It will come as no surprise to most of our readers that leftists in the United States have pretty much perfected the art of blaming virtually anything and everything on systemic racism. The ills ascribed to this range from unfavorable election results to criminal arrest rates and disturbing opinions seen on social media. But surely there must be something immune from the racism hashtag, right? How about heatwaves such as the one much of the country experienced in July? Nope. Bad things that happen to people when the temperature goes up are also primarily driven by racism according to Jeff Goodell, an “award-winning climate journalist” who spoke to the Guardian about his new book where he explains all of this.
Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet.
Jeff Goodell, an award winning climate journalist, told the Guardian that people of color – including millions of migrant workers who are bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands, builders and delivery workers – are not guaranteed lifesaving measures like water and shade breaks because they are considered expendable.
Goodell documents the tragic – and preventable – death of Sebastian Perez, a Guatemalan garden centre worker who collapsed and died in Portland, Oregon, on the first day of the brutal Pacific north-west heatwave in June 2021. In the US, there are no federal rules related to heat exposure for workers – indoors or out.
To be fair to Goodell, he’s talking about a situation that poses actual challenges and dangers in some areas. People working in primarily outdoor jobs including agriculture, construction, surveying, and related fields face literal exposure issues during a heat wave. Workers need to be careful to stay hydrated and take periodic breaks, preferably in the shade so they can cool down a bit. There are no federal laws mandating this nationally and the various state labor laws are something of a patchwork.
But Goodell goes much further than simply noting that fact, falling back on one of the liberals’ most common tools used to ascribe racism and then upping the ante further. He first notes that some minorities are disproportionally represented in those workforces, and labor statistics back up that assertion… to a point. But he then goes further, making a blanket statement that such workers “are considered expendable” and are “not seen as humans that need to be protected.” Therefore, racism is “absolutely central to the government’s failure to protect vulnerable people.”
As an example, the Guardian points to a recently passed law in Texas “prohibiting any city or county in the state from passing laws requiring shade and water breaks for outdoor workers.” Well, that certainly sounds pretty awful and it makes Governor Greg Abbott sound like a monster. Except that’s not what the legislation involved, although the impact on shade and water laws may have come about as a result. The actual law makes no mention of such specific issues and simply pre-empts legislation at the local government level if it clashes with state law. It covers all sorts of aspects of government and blocks local laws and ordinances if they are in conflict with state law.
As it turns out, Texas doesn’t have a state labor law requiring the specific number of hours between water breaks or the availability of shade that are found in local laws in Austin and Dallas. Since they are in conflict, the local laws would, in theory, be struck down. But I highly doubt that was Abbott’s specific intent, and this conflict could probably be worked out fairly easily if all of the parties involved were willing to discuss it rather than rushing off to file lawsuits.
In any event, Goodell’s blanket accusations are dishonest and flatly wrong. We are not living in the midst of some sort of chain gang movie from the 70s. Employers do not want their workers dropping dead or even failing to care if they do. Allowing such conditions to fell your workers would not only be inhumane and harsh but your company would quickly be bankrupted by lawsuits filed by the workers’ families.
On a more general note, if these progressives want their complaints to be taken seriously, they need to abandon this practice of crying “racism” any time a given pattern in society doesn’t exactly follow the demographic percentages of the population. Yes, you will frequently see a larger number of Hispanic workers doing agricultural tasks, particularly in the South. That’s a cultural pattern that’s been around for a long time. You will also see a vastly disproportionate number of Black starting players in the NBA who are multimillionaires. Is that because of racism? No. It’s because those were the best players in college that scored the most.
It’s not that every single last vestige of racial conflict has been driven from America’s shores. But if you really want to address racism in America, you might start by acknowledging the vast amount of progress that’s been made just in the past fifty years or so and how things are hugely better today than they were back then.
