Tag: education

  • Juneteenth in a Burning World: Prison Labor, Wildfires, and Systemic Racism

    As we reflect on Juneteenth and its legacy of freedom, we must also reckon with the ways systemic racism still permeates our society—especially in how we prepare for and respond to climate disasters. Today, one of the most egregious examples of this injustice is playing out in real time: while the federal government dismantles environmental protections and disaster infrastructure, it increasingly relies on the underpaid, or often unpaid, labor of incarcerated people—disproportionately Black and brown—to fight wildfires. This is not just a policy failure; it is a modern form of environmental slavery.

    Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

    Defunding Disaster Response and Climate Policy

    Climate change has intensified the severity and frequency of wildfires across the United States. Over the past 40 years, the average number of acres of forested land consumed by wildfires each year in the United States has increased by 1,000%.

    Rather than addressing this crisis with the urgency it deserves, the Trump administration has actively undermined the nation’s ability to prevent and respond to climate disasters by:

    • Defunding Disaster Infrastructure: Trump has pushed to phase out FEMA, shifting responsibility to under-resourced state governments.
    • Data Destruction: Eliminating NOAA’s “billion-dollar disaster” database erases a critical tool for tracking climate-related damage and allocating aid.
    • Withdrawal from Climate Agreements: Exiting the Paris Agreement and cutting $3.7 billion in clean energy and carbon capture funding—including California decarbonization projects—further isolates the U.S. from global climate efforts and abandons marginalized communities to worsening environmental risks.
    • Unequal Disaster Aid: FEMA’s funding formulas often require local cost-sharing, leaving low-income communities behind. Studies show that as the proportion of people of color increases in a region, the amount of federal disaster aid tends to decrease.

    The Rise of Exploitative Prison Labor

    As federal climate infrastructure erodes, the state turns to prisons—not prevention. In California and beyond, incarcerated people are increasingly relied upon to fill the labor gap in wildfire response. These individuals—often Black or brown—are paid as little as $1 a day, if anything, to perform life-threatening work without proper training, gear, or protections.

    This isn’t rehabilitation or opportunity. It’s exploitation. Incarcerated firefighters are frequently barred from post-release employment in the very field they risked their lives to serve. They are often denied parole, early release, or livable wages. Meanwhile, the state profits from their labor during climate disasters caused in part by the very same policies that left their communities unprotected.

    This system is not new. It is a direct continuation of America’s long history of racialized labor exploitation. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime—and this loophole has been systemically weaponized to maintain racial hierarchies through incarceration. For example, Black Americans—just 13% of the U.S. population—make up 37% of the prison population. Over 80% of arrests are for low-level, nonviolent offenses, and Black youth are disproportionately targeted for surveillance and criminalization.

    The more fires we face, the more bodies are needed. And because of systemic racism in policing and sentencing, those bodies are overwhelmingly Black and brown. This creates a feedback loop: environmental neglect feeds incarceration, and incarceration becomes a substitute for climate policy.

    The Feedback Loop of Neglect

    Black and Indigenous communities, along with other communities of color, are more likely to live in wildfire-prone areas or to suffer the cascading consequences of these disasters—such as poor air quality, housing instability, and economic loss. These vulnerabilities are not accidental.

    The same communities that are over-policed, under resourced, and left behind in public health planning are then called upon to clean up the very disasters they were never protected from in the first place.

    This is not just an environmental issue—it is a racial and human rights crisis.

    Why This Matters for Juneteenth

    Juneteenth commemorates the day when enslaved people in Texas finally learned of their freedom—two and a half years after emancipation was declared. It is a day of resistance, celebration, and reckoning. But it is also a reminder: freedom was delayed, and it remains incomplete.

    In 2025, Black Americans are still being forced into unpaid labor under deadly conditions. Still disproportionately policed and imprisoned. Still left out of disaster response while being asked to carry it on their backs.

    To honor Juneteenth is to demand more than symbolic freedom. It is to fight for a future where Black communities are not over-policed, over-incarcerated, or overexploited—but are protected, resourced, and central to our vision of a world that is prioritizes peace and prosperity for people and the planet.