Posts Tagged: class
Flint, Michigan: Why Environmental Justice is Reproductive Justice
Michigan has made national news a good bit lately for the water crisis in Flint. For those that are unaware of what is going on, or who haven’t heard much about it, I’ll give a bit of background. In April of 2013, a money-saving decision was made by the state-level officials that Flint residents would no longer receive their water from Detroit, but from a pipeline from Lake Huron. This pipeline would not be completed for a few years, but Detroit cut them off from receiving water a year later. Until the pipeline is complete, the residents have to drink water from the Flint River. Here’s where the situation starts to fall apart. Residents began complaining about the water within a month. Two boil advisories were listed over the course… Read more »
Sometimes I’m not a feminist
When Beyoncé ended her performance at last month’s Video Music Awards last month with her song “***Flawless” and the giant screen flashing the key phrase from Chimamanda Adiche’s TED Talk, book-ended with the word “feminist” in giant capitalized letters, I teared up a little. There was a moment of surrealism when I felt validated and affirmed in some of the most fundamental of ways. There’s power in a black woman, one who has found power and fulfillment in her life’s work as much as she has in her family, claiming feminism. There’s power when a black woman, who is vulnerable and complicated and has forced the world to acknowledge those things about herself, claims the title of “feminist” for herself and dares the world to disagree, to take it away… Read more »
