illuvium

anyway, this isn't really anything new. racism, particularly anti-blackness, have been ingrained in society for forever, and matters aren't made any better by the current state of politics. environmental racism is, i think, one of those things that a great deal of people would scoff at nonetheless. i think lots of people where i'm from (i know for a fact my mother does, anyway) have this idea of racism in their head as simply just being hate crimes (and i guess if they're particularly open minded, microaggressions too) but it's really a lot worse than that. lots of the talking points regarding environmental racism have already been talked about (as with the flint water supply & other places across america with high poverty rates and high % of poc living there, though it's misleading to say that it's dealt with per se), but since i am who i am, i've been thinking a lot more about the impact ai exerts on this. rather recently, it's been made clear that elon musk's data center for xai have been disproportionately impacting black americans living in south memphis. it's just so repulsive to me, but under the capitalistic pursuit for endless profit and shareholder value, nobody really cares. people that would care, like literally anyone interested in anti-racism or the environment as a whole, aren't in places to speak up about it thanks to the current system. lack of funding and going against the preferred version of the model citizen seeking disgusting amounts of money have done real wonders for society. it's just really lovely all around that everyone's been overworked to death to try and stay afloat while the rich can indulge themselves to their rotten hearts' content at the expense of poor, black americans. tangentially, which deserves a post of its own, i really hate myths like that of the model minority. i really just don't know. i'm a single person at the end of the day and there's no feasible way for me to make any sort of real impact on ghoulish billonaires and the american value of "hard work". i just wished people cared more or had more empathy or whatever, but perhaps that's also something i'm crying about without doing much about.

a year ago i probably would've made the case that individual action are a lot more negligible than corporate actions are. this is still true to me, but i've been thinking more and more in the past few months that individual action do have lots of sway, actually. that's not surprising at all, but there are so many things i didn't really consider back then. i've been passionate on hating on ai for ages, but i've recently been taking time to think about our own impacts. things like vaping (which i dislike anyway since i've got something of a sensitive nose) become all the more ridiculous when you consider their lithium batteries. also something i've been a critic of for a long while, fast fashion is incredibly repulsive and also honestly feeds into the sort of recent misogyny that comes in the form of reducing the agency and capabilities of women. i think the thing is that i've been aware of these issues for a (decently) long while, but never really made the connection. increasingly i think i've become more mindful of the impacts you have in your local environment. i've been wanting to plant native plants recently but haven't gotten around to that yet, but some part of me can't help but feel pessimistic. none of the news regarding the environment lately has been that positive, after all. it's just a shame to think that within my own lifetime things that were so prominent when i was a kid could be eradicated completely, though i suppose this is already happening. as i think is a prominent thing i say, everything does kind of connect. i've vaguely referenced the empathy crisis (which i don't think is shocking by itself, but its intensity is pretty surprising to me), but i think this also connects so much with environmentalism and the heavily lowered amounts of critical thinking being done in part as a reaction to covid and generative ai. people tend to not really care unless they're personally impacted (i'm not immune to this either, but i've been trying to work on that) by something, but given the recent anti-intellectual sentiments and distrust in scientists, i think that that selective empathy is only made more selective. you can't care about things you don't even recognize or believe are issues, after all. it's really unfortunate and i get massively uncomfortable when i see posts on social media that tout fridge restocks or their next one time use outfit for a music festival or their haul from shein that's probably got an unsafe amount of mercury inside of it. it's just such a shame to me since while of course it's hard to be perfectly environmentally conscious and i don't claim to be, it's so common now to pretend you care about issues like these without really interrogating how your own actions may impact it. going back to the original point, is some of the fault on these companies who make these vapes and who rapidly produce all of these flimsy clothing pieces? of course. but that doesn't absolve the blame from the consumers, and i think that growing comfort with writing off your own agency when you do things is extremely concerning and makes people all the more vulnerable and disconnected.
on a happier note, happy easter everyone