Race and racism

We now have a new report authored jointly by Greenpeace, the Movement for Black Lives, and the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy that brings climate and race issues together in a new way and coins the term, “Fossil Fuel Racism.” They found that coal, oil, and gas, at every stage of their lifecycles–extraction, processing, transport, and combustion–generate toxic air and water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. At each stage they create public health hazards. At each stage they worsen the climate crisis. Both their public health effects and the effects of climate change fall disproportionately on Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and poor communities.

Here are some assorted thoughts — from the Presidential election to the Senate runoff elections in Georgia to the insurrection at the Capitol and beyond.

United front
In my mind the biggest story of the last few months is that so many people and groups came together around getting Trump out of the White House and taking back the Senate and we were successful! We formed a “united front” — people who disagreed with each other about many things, worked together and supported each other in a common goal. A united front may be more difficult to achieve on other issues, but it will be necessary in the future and it is possible.

I’ve started reading Ibram X. Kendi’s book, “How to Be an Antiracist.” For Kendi, there’s no such thing as “non-racist.” If an idea or policy creates racial inequities or allows them to continue, then it is racist. If an idea or policy produces or sustains greater equity between racial groups then it is antiracist.

Kendi has found that antiracist and racist ideas can exist simultaneously in the mind of any person — White, Black, or any other race, including himself. In his words: “The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what—not who—we are.”