Blog 3

While reading the articles “Racial Capitalocene” by Francoise Vergès and “New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants” by Sophie Kasakove, It made me realize how race and income level plays a huge role in where you are located geographically. Based on where you are living you are vulnerable to the disasters global warming can cause. Racial Capitalocene stated “It (Toxic Waste and Race in the United States, a report by the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ) showed that race was the single most important factor in determining where toxic waste facilities were sited in the United States” Placing these waste facilities in areas that are populated by low income minorities proves that the government thinks of these communities as trash. Throughout the article it states that these climatic changes that were caused by the government have affected black communities the most. From stripping gold, oil, land and other scares resources from other countries through colonialism to slavery, where human beings “were forced to share its social product” meaning themselves. In New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants, Sophie Kasakove expressed how the working, low income residents were kicked out from their homes following hurricane sandy. Programs specifically designed to help victims of the hurricane, were extremely slow and till this day most of those people are still waiting. Because the neighborhood is made up of the working class, they could not afford to live anywhere else because of how high rent has gotten.Those who did leave also left an impact on Jamaica Bay. “The flight of working class homeowners from these neighborhoods accelerated gentrification”. The community did not have the economic status to rebuild their homes and programs did not help them either, this goes to show the government does not care about the minority communities, when it allows capitalism to flourish.