Eric the Red

I read this think piece today.

The article starts off ok: stating that we can expect worsening hurricanes because of the effects of global warming. The article empahises the effects on blacks, but it IS BET after all…..

Then comes the kicker:

“It has been ingrained in our heads that to be anything, you must have everything,” says EJCC steering committee member Nia Robinson. “Because some of us have a big car and a nice house, people aren’t seeing that racism still exists. “

The article continues:

Relatively, Blacks are environmental Good Samaritans. Per capita, we emit approximately 20 percent less carbon dioxide than Whites – well below 2020 targets set by the U.S. Climate Stewardship Act. Not only do we use more energy-conserving public transportation, we spend considerably less per capita on energy-intensive material goods.

That’s bad news, especially for African Americans. Citing Katrina as a case-in-point, some environmentalists say global warming impacts minorities and the disadvantaged harder than other groups. If global warming gets worse, many African-American communities will be more vulnerable to breathing ailments, insect-carried diseases and heat-related illness and death. But asking Black folks to give up gas-guzzling SUV’s and other bling is a tough sell.

The article goes on to talk about the ill-effects melting of the ice caps will have on the northern hemisphere, with emphasis on European countries.
In addition to the first paragraph, I jumped on the bold-faced lines above. Lets summarize the main points and put them together:

Setting aside the obvious contradictions here, it looks like successful whit people are to blame: with their SUVs and McMansions and plasma TVs and lawns and……business suits that require airconditioning during the summer! It is not just blacks who suffer from natural disasters. No particular party is to blame for the effects of a hurricane. One can blame the federal government for a poor response to a disaster. One may blame local governments for not ensuring that residents of a city are evacuated. But the occurance of a disaster has nothing to do with race. There is no law to pass to change how people respond to their success by buying “bling”.