Saying “I’m Not a Racist” Is Not the Same as Being Anti-Racist

VERNON DURDEN

each other every day, because of hate and inequality. The gentleman just spoke about extreme weather and farming and all of the undocumented. Our economy is really based on those laborers who are coming across and providing service at a rate that we can actually have produce and products that otherwise would be so expensive if we didn’t have that labor: interdependence.

My dad was a grocery store owner and we lived in the community. And the city bus stopped at the store. My dad would not allow us to ride the bus, because in those days there was a sign and you had to sit behind that sign, so another race could sit in front, so he would not allow us to subject ourselves to second-rate existence.

You look at the title: it says “Extreme weather and inequality.” FEMA hired me because of extreme weather. When people would be displaced, homes destroyed, FEMA—Federal Emergency Management Agency—would come in with funds to help families and groups of people—and I was an agent and I saw within FEMA how they would restrict funds to certain zip codes, because it identified certain races of people, and hold the money back.

friends of persuasion, not my color, and they say, “I’m not a racist.” But what they don’t realize is saying, “I’m not a racist,” is not the same as saying, “I’m anti-racist.” Saying, “I’m not a racist,” does not make you an anti-racist.

So extreme weather comes and the city founders and city people that know what is going to have to happen. So they’re going to start building new neighborhoods in other areas. So what do they do, they start selling property and other people start buying it and they start bringing in the dirt and building it up . . . because water has to flow downhill. So since they have to expand Beaumont and move the neighborhoods away from the older neighborhoods albeit higher elevation, they got new areas—but they’re bringing in dirt, building it up. So what was used to be high is now low. So the water is coming back to us . . . and our neighborhoods. That’s how extreme weather is affecting inequality.

Ilive in the country, little place called China. I was really impressed by Strong Wind’s comments, when he said, “Pay attention to nature.” Out there we have cows and we have birds riding on the cow’s back. When the cow walks, it disturbs the land, a bug will fly. The bird eats the bug. Interdependence: they’ve learned to live together. When you drive down the street right now and when you must stop at a red light, A bird would come between the cars and eat stuff that’s thrown out. And some kind of way it knows when the light changes and it flies away where it doesn’t get killed. We’re killing

Bienvenidos

From page C15 the connection or not, FEMA does fall under the umbrella authority of the Department of Homeland Security, as does the immigration and customs enforcement and border patrol and border protection agencies. So immigrants are intimidated. They will not proceed.

But in recent events of extreme weather, such as Hurricane Harvey in 2017, the Red Cross and DHS announced that immigration enforcement

And Fred talked about having vital information earlier: other people came with information, how to get money, and actually built businesses and improved those businesses with a zero interest rate, not having to pay it back over months and years at a time, and found a way through the system to make it, even with extreme weather. And we still have the African American community with blue tarps on their houses today. That’s inequality. That’s injustice.

We have businesses employing people—but don’t confused employment with empowerment. Yes, they’re working, but they have no decision-making abilities to change what’s happening. They get the memo; they don’t write the memo. They’re getting the memo. I have would not be carried out at relief and assistance centers such as food banks nor at evacuation and shelter sites. Individuals do not have to be legal residents to receive FEMA individual assistance. If the adult is responsible for a child with them who is a US citizen or qualified alien, persons may apply for individual assistance on that child’s behalf and potentially be eligible to receive individual assistance such as short-term noncash emergency aid.

According to the survey conducted in 2018 by the Kaiser Foundation, immigrants are particularly vulnerable to employment and income disruptions as a result of extreme weather events, compared to their native-born counterparts, including more-tenuous financial and social circumstances, poor access to healthcare, no home or health insurance and limited social support networks.

So what can we do? We were at the table and the conversation came up: “Where do we go from here?” Where we go is continue to have a conversation, because at the table I was at, I’m 74, there was probably 5 or 6 people under 30. And what I’m very thankful for is that those five or six people who were there . . . will have conversations with the new information they have. And this type of stuff will be shared exponentially, because the 5 would tell 5, which become 25, which become— you know how that works. So, there will be answers; it’s going to come from other people. This is a start.

Vernon Durden retired from ExxonMobil after 33 years of service. He is today President/CEO of Training & Diversified Development, LLC, consulting. His many civic contributions include 100 Black Men of Greater Beaumont, 100 Black Men of America and Lamar Foundation board trustee, as well as mentoring many other people.