On March 30, 2014, journalist Brentin Mock moderated a discussion about Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek with Leslie Fields (Sierra Club director of Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships), Reilly Morse (director of Mississippi Center for Justice), Derrick Evans (of Turkey Creek, Mississippi and co-founder of Bridge The Gulf) and me, Leah Mahan, (Director and Producer of Come Hell or High Water, and co-founder of Bridge The Gulf). The discussion followed the D.C.
School Superintendent Instructs Adults in Non-Critical Thinking, Which Contributes to Environmental Injustice Originally posted on New American Journal.
When I started Coastal Women for Change, it wasn't my vision to run a nonprofit. If it had been, I would have done my research and learned how to manage one. I was thrown into this work after a devastation. I was a cosmetologist before Hurricane Katrina. I started speaking up for my community and reaching out to my neighbors when I saw how my community of East Biloxi was being left out of the recovery process.
We, the people of the Gulf of Mexico, have been born, raised, or adopted into a living, breathing region, whose cultures span the continents. We have nourished ourselves from the Gulfstream waters. Our cities breathe, our ecosystems speak, and we proudly and artfully contribute to the economic and cultural fabric of our nation and world.
The lie that we are consistently fed in this society is that in order to find happiness, we have to have lots of stuff -- that if $1 million makes us happy, $2 million will make a person ecstatic. This concept is inaccurate. We know that because many of the richest people in the world are miserable and lonely creatures.
On the day that we picked that oiled pelican out of the water near Barrataria Bay, my life changed forever. I know people say that often, but it’s only because our lives are often changing direction. But that day was a dramatic change for me.
We, the people of the Gulf of Mexico, have been born, raised, or adopted into a living, breathing region, whose cultures span the continents. We have nourished ourselves from the Gulfstream waters. Our cities breathe, our ecosystems speak, and we proudly and artfully contribute to the economic and cultural fabric of our nation and world.
The lie that we are consistently fed in this society is that in order to find happiness, we have to have lots of stuff -- that if $1 million makes us happy, $2 million will make a person ecstatic. This concept is inaccurate. We know that because many of the richest people in the world are miserable and lonely creatures.
On the day that we picked that oiled pelican out of the water near Barrataria Bay, my life changed forever. I know people say that often, but it’s only because our lives are often changing direction. But that day was a dramatic change for me.
