While in East Palestine, Ohio enjoy a hot dog at Dogs on the Run.
Try a Chilean hot dog with cream cheese and banana peppers.
Nearby, you can see GOP headquarters.
It’s in a beautiful old brick building.
The window has signs for Trump and
Republican Congressman Bill Johnson.
It also has a banner saying Make America Great Again.
It is MAGA country where most local residents
have voted for Johnson since 2011
and voted for Trump twice.
On February 3rd, 2023, a train owned by Norfolk Southern,
carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine.
The accident happened because of overheated bearings
on a rail car causing 38 railroad cars to derail.
Area residents are left fearing for their safety
today and in the decades to come.
Norfolk Southern, like most corporations
values their profits over people.
That is why the company was elated when Trump was elected.
Trump deregulated safety standards for corporations
in his first one-hundred days in office.
Rep. Bill Johnson and other Republicans
cheered the announcement as it protected
the corporations that own so many politicians.
After the derailment, Trump came to visit East Palestine.
The citizens cheered him and waved Trump banners
while wearing his made-in-China apparel.
I’m remembering back to Trump’s victory speech.
He said, “We won with the poorly educated.
I love the poorly educated.”
Which explains Trump’s warm reception in East Palestine.
There is a lesson to learn from such disasters.
That is the lesson of environmental racism.
Its discrimination also includes poor whites.
Whites in poor communities like East Palestine.
Such poor areas are sacrifice zones where toxic pollutants
are transported through or even dumped in.
Corporations consider places like East Palestine, Youngstown,
Flint, Detroit, Cancer Alley, Louisiana, the Bronx etc.
as throw-away communities” whose residents receive
unequal protection if any protection at all.
East Palestine is just one more poor community,
that just happens to be on the wrong side of the tracks.
You don’t think the wealthy suburbs of Norfolk Southern’s
owners have toxic waste driving through them, do you?
While you’re in East Palestine, Ohio at Dogs on the Run
eating an ice cream parfait for your desert,
notice an upstairs window in a nearby building.
A sign has been in the window for over a decade.
It states, “Remember Benghazi.”
Instead of remembering an event that happened
5300 miles from the derailment, I’d suggest,
replacing it with one declaring, “Remember East Palestine.”
“Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.” – Majora Carter
Elecpencil 