Date: 2024-04-29 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00017418
Activism
Greenpeace
We need to confront the people who poison the air, water, and land for profit.
Peter Burgess
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Date: 2024-04-29 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00017418 | |||||||||
Activism | |||||||||
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Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | |||||||||
| Activists are facing felony charges Jonathan Butler, Greenpeace USA Unsubscribe 1:03 PM (10 hours ago) to me Peter- We need to confront the people who poison the air, water, and land for profit. Photo: Activists confront the oil industry at the Houston Ship ChannelContribute to Greenpeace’s work and put an end to environmental injustice. It’s with a full and heavy heart that I write today. Two weeks ago, I was one of twenty-two people who called out Trump and the oil industry in the loudest way I could. For 18 hours, myself and twenty-one other primarily Black, trans, queer, and non-binary activists shut down the heart of the oil industry — an oil export channel in Houston that carries over 700,000 barrels of oil everyday — to call attention to those hit hardest by the impacts of the oil industry and the broader climate crisis. It was so powerful and will be a memory I hold with me the rest of my life. It was a show of our collective values on a great stage and a small glimpse at what is possible when people come together to fight for justice. In the battle between winning justice for everyone and ending the exploitative extractive economy, there is no middle ground. And, people are picking a side. Millions are rising up and imagining a world beyond fossil fuels where everyone is cared for instead of Black, Brown, and low-income communities being used as dumping grounds for extractive industries. Please contribute generously to help fight this battle against Trump and the oil industry, and support all of Greenpeace’s work. My story in Houston doesn’t end when we left the bridge. With smokestacks, methane flares, and cooling towers behind us, what came next was heart-breaking. In custody, we experienced and witnessed violence against Black, trans, and non-binary people both on our team and inside the jail. From activists being denied access to their medicine to experiencing and witnessing physically and emotionally abusive behavior from officers in custody, we experienced first-hand how easy it is to be dehumanized just for exercising our right to peacefully protest. State violence against marginalized people like this is not a coincidence or the fault of one “bad apple” officer. It's a pattern that alienates and dehumanizes Indigenous, migrant, disabled, low-income, and other marginalized communities. It's also part of the same system that allows big polluters and billionaire oil executives to co-opt politicians, lie about the impacts of their operations, and concentrate their operations in underserved neighborhoods, like the Black and Brown communities in East Houston right by where we were hanging (the largest petrochemical complex in the country). Shortly before we were released, leaving behind those without the same legal and community support, we were charged under Texas' new “critical infrastructure” law — a severe unconstitutional and anti-protest law pushed forward by oil companies like Charles Koch (Koch Industries), Marathon Petroleum, ExxonMobil, and Chevron. This law is popping up across the country. It disproportionately affects Black, Brown, Indigenous, trans, and queer folks, and other folks who are fighting for their lives as they try to stay above water in this climate crisis, and carries with it a felony charge. Here’s where you come in. As myself, the rest of the activists, and Greenpeace move into the next stage of seeking accountability from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department and fighting the severe “critical infrastructure” felony charge, I’m hoping you will join us. Please contribute generously to help fight this battle against Trump and the oil industry, and support all of Greenpeace’s work. Any support is appreciated as we navigate this incredibly difficult part of an incredibly impactful direct action, but also to support Greenpeace’s continual work to honor our values with action, shed light on systemic oppression, and bear witness to how the climate crisis hits the underserved and marginalized the most across the country and the world. Thanks for all that you do, Jonathan Butler Greenpeace Democracy Campaigner and BYP100 Activist PS: This is in no way a complete list, but I want to shout out some of the groups working every day to create freedom and justice for all Black people and trans folks. Thanks Black Youth Project 100, Black Lives Matter, BlackOUT Collective, UndocuBlack Network, Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, Transgender Law Center, and Trans Lifeline. There are many groups working on dismantling the oil industry’s grip on the economy and environment in the South as well. Shout outs to t.e.j.a.s., Gulf South Rising, Deep South Center, New Florida Majority, Another Gulf Is Possible, and the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy. Please take some time to get to know their amazing work. Greenpeace never takes a dime from corporations or governments. Everything we do is thanks to the generous support of people like you! Greenpeace 702 H Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001 | 1-800-722-6995 | |||||||||