Clean Water is a Social Justice Issue

And other things I tweeted about this week.

Photo by mrjn Photography on Unsplash

Inspired by my daughter, I made myself a daily schedule, and I’m trying my best to stand by it. A couple of the key tasks: Watching Democracy Now! while I take my daily meds and reading Antiracism Daily (plus a few more pubs) with a keen eye for action items that I can complete and share on Twitter.

Here’s an overview of this week’s actions.

1. Clean water is a social justice issues. According to Antiracism Daily:

43% of white Americans say that they are “very confident” in their tap water, while only 24% of Black Americans and 19% of Hispanic Americans indicate the same degree of confidence.

One logical reason behind the difference is that the infrastructure of marginalized, lower income communities is literally more likely to be toxic. We can start working against that by removing lead from the water:

Tell Congress: Invest in lead service line replacement (salsalabs.org)

2. Autistic individuals (like myself) are still being subjected to cruel and unusual forms of treatment, and I don’t just mean standard ABA therapy — which is to neuro-divergent people what conversion therapy is to those who identify as LGBTQIA+.

I’m also talking about the particularly egregious use of an electric shock device within a Massachusetts institution. It’s time to spread the word: #WeAreStillWaiting to #StopTheShock:

#StopTheShock | Autistic Self Advocacy Network (autisticadvocacy.org)

3. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report this week that confirms what most of us have already accepted: Global temperatures will exceed the 2015 Paris Climate Accord’s limits in just 20 years regardless of government action.

However, the inevitability of climate change doesn’t mean that we should respond with apathy. Rather, by taking the issue seriously, we can mitigate some of its most harmful effects, such as the environmental racism that 18-year-old climate activist Jana Jandal Alrifai called out when she said:

We have to tackle environmental racism, that everyone is not equally impacted by climate change, and that BIPOC communities often have factories and machinery located in their neighborhoods, affecting their health. Their neighborhoods are more likely to flood.

Petition for the Leaders’ Summit on Climate — Action Network

Armchair activism is an extremely small part of a much bigger movement, but it has a role to play. I’ve certainly felt better this week than last, and connecting to the world via sources that offer action steps alongside information has been part of the reason why.

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Want to help support my independent writing as I combat cancer and recover from a serious injury? There’s a link for that: Kelli Lynn Grey’s Flowpage (flowcode.com).