Tuesday Thread: Black lives matter

This week, my city is hurting again. The murder of Daunte Wright, like the murder of George Floyd just a few miles away, like the murder of Philando Castile five years ago, like the murder of the Dakota people in a concentration camp just across the river from my house 150 years ago, is a pattern of violence that diminishes all of us.

We live with this trauma, but it is not inevitable.

Institutional, systemic racism kills Black people. It kills Indigenous people. It has been killing people for centuries. It is the root of the climate emergency just as much as fossil fuels.

The answer to these intertwined existential problems is anti-racism.

When we say “abolish the police” it’s for exactly the same reasons that we want to abolish fossil fuels. There is no good that can come from a system that’s built on inequality and exploitation.

We can build a world together where the lives of marginalized and exploited people matter.

What are ways that you’ve noticed racism and the climate emergency are related? What are specific anti-racist actions you’ve taken that make your climate activism stronger?