Climate Change, Racial Oppression & COVID-19 Essay

Running head: CLIMATE CHANGE, RACIAL OPPRESSION & COVID-191
Climate Change, Racial Oppression & COVID-19
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CLIMATE CHANGE, RACIAL OPPRESSION & COVID-19

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Climate Change, Racial Oppression & COVID-19 I. Question One: Climate Change & Racial Oppression
Globally, climate change has come front and center of policy debates. Governments, policy makers, companies, activists and communities are putting climate change under increasing scrutiny. The challenges of rising seal levels, eroded shorelines, declining air and water quality and wild life extinction are all now common knowledge. More, economic practices are subject to further scrutiny as major causes to current climate change catastrophes. Underlying most, if not all, political and economic debates is, however, racial oppression. That is, whilst all current debates are most focused on symptoms, matter of fact is racial oppression is a root cause giving rise to most, if not all, present climate change challenges. Take oil industry.
For long decades, oil has become a watchword for environmental risk. The drilling and extraction practices by major oil producers, coupled by extensive political and economic interests, have gone to extreme lengths to sideline specific social and racial segments for political and economic gains. Specifically, drilling and refining facilities are primarily located in areas historically marginalized racial minorities including, basically, African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. Initially redlined, such minorities are doomed to housing areas at best major health hazards. To serve interests of specific (primarily white) social and/or racial segments, oil companies, supported by extensive (white) political and economic networks and lobbies, have normalized housing permits and arrangements for marginalized communities in ways making climate change a price such communities pay. Put succinctly,
Failing to understand the brutal logic by which the fossil fuel industry has operated —“progress” at any price, and keep the pain and suffering out of view of those with
CLIMATE CHANGE, RACIAL OPPRESSION & COVID-19

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power who might be troubled by it—profoundly limits our ability to deal with global warming for many reasons, perhaps most of all because we fail to see how willing they’ve been to sacrifice people. Why would it be different now? It isn’t—to see that, we only need to look at fights like the one over the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was rerouted so that it didn’t endanger the water supply of Bismarck, and did endanger the water supply of the Standing Rock Reservation. (Bengtsson, 2019)
The connection between climate change and racial oppression is, accordingly, structural. Unless current structural issues are remedied, only racially oppressed minorities will continue to pay a hefty price for policies driven by interests informed by predominantly white supremacy.
II. Question Two: COVID-19 Takeaways
The current COVID-19 crisis has, put bluntly, exposed us all. In many ways, flaws in our society, long swept under our carpet of intentional apathy, are now visible for all to see. Like e...