This month’s Equity Resource recommendation comes from Tangletown resident, current Equity and Environmental committee member, and former Tangletown Neighborhood Association president Pat Collins:
“Last fall, several Southwest Minneapolis neighbors took an Environmental Justice Bus Tour hosted by a Minneapolis grassroots organization, Community Members for Environmental Justice (CMEJ). Unable to go on the tour, I was still intrigued to learn how a community organization can achieve power and impact in the face of environmental crises.
Racism, capitalism, colonialism, and displacement have caused some lives to be much more vulnerable to toxic exposure and climate disasters than others. Environmental Justice focuses on how people in these communities expose the injustice and fight back. In my search for more inspiration, I was led to the Broken Ground, an environmental justice podcast. It is an award-winning podcast by the Southern Environmental Law Center that investigates and presents the stories of people confronted by environmental threats in the rural and small-town South.
The Broken Ground podcast does exhaustive investigation and allows the voices of people significantly affected by climate change to speak out on polluting companies, toxic fish in waterways and lakes, strip mining, and many other environmental hazards from which they suffer the costs. The podcast is also hopeful, telling how these people band together and strengthen like a gathering storm. Of the most recent season, Erin Malec, SELC’s Director of Communications, says, “… no one should underestimate the power of tightly knit communities.” These are inspiring words for our Tangletown community as well. It’s well worth the listen.”