00:00So, in the bottom of my parents' pantry, they still have the bottles of water that we would
00:06have to use when our water got shut off growing up.
00:08Whenever our water would get shut off, we would grab one of these bottles, we'd take
00:12them to the stove and heat them up if we needed to bathe.
00:15We'd use them to brush our teeth, to wash our hands, to cook food, whatever we needed
00:20water for.
00:21This stuff happens all over the country, right?
00:23It's happening everywhere.
00:50It's an egregious violation of people's human rights, right?
00:54Just basic rights to dignity and humanity, right?
00:58The idea that, you know, you have to take these steps, right, to ensure that you have
01:34If it wasn't a mason jar, right, you have folks, you know, hooked up to the water hoses
02:00of their neighbors.
02:01You see water hoses cutting across driveways for folks that have water.
02:04And now it's just, you know, it's turned into water bombs.
02:06But by the time I started, you know, elementary school in the kind of early 90s, the last
02:11of the white families had moved away, out to the suburbs.
02:14And my block became, you know, 100% black.
02:17My neighborhood was almost 100% black and we saw a decline in, you know, services from
02:23the city, right?
02:24Trash pickup became erratic.
02:27They no longer plowed the snow when it snowed.
02:30My parents worked, both of them worked, right?
02:33And yet, you know, there were still points where they couldn't afford their water.
02:37It wasn't until I went to college, moved into the dorms and had white doormates and roommates,
02:44you know, who would share their stories and I would share mine.
02:47And it became, you know, clear that, man, this wasn't the lived experience of people,
02:53you know, outside of my neighborhood or outside of my city.
02:59I kind of really realized that there was this lack of diversity in the environmental
03:17field.
03:18And, you know, it was in that room where I realized all of the people making decisions
03:22were middle-aged white men, making decisions for a community that was, you know, predominantly
03:28black, brown and low-income.
03:58You may not be directly impacted by it, but, you know, many folks are benefiting from these
04:06inequities, right?
04:07When you have, you know, places in particular, you know, black communities and black cities
04:11that are subsidizing the rates of white suburbs miles away, lift up the stories of these injustices
04:18and inequities, right, and challenge them, right?
04:22And it requires some courage and justice to actually speak up against that type of injustice.
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