"You people are okay. You like the heat."
This simple comment was said to me in a city park, on a summer afternoon of fried air, cloudless skies, and sunbeams that racked the skin. The friendly stranger and I shared a picnic bench under a shady London plane tree.
Children frolicked in the water fountains outside the swimming pool. Adults too. The park was packed, there was line-ups for the swings and climbing frames, and for the two ice cream truck. Every shady spot under every shady tree was occupied. There isn't any green-space left for the thousands of people who will soon move into to the new apartment towers surrounding the park.
Several things went through my head as I pondered the heat comment. Here we go.
First, the link between race and heat. I'm Black, the stranger was not. There is a long assumption that Black people can cope with the heat because we come from the tropics. Long ago, in the bad old days, this was one of the justifications for slavery.
Today it means that Black people suffering from heat stroke, and other health issues related to heat stress, are less likely to be taken seriously, to be diagnosed, or to get appropriate medical help.
Second, Black people working outside are not protected from heat stress because of the above assumption. The workers are in construction, agricultural labourers, or delivering packages. Some USA states recently specifically ban breaks and shelter for outdoor workers because of a potential loss of productivity.
The people doing the banning are white; the people doing the dying from heat stress are Black and Latino.
Third, Black neighbourhoods are heat island traps in cities. The areas have lots of concrete and asphalt, and few trees and shrubs. The manmade materials trap, radiate, and retain the heat, making Black areas hotter than the surroundings.
White neighbourhoods have more trees, are cooler, hence, few deaths from heat related stress.
Fourth, air conditioning reflects racial inequities in the city. Black, urban Indigenous and other racialised people are more likely to live in older rental apartments that do not have AC. White people tend to live in single-family houses with central AC.
All I have to do to test this assumption is walk through my neighbourhood. Regent Park, multiracial and multilingual, is filled with glass and concrete towers. Up the road, in less than five minutes, is Cabbagetown, mostly white and unilingual, filled with brick houses, front yards with trees and flowers, and humming AC units.
Five, heat deaths reflect racial inequities. Heat deaths are becoming more common as the planet burns from the climate crisis. Globally, the people doing the dying are Black and brown; the people causing the crisis are white.
In other words, it is the Global North that is causing the climate crisis due to our love of cheap oil. It is the Global South that is paying for it with their lives. In Canada and the USA, it is racialised people who are dying from heat stress. Just like we did from Covid-19. We are not in this altogether.
Six, in South America sugarcane workers die young, from heat stress related complications. As in the days of slavery, they work long hours, in the hottest part of day, with little breaks and no shelter. The workers tend to be Black and brown. The owners of the plantations tend to be white.
Seven, things don't have to be this way. Racism takes many forms, including the disproportionate heat deaths of Black people. The solutions are there, but the will to implement them is directly tied to who has power and privilege. Heat deaths are preventable.
© Jacqueline L. Scott. You can support the blog here.
No comments:
Post a Comment