavery, segregation, mass incarceration. They offered racist explanations for inequities, and antiracist correctives. Some — the poems of Phillis Wheatley, the memoir of Frederick Douglass — stand literature’s test of time. Others have been roundly debunked by science, by data, by human experience. No list can ever be comprehensive, and “most influential” by no means signifies “best.” But I would argue that together, these works tell the history of anti-black racism in the United States as painfully, as eloquently, as disturbingly as words can. In many ways, they also tell its present.
Photo Credits: Peter Turnley
5 Of The Most Powerful Documentaries On Systemic Racism You Can Stream Right Now
From British Vogue, Haley Maitland
There’s a wealth of great anti-racist documentaries out there – including many that focus on racism within the UK. Take journalist Mona Chalabi’s brilliant undercover reporting in Is Britain Racist? and David Olusoga’s damning exposé, The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files. (As British Vogue’s editor-in-chief Edward Enninful points out: “Racism is a global issue. Racism is a British issue. It is not one that is merely confined to the United States – it is everywhere, and it is systemic.”) If, however, you’re looking for films that are readily available to stream, the below can all be watched on Netflix, Amazon, or YouTube right now – and, when seen together, provide a helpful framework for understanding the protests following the death of George Floyd, and the history of white supremacy in America.
Please note that many of the films listed below contain violent scenes that may be traumatic for members of the BAME community.
Chicagoans protest on 30 May over the death of George Floyd. Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP
Do the work: an anti-racist reading list
From The Guardian, Layla F Saad
What will happen after this news cycle is over and social media posts about diversity die down? Layla F Saad chooses books to fortify a long-term struggle
Every black person I know right now is exhausted. They are exhausted by the two pandemics disproportionately hurting and killing black people: Covid-19 and white supremacy. Covid-19 is a new sickness that hopefully we’ll soon find a cure for, or at least learn to live with. But white supremacy is a disease as old as time, for which we’ve been waiting generations to see a cure.
As we mourn and seek justice for the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop and Tony McDade (to name but a few), many black people such as myself are wondering: what will happen when the news cycle is over, the social justice memes are no longer posted, and the declarations for inclusivity, diversity and “doing the work” have died down? What happens when white people, momentarily awoken from the comfortable slumber of white privilege by this moment of unignorable protest, go back to sleep? How do we actually create an anti-racist world and rid ourselves of this sickness and system of white supremacy, when the people who benefit from it are not showing up to do the work?
After all, the disproportionate killing of black people at the hands of the police or civilians did not begin in 2020. When Trayvon Martin’s killer went free in 2013, and the Black Lives Matter founders tweeted the hashtag that would reverberate around the world, they were not just calling out the injustice of one case – but rather centuries of injustice of and dehumanisation of black people.
Ways You Can Help
When You’re Done: Educate Yourself. This Doesn’t Go Away Once The Topic Isn’t, “Trending.”
Climate and Racial Justice
Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images
Responding to protests, green groups reckon with a racist past
From Grist, Shannon Osaka
Already stressed by the threat of coronavirus and widespread unemployment, the United States has erupted into protests after the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by a Minneapolis police officer. Now, prominent groups in the environmental movement — which has long struggled with a dark, racist past — are speaking out against institutional prejudice and calling for the movement to better prioritize social justice.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Let’s Connect the Dots Between Environmental Injustice and the Coronavirus
From Mother Jones, Katherine Bagley
“There’s a link between race and class in this country.” This piece was originally published in Yale Environment 360 and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership.
While cities and towns across the United States are wrestling with the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, none have been hit harder than low-income and minority communities. Places like Detroit, Chicago, and St. James Parish in Louisiana, plagued by decades of economic inequality and pollution in impoverished neighborhoods, have experienced some of the country’s highest mortality rates from the virus. Recent studies have shown a link between high levels of pollution and an increased risk of death from COVID-19.
Photo Credit: Alexander Glustorm
Intimate Documentary Exposes Link Between Race and Environmental Injustice
From The Ritz Herald, Maxx Quinten
One Man Standing in the Way of a Petrochemical Plant Expansion Refuses to Give Up
Mossville, Louisiana is a shadow of its former self – a community rich in natural resources and history, founded by formerly enslaved people and free people of color, where neighbors lived in harmony and were insulated from the horrors of Jim Crow. Today, however, Mossville no longer resembles the town it once was. Surrounded by 14 petrochemical plants, Mossville is the future site of apartheid-born South African-based chemical company Sasol’s newest plant – proposed as a $21.2 billion project and the largest in the western hemisphere.
Environmental injustice in Detroit. Photograph: Nick Hagen/The Washington Post/Design by OneZero
The blackest city in the US is facing an environmental justice nightmare
From The Guardian, Drew Costley
Detroit’s most vulnerable residents face inequalities like toxic air, lead poisoning, and water shutoffs. Now they’re fighting back
Growing up in southwest Detroit, Vince Martin thought it was normal for the sky to be orange.When he was three years old, his family moved from Cuba to one of the black areas of town. At the time, discriminatory housing practices segregated the city. His Afro-Cuban family settled in the 48217 district, now Michigan’s most polluted zip code, where 71% of the population is black and air pollution makes the sky look like it’s on fire.
People march through San Francisco's Financial District during a climate protest on Sept. 20. (Eric Risberg/AP)
I’m a black climate expert. Racism derails our efforts to save the planet.
From the Washington Post, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Stopping climate change is hard enough, but racism only makes it harder
Here is an incomplete list of things I left unfinished last week because America’s boiling racism and militarization are deadly for black people: a policy memo to members of Congress on accelerating offshore wind energy development in U.S. waters; the introduction to my book on climate solutions; a presentation for a powerful corporation on how technology can advance ocean-climate solutions; a grant proposal to fund a network of women climate leaders; a fact check of a big-budget film script about ocean-climate themes, planting vegetables with my mother in our climate victory garden.
Photo by Nicole Baster
Racial Justice is Climate Justice: An Open-Sourced Library to Educate, Advocate, & Take Action
From The Green Program, Melissa Lee
We have two options: Make excuses or make progress. Which one do you choose?
No matter where we are in the world, The GREEN Program (TGP) stands in solidarity and support with Black Lives Matter and those who are mobilizing for the change to dismantle racism and injustice.
Silence is no longer an option. We say the names of George Flyod, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many lives that have been lost in the hands of injustice and racial violence.
The GREEN Program's mission is to advocate for a more sustainable world through the education and mobilization of the next generation of sustainability leaders. We recognize that it will never be possible to achieve a sustainable future without equality and justice for all. In 2015, a declaration was created by the United Nations to acknowledge that racial and ethnic discrimination will continue to function as structural and systemic barriers to sustainable development if they are not addressed. Global injustices are causing disadvantage and marginalization among people in all regions of the world.
Climate Change and COVID19
Michael Dantas/ AFP via Getty Images
Deforestation, oil spills, and coronavirus: Crises converge in the Amazon
From Grist, Rachel Ramirez
Brazil recently became the country with the second highest number of documented COVID-19 cases in the world, trailing only the United States. Though it still lags its North American neighbor in this raw total, Brazil’s daily number of reported deaths was roughly double that seen in the U.S. this week. The latest data show that the country has suffered roughly 400,000 confirmed cases and 25,000 deaths.
Grist / Yasin Ozturk / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Climate change threatens the economy. Here’s what regulators can do right now.
From Grist, Rachel Ramirez
Many of the economic risks of climate change are already crystal clear, and yet financial markets have yet to take them into account. That dangerous disconnect is the impetus behind a new report out on Monday from the sustainable finance nonprofit Ceres.
“U.S. financial regulators, who are responsible for protecting the stability and competitiveness of the U.S. economy, need to recognize and act on climate change as a systemic risk,” the report says. It calls on financial regulators across seven federal agencies as well as state agencies to do so, offering more than 50 recommendations that the authors believe are under the purview of regulators today, without the need for any additional legislation.
Locusts swarmed crops on a farm in Katitika, a village in Kenya, in January. Credit: Ben Curtis/Associated Press
What a Week’s Disasters Tell Us About Climate and the Pandemic
From The New York Times, Somini Sengupta
Extreme weather presents an even bigger threat when economies are crashing and ordinary people are stretched to their limits.
The hits came this week in rapid succession: A cyclone slammed into the Indian megacity of Kolkata, pounding rains breached two dams in the Midwestern United States, and on Thursday came warning that the Atlantic hurricane season could be severe.
Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images
Pennsylvania regulators promised to keep an eye on polluters during the pandemic. They’re struggling.
From Grist, Naveena Sadasivam
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in late March that it would substantially relax enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision was met with outrage. A coalition of nearly two dozen environmental justice, climate, and public interest groups even took the agency to court in response. With the EPA under fire, state officials across the country assured environmental advocates that their enforcement efforts would not let up, despite the fallout from the novel coronavirus.
But if preliminary data from Pennsylvania are any indication, state environmental agencies are likely falling well short of that promise.
“Staff are still working to protect Pennsylvania’s environment,” Patrick McDonnell, head of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), wrote in an April letter to concerned environmental groups. Sure, inspections — the kind that DEP employees conduct to make sure that fracking sites, mines, and refineries aren’t polluting the air and water — were happening less frequently. But McDonnell insisted that the most essential enforcement was as robust as ever. “We are still on the ground at the sites most susceptible to environmental impacts,” he wrote.
