Video Response: The Role of Anger and Consciousness in Addressing Climate Injustice

 

Video Link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fluawG74jx4&ab_channel=ESSENCE

Destiny Watford is a 20 year old Black woman living in Curtis Bay, Baltimore, who is responsible for igniting community consciousness and anger in response to the environmental abuse of her community. Baltimore, Mayland experiences some of the worst air pollution rates in the United States, which directly impacts and harms the poor communities of color who are forced to live in close proximity to the facilities that output this pollution. One pre-existing trash incinerator in Baltimore is responsible for creating ⅓ of the city’s air pollution. When Watford heard that a 90-acre incinerator project was set to open up less than a mile from her community, she felt it was her duty to get involved and fight against the onset of this project. Watford knew all too well what the effects of a project like this would be -- as one example, as she stated in the video, was that her neighbor died of lung cancer as a result of the air pollution in Baltimore. 

Capitalism is at the center of the compounded oppression that Black women suffer. “[The system of capitalism] has meant an outrageous assault on every Black man, woman, and child who resides in the United States,” Frances Beale wrote in her piece, “Double Jeopardy: To be Black and Female.” (Guy-Sheftall & Frances Beale, 2011) Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, capitalist greed was also at the core of the incinerator project set to open up in Curtis Bay. Local government, local authority, and even Watford’s high school were in favor of opening the incinerator. However, after learning that the project was set to incinerate 4,000 pounds of trash every day, and was authorized to release 240 pounds of mercury and 1,000 pounds of lead annually, Watford knew this was unjust. But, despite the devastating damage that this waste would do to the local community, the project would have been profitable--so the government and local authorities were in favor of it.

The Black female experience is one that is delineated by the compounded oppressions that Black women face [as a result of capitalism]; it is undeniable that climate injustices also serve as a component of this oppression. The fact that Watford and her peers were successful in shutting down the incinerator project is a testament to the fact that the consciousness of Black women and their grassroots organization are integral parts of the climate justice movement. 

Watford described the mentality of her community as one of apathy, with the passive acceptance of the way things are--a “dumping ground mentality.” This mindset is similarly described in Bell Hook’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” when Hooks describes the silence of the Black community to injustice. “[Our silence] was the silence of the oppressed--that profound silence engendered by resignation and acceptance of one’s lot.” (Hooks 1) Watford and her group “Free Your Voice,” however, have been responsible for increasing the consciousness of her community to the injustice and environmental abuse that they have suffered. Through harnessing this consciousness and her anger, Watford and her peers have been able to improve the quality of life in their community. 

“What brought me in was the anger,” Watford stated when describing her realization of her community’s environmental abuse. This anger--as described by Audre Lorde in Sister Outsider and as experienced and used by Watford--was at the root of the progress that has taken place in Curtis Bay. (Lorde 124) Black women’s consciousness, their use of anger, and their implementation of grassroots organization is responsible for many strides towards environmental justice -- Destiny Watford is just one of the many examples that can serve as an inspiration for Black feminists and environmentalists to come.