Dear John,
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Help dismantle systemic racism: Donate today and we’ll regrant 100% of the funds to racial justice organizations.
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Trump just signed an executive order gutting long-standing environmental protections -- yet another attack on communities of color. Please donate now to organizations fighting for racial justice.
After decades of racist housing policies pushed Black communities right up against industrial polluters and hazardous waste sites, Black Americans disproportionately bear the burden of toxic air pollution -- and associated respiratory diseases. More and more studies are linking prolonged air pollution with increased susceptibility to the coronavirus, making clear why Black Americans are more than twice as likely as white Americans to get and die from the coronavirus.
In Minnesota, where police brutally murdered George Floyd, Black people make up 6 percent of the state’s population, but 30 percent of the state’s coronavirus cases. Already suffering at the hands of corporate polluters and the police, Black Americans will yet again disproportionately suffer from Trump’s rollback of bedrock environmental laws.
We’re fighting for justice together. Thanks to your support, we just raised over $7,000 for the Movement For Black Lives and The Bail Project. Let’s keep up the momentum and the donations.
Fight back against systemic racism: Donate $10 or more today, and Friends of the Earth will regrant 100% of your contribution to the Movement For Black Lives and The Bail Project.
If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
We’ve already been fighting against Trump’s EPA, led by former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler. He and Trump have been exploiting the pandemic to give polluters free reign to pollute vulnerable communities. But this latest executive order would gut our bedrock environmental laws, including the National Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
It’s yet another handout to fossil fuel industry executives, who are already getting billions of dollars in tax breaks and bailouts due to COVID-19, while profiting from polluting Black communities and other communities of color.
The Movement For Black Lives has condemned this disparity, demanding “a just recovery that doesn’t prioritize corporations and leave our communities behind” and to move the economy to serve “the needs of the people and the planet, not the corporations and the wealthy.” Friends of the Earth is uplifting these demands, and the movement’s demand for more community control over laws.
Shifting the unequal balance of power is central to all of our campaigns, including holding Big Polluters accountable and protecting the web of life on which we all depend. We’re up against a racist, capitalist system that values property and extraction over human life -- especially Black life.
Climate chaos hits communities of color first and worst, and the Trump administration’s rollbacks of environmental laws will do the same. The compounding injustices that connect the poisoning of our communities and racist police violence are no accident. They reflect and reinforce the systemic racism that’s been here since our country’s founding.
Help racial justice organizations transform our broken systems and build the world we need: Donate $10 or more today.
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One particular story of environmental racism may help connect the dots even more clearly.
One of the country’s most polluted zip codes is in Detroit, where for years the majority-Black community has lived under the shadow of the Marathon refinery -- the largest in the country. Here, infant mortality is twice the rate of the rest of the state, and the average life expectancy is significantly lower, too. The neighborhood’s ozone levels often exceed federal limits, leading to huge health disparities, including increased deaths from COVID-19.
Amid the pandemic ravaging its community, Marathon has urged state regulators to suspend environmental monitoring rules, and lobbied for the COVID-19 tax bailout of the fossil fuel industry (thanks to our research, we know that they’ve already gained $411 million from this endeavor).
Now, the House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into Marathon’s political influence: in particular, its funding and coordination of dark money groups that lobbied to weaken vehicle standards for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions. Together, they undid a landmark precedent set under the Obama administration, which was the biggest U.S. effort yet to fight the climate crisis. Undoing Obama’s clean car rule will lead to nearly a billion additional metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The increased air pollution alone will cause premature deaths, according to the EPA’s own analysis -- which will, yet again, disproportionately harm Black Americans.
As environmentalists, we must tell these stories. At Friends of the Earth, we recommit ourselves to doing the necessary advocacy, organizing, and mobilizing to dismantle systemic racism in achieving a more healthy and just world.
That’s why we’re not only centering racial justice in our campaigns, but also moving resources to two incredible racial justice organizations: the Movement For Black Lives and The Bail Project.
Please give generously and give NOW, John: We will regrant 100% of your contribution to organizations fighting for racial justice and in defense of Black lives.
If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
Thank you,
Liz Butler,
Vice president of organizing and strategic alliances,
Friends of the Earth
