Environmental Justice in 100 Years

For the 2023 Winter term I have been taking a class called Equality. It is ultimately an interdisciplinary course with subject matters in Sociology, History, and Social Justice. Through this course we’ve covered an area of topics ranging from crítica race theory to reparations for the black community. We read various articles including The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates. In it, Coates argues for reparations on the basis that discrimination and racism deeply scarred the black community even post slavery. When diving deeper into reparations we learned about the Jon Burge Chicago cases. These cases falsely imprisoned innocent people of color and involved traumatic torture. For one of our field experiences, we were able to host a talk with Anthony Holmes, one of the survivors. Beforehand we researched these cases and learned about the work of both reporters and human rights activists in bringing justice. His story was touching and we were able to deeply reflect on the experiences of Anthony and criticize our city’s response to this tragedy.


In order to wrap this term up we were tasked with creating our own news story based on a topic in relation to race, gender, or class. We were asked to use our creativity and imagine what the state of our issue would look like in 100 years. For my issue I chose environmental justice, specifically in the city of Chicago because I reside near neighborhoods that are strongly affected by these issues. Below I've attached a video and a script.


   



I decided to go with a video format because it felt the most true to the current way of communicating news. I ended up going with a more positive outlook in the future because I feel that too often we are told of the negative horrible future that awaits us instead of imagining a brighter, more optimistic future. I hope the video news report I created on the issue gave viewers hope as to what the future can look like if we fight against environmental injustices until they no longer exist in our city.


In conclusion this was a very intriguing project to work on. I enjoyed the freedom to report on an issue I cared about and the ability to imagine my own idea of a better future. Although the hardest part of this project was getting started and going through with the research, I still enjoyed this part and am content with my final result. Thank you for reading!

Sources Cited

“History.” LVEJO, LVEJO, http://www.lvejo.org/about-us/history/. 

“National Housing Act (1934).” Living New Deal, 19 Oct. 2020, https://livingnewdeal.org/glossary/national-housing-act-1934/.

Rasof, Sophie. “About Eukaryon - Lake Forest College.” Lake Forest College, Lake Forest College, Mar. 2022, https://www.lakeforest.edu/Public/Eukaryon/Archived%20PDFs/Volume%2018%20archive%20PDFs/Volume%2018%20Master/Master.pdf. 

Rossi, Marco Rosaire. “Chicago's History of Zoning against Affordable Housing.” Progressivecity, Radical Alternatives, 7 July 2020, https://www.progressivecity.net/single-post/2020/07/07/CHICAGOS-HISTORY-OF-ZONING-AGAINST-AFFORDABLE-HOUSING.

“Summary of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 12 Sept. 2022, https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-resource-conservation-and-recovery-act.

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