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Among many disappointing cultural shifts we’ve witnessed under Trump 2.0, one of the most painful for me to watch has been the demonization of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Just like “woke” before it, the MAGA crowd snatched “DEI” from the zeitgeist, morphing it from a progressive effort to be more intersectional in matters of social justice to just another cudgel against the marginalized in their seemingly endless culture war.
However, by stamping out DEI initiatives, the Trump administration is not just harming minorities. It’s harming white people as well.
If you want to see this sabotage in action, look no further than the subject of our latest episode of More To The Story: the Deep South.
As my colleagues report, Southern states like Alabama are in the throes of an environmental crisis. Contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation are hitting poor Black communities, like Lowndes County, the hardest.
In 2024, the Biden administration approved a $26 million program that would help clean raw sewage and build adequate sanitation systems in these struggling areas. When President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration wasted no time in shutting it down, deeming it illegal DEI.
While it’s important to acknowledge that Black communities will be affected the most, environmental issues transcend racial lines. Don’t we all stand to benefit from clean water and working pipes?
“We have to expand the definition of environmental justice, because we can’t let people think that because if you are not Black and poor, you are not going to be victimized by this,” says author and environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers. “That’s not true.”
In this episode of More To The Story, Flowers sits down with Al Letson to talk about why this expansion is so critical in the fight for the protection of our planet, while also explaining how Trump’s rollbacks could actually be fueling an environmental revolution.
You can listen to the link here.
-Arianna Coghill
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