This website was made for stories like these!
The poor Babylon Bee crew.
They're just over there trying to write funny satire for the glory of God, making cool videos about Californians moving to Texas, and guarding their third joke in a secret vault until the end of days, but then the LA Times comes along and punks them.
How could they ever top this??
From Bee editor Joel Berry:
It's hard to be a satirist in clown world!
Anyway, here's what this article says:
I couldn't help but consider my own complicity while reading a new study from USC researchers, finding that Angelenos who drive more tend to be exposed to less air pollution — and Angelenos who drive less tend to be exposed to more pollution.
The logic is this: White people commute more, but all their pollution stays in the city, where larger numbers of ethnic minorities reside.
Because of this, these evil white commuters are literally choking out the POCs with their racist exhaust!
Today, many residents of the county's whiter, more affluent neighborhoods — who were often able to keep highways out of their own backyards — commute to work through lower-income Black and Latino neighborhoods bisected by the 10, 110 and 105 freeways and more.
Bro, you do realize you don't need to live in a neighborhood based on the color of your skin, right?
And you do realize that black people own cars too, right?
A bunch of them own nicer cars and bigger houses than me!
For all of human history, the poor have been cut off by developers who want to push them out to make way for new construction. Go ask the Parisians living under Napoleon III in 1850. The reason Paris looks like it does today is because he knocked down half the city or more to reorganize it. That has nothing to do with race and everything to do with wealth.
Or ask this Cuban immigrant who is literally living the movie "Up" in Florida:
America has had disparity with skin color, so know racism was probably a factor somewhere in building a few of these highways, but in my town, the freeways cut through the Polish Catholic and Dutch Reformed neighborhoods.
But here's what I really love about this article:
As a white guy who's lived on L.A.'s Westside for most of my life, I've benefited from the region's sordid history as well. Much as I try to do my part — taking the train a couple times a month, walking to local coffee shops and restaurants instead of driving across the city — there's no question I contribute to the inequitable air pollution that Boeing's study describes.
The dude is white!
And he's out here telling black people how oppressed they are!
White liberals are the most whiny, insecure people. He needs to atone for his sins of racism and climate destruction so he can feel better than you. It's eating away his soul!
We can't just have better city planning (instead of the liberal policies that have destroyed LA) and invent new tech that helps air quality in poorer neighborhoods while we're ramping up to the next revolution in personal transportation.
Nope, the solution for these guys is, as always, Marxism!
The researchers also called for government to allow more apartment construction in wealthier neighborhoods, to make it easier for low-income families to live closer to where they work — instead of in far-off enclaves burdened by freeway pollution.
Equity!
Yeah, see, I know we hate to say it, but there is a reason that some people are low-income and dependent on the state. Some people are actual criminals, addicts, creepers, and thugs. That's the reality of the situation, and everyone knows it. The government keeps trying to tell us that we're the bad guys for noticing this reality by making it about race, but people keep voting with their feet by moving to places where they feel safe.
Taking complex social and spiritual problems and jamming them into a socialist framework is half the reason why urban sprawl is as bad as it is!
I realize it's not on my shoulders alone to make up for a long history of racist housing policies and freeway construction. The same goes for you, if you've also benefited from that history. Finding ways to minimize and reverse ongoing inequities, while solving the climate crisis, is a project for all of society — government, industry and individuals alike.
