Let's Hold This Space Of Dissonance
by Marquita Bradshaw,
Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club Environmental Justice Chair
I was invited to write this by Mac Post, the Tennessee Chapter Sierra Club Chair. I’m so used to people trying to limit my voice that I will not limit my words. I will take all the space needed to walk you through the grief and disappointment I feel right now around national events.
My childhood South Memphis community is within walking distance of a National Priority List Superfund Site. The pollution contaminates the air, soil, surface water, groundwater, and aquifers still today. The chemicals are mutagenic in the decommissioned military landfill. The chemicals in the landfill are very effective in inducing sickness and killing of plants and people. In the landfill somewhere on the 640 acres are weaponized viruses, chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and munitions. I’m speaking from having personal experiences of systemic racism and working through holding grief for my life that black people experience law enforcement, the criminal justice system, the medical system, the economy, the educational system, employment, and the political system differently. I have organized around police accountability and seeking justice in environmental laws at the same time.As a black woman, I can’t afford to be sick and don’t have time to be tired because lives are at stake.
It was racism that was the underlying culprit that caused the death of Mr. George Floyd, and it was racism that caused my community to experience higher than national average sickness and death rates. There are many names in every community across our nation that didn’t get the national attention as Mr. Floyd when it comes to extrajudicial killings by law enforcement. His death is driving the conversation on how we will emerge from the pandemic of COVID-19 and the pandemic of racism. We are in this space of dissonance together. This is the crossroad on whether we pivot to do the work to eradicate racism or allow it to continue to feed the hypocrisy of reprobate leadership that hides behind inaction. Can you imagine listing all of the names of people who are sick and dying from the polluted environment that the public will never know? What if we list all people experiencing economic injustice of poverty in a wealthy nation? Would we have space to list all of the people who have died because of no healthcare from medical racism? Try to imagine if we list all of the black names that are sick or have died prematurely from injustice over the last 400 years.
Understand that calling for unity without addressing racism will be a band-aid on a wound that needs 400 years of stitches in the American fabric. No more band-aid fixes. I’m asking you to hold this space of dissonance of publicly demonstrating so we can get justice for all. Understanding that making policies in our republic to address racism is an investment in moving to have justice in police accountability, the criminal justice system, the health care system, the environment, the green new infrastructure, and the economic system.
Making policies can happen overnight, which will start to correct the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior over time to rid ourselves of racism. Hold all of our elected leaders accountable no matter the party. Demonstrate until they do their job of leading. It will take work to make our republic a true democracy by enforcing the policies to rid out systematic racism. The only way to climate justice is to rid ourselves of racism in the fabric of America. We will know when all lives matter when black lives matter too.
Contact Marquita at envirodivamarquita@gmail.com