In case you missed this season’s issue of Race, Poverty & the Environment, the amazing folks at Grind for the Green were featured in a piece about youth of color who are using hip hop to spread environmental awareness in Bay Area hoods. Check it out below.
And in the same issue, ChecktheWeather.net’s co-founder Ellen Choy co-authors an article on Richmond, CA’s Chevron refinery and climate justice organizing! Get the whole issue online here.
Youth in Action: Greening Hip Hop
The Greening of Hip-Hop: Urban Youth Address Climate Change and Sustainability
By Eric Arnold
Twenty-year-old aspiring rapper Tre Pound was born in San Francisco’s Hunters Point, a predominantly low-income community of color with the dubious distinction of housing the two most toxic Superfund sites in the United States, as well as power and sewage treatment plants. Asthma, cancer, and diabetes rates in that area are all disproportionately higher than in other parts of the Bay Area. “I kinda knew where I was living wasn’t environmentally safe,” says Pound, but the public school he attended provided little information about industrial pollution or climate change.
Pound says he frequently incorporates socially-aware themes into his music, but he had never made an environmentally-aware rap song until he signed up to compete in Grind for the Green’s (G4G) Eco-Rap battle. He ended up winning the competition, earning a $1000 prize and studio time, by outpacing several other contestants with his eco-friendly flow during G4G’s second annual free concert at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.
Pound is just one voice in the growing number of youth voices engaged in community organizing for social change. Millions of young people around the world participate in social activism. According to Wiretap Magazine, there are more than 600 youth-led community organizations currently creating green jobs, removing toxic waste, combating corporate pollution, and fighting against violence in their communities.
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