NYC Trip

I am glad that I had the opportunity to participate in the urban environmental alternative spring break trip. Instead of blogging all of the experiences on the trip I rather reflect of the experience that touched me most. That was learning and being informed about environmental justice. We Act a Harlem community action group informed us of the wrongs and misdoings by Manhattan on the Harlem community. In addition, they face a continuing battle with Columbia University expansion into Harlem. We Act fought the city for a waterfront park that now will be separated from Harlem by the expansion of Columbia. The actions by the city and Columbia show a glass ceiling that faces minority populations. That is that minorities cannot live in nice areas and when they do gain access to such spaces the status quo tries to take it away from them. It saddens me that the Harlem community fought hard to have a waterfront park and that Columbia sees that the Harlem community could not possibly take care of have such a green space.I hope that the Harlem community can exercise their basic human right to green space and maintain their waterfront park and fight for their environmental rights.