Dr. Rania Masri, NCEJN Director of Organizing & Policy
The National People’s Hearing Tour, which began in Greensboro in June, has traveled to Tuscan (September) and Pittsburgh (November). The full testimonies from the November 21 & 22 People’s Hearing in Pittsburgh are available here (Day 1 & Day 2). Here is the testimony I offered in Pittsburgh.
Good morning. My name is Rania Masri. I’m the co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, one of the co-hosts of the first National People’s Hearing in Greensboro, NC. It is great to see these hearings continue.
I heard a quote a month ago that stayed with me: Worse than being a being a member of an oppressed community is feeling isolated as a member of an oppressed community. What these hearings show us is that we’re not alone. We’re not isolated.
We heard Ashley Funk from the Mountain Watershed Association speak about coal ash, and data centers, and gas pipelines, and she said, “I want us to be able to breathe.”
“I want us to be able to breathe.” That statement echoed with me. I thought about the families in eastern North Carolina who have hog shit sprayed into their kitchens, a common practice from CAFOs. I thought about the coal ash, the second largest landfill for methane emissions, the ever-expanding gas pipelines, and the polluting wood pellets. And these industries are causing suffering in the same areas that historically were plantations, areas where communities were enslaved. And now data centers are coming to North Carolina full force, coming into communities already deprived of water, clean air, and critical public services. We are all having difficulty breathing. Enough.
Yesterday, someone spoke of wanting “communities where people can live and families can stay together.” We want communities where people can live and families can stay together. And I thought of the thugs, otherwise known as ICE, the masked ICE and border agents kidnapping men and women and terrorizing communities. And I say – kidnapping. We cannot call it detentions because it is illegal. It is kidnapping.
And Janice, thank you for your words and your strength yesterday when you spoke about your son who died because of industrial pollution, taken from you due to criminal negligence by industries. I thought of all the environmental justice warriors who have been taken from us in this country due to industrial pollution. I thought about those also taken from us due to heat stress, farmworkers and postal workers. And PCBs dumped in Warren County, causing untold harms, and the PCBs found at North Carolina State University. And if we have PCBs at NC state, what about other universities throughout the country? I thought about the contaminated water caused by industrial solvents at Camp Lejeune military base – which have caused increased rated of cancer and birth defects. Knowingly. Again. The harms from these pollutants are known, and the harms are ongoing. I thought about the largest military base in this country – in North Carolina – built on stolen land from First Nation communities. And all the harm that that military base exports around the world: the deaths caused by White Phosphorus, Depleted Uranium, and the direct destruction of critical infrastructure – funded by our tax dollars, and sent around the world, including to my hometowns in Palestine and Lebanon where people are being killed as we speak.
Stuart Chavis brought it home when he said, “They have stolen us from our land and stolen our land from us.” I remember every day that we are standing on stolen land, and that this country has yet to acknowledge its history of settler colonialism, and yet to acknowledge that everything was built by the blood and sweat and forced labor of enslaved communities. We have yet to pay reparations, and we have yet to honor treaties that were signed.
Meanwhile, we continue to support settler-colonialism elsewhere. US soldiers today are an occupying force in Gaza. Their boots are on the ground, on occupied land. And when FEMA did not have enough money to take care of people in North Carolina hurt from Hurricane Helene, that same day, President Biden found billions of dollars to give to Israel to continue its genocide. In the past two years, 860,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. The genocide is ongoing. They continue to steal us from our land, and to steal our land from us.
All this — we know — is systemic. Testimony after testimony these past two days has affirmed that these harms are systemic. Yet some continue to call this a broken system. This is not a broken system. This is a system working as it was designed – designed to make all our communities disposable in pursuit of profit for the rich.
Until when will we continue to simply ask for crumbs from the master’s table? We have had enough with crumbs from the master’s table. We have had enough with an economy placing profit over people. It is past time for us to build another economy, one that respects our dignity and respects the land. Past time to build a system that is honest, dignified, and true to us all — a system that is not capitalist, not dependent on the military.
Assatu Shakur taught us that we have to be disciplined. She said: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win.”
And we have much to win!
