How White Supremacy Intensifies Summer Heat
“Like racism, violence and white supremacy, heat is inextricable from the Black American experience.”
July arrived steamier than ever with potentially deadly heat waves. The month was followed by equally high August temperatures—and, alas, the heat of Augusts past, which generations of African Americans have yet to escape.
Historically, racism has aggravated the summer heat with mayhem, trauma, and even death for Black people. The onslaught of slavery is but one calamity of note.
Enslaved Black bodies—considered and treated as property—performing fieldwork from the dawn of day till the sun receded, on meager sustenance, with unsuitable provisions, beneath the crack of a whip was only the beginning. All else that followed forced servitude was par for the course, so much so...