As the U.S. becomes more racially diverse, directly related to climate affecting birthrates and migration, understanding how climate concern differs along lines of race and ethnicity is crucial for the emerging majority.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data shows that individuals who identify as Black or African American are “40% more likely than non-Black Americans and non-African Americans to currently live in areas with the highest projected increases in mortality rates due to climate-driven changes in extreme temperatures.” ...Dec 13, 2023.
Majority of African Americans Live in 10 States; New York City and Chicago Are Cities With Largest Black Populations. According to the 100 year old national narrative about 6 in 10 people reporting as Black or African American, alone or in combination with other races, resided in 10 states where nearly half the U.S. population lives, and according to latest Census analysis released by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau this still holds true with one major difference. US census dept. admitted their numbers regarding the black population may be off by as much as 60% being undercounted.
If we go back to The Black Population: 2000, one in a series of Census 2000 briefs, that showed that 36.4 million people, or 12.9 percent of the total population, reported as Black or African American. But we must take in account that Black Americans have been counted at 13 percent since the founding of the nation meaning 1 percent of black citizenry for each of the original colonies... maintaining that number for 200 years is a statistical impossibility so what is actually going on? This number includes 34.7 million, or 12.3 percent, who reported as Black alone, in addition to 1.8 million, or 0.6 percent, who reported as Black in combination with one or more other races, in other words Afro Hispanics, Afro Latina or Afro Asians or North Africans combined are only 1 % of the nation? Even a blind man could see that is not accurate.
The 10 states where 60 percent of African Americans resided were: New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan and Louisiana. Five of these had more than 2 million Blacks each: New York, California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. Socially vulnerable groups in the United States include communities of color, low-income groups, certain immigrant groups, and those with limited English proficiency. Yet many of these groups don't see themselves in the same boat as black people until the American racial hierarchy sets them straight with a reality check like Asians who dismantled Affirmative action found out. For black people affirmative action was a way to set up our own infrastructure away from the negative influences of white supremacy, while white America viewed it as a way we wanted to take from them the illusion of white supremacy. Black people could care less about white delusions of grandeur we have always focused on teaching our children truths and self reliance in order to survive pitfalls established to disenfranchise them through institutional racism.
Thus our protective focus on HBCU's and continuous battles against the prison industrial system of modern day slavery. Now we have climate change to deal with that is essentially an existential threat to ALL humanity. We understand to live in a place of false security one must be willing to accept false narratives and when the source that tells you that you are superior because of lack of melanin gives you a new narrative that climate change is under control you are predisposed to believe it and anything that threatens that belief becomes a target of derision, fear and anger. Thus the Baby Boomers!
As urgency grows to address global warming, younger generations can play a strategic role in mobilizing communities that have generally been more opposed to climate action and policy, such as political and religious conservatives in the United States. But not only Baby Boomers are unconvinced but also American evangelical Protestants—and white evangelicals in particular—are the largest religious group in the U.S. and also the most skeptical of climate science. There is growing interest, however, around whether evangelicals are becoming 'greener,' and whether climate attitudes among younger generations are diverging from their elders.
Ironically it doesn't matter the political affiliation whether democrat or Republican or Independent all young people seem to have come to the same consensus the world has to clean up its act before its too late. According to the results of a recent Pew survey published in US News and World Report. "Republican millennials – people roughly ages 25 to 40 – are far less likely than older generations to support the use of coal, oil and other fossil fuel sources. By one count, while three-quarters of Republican baby boomers and older generations supported more offshore oil and gas drilling, fewer than half of millennial Republicans felt the same way."
In 2021, M4BL introduced a Black-centered climate and environmental justice initiative: the Red, Black, and Green New Deal. Since then, their climate work has expanded to include the voices of more than 200 organizations representing Black environmental and climate justice leaders, organizers, advocates, and strategists from every region in the United States and across the Global Black Diaspora.
The Black Hive was built to serve Black communities who bear the brunt of climate disaster and extreme weather events, and whose experiences are exacerbated by other socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and systemic racism. The Black Hive's Mandate proposes pro-Black climate policies and practices; builds alternatives to current harmful systems; and offers resources, data and technology, communications, and disaster-response support to local communities and Black-led climate focused organizations.
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