I started reading Red Cross papers and FEMA paperwork, and I’m thinking to myself, I’m a lawyer and I can’t understand this stuff. How can regular fo… - Colette Pichon Battle

" "

I started reading Red Cross papers and FEMA paperwork, and I’m thinking to myself, I’m a lawyer and I can’t understand this stuff. How can regular folks understand what they’re signing? And they were signing their life away. They were signing their property. They were signing, you know, to receive dollars that then got them into lawsuits with the federal government because they didn’t spend them the right way. You know, no one’s telling them what to do, they’re just telling them to sign the paperwork. And this got to understanding what happens when you don’t invest in your education system, what happens when the rest of the nation allows for the South’s education system to go to those low levels. It means, in disaster, people don’t understand the paperwork that they’re signing or the implications behind them. And oh, by the way, neither did the lawyer. Like, I had to like, break that stuff down and read it, too.

English
Collect this quote

About Colette Pichon Battle

Colette Pichon Battle is a climate activist and lawyer, who founded the climate justice and human rights center The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy. She was a TED speaker, and a 2019 Obama Foundation fellow. She is best known for advocating for the needs of communities of color in the face of the Climate crisis in the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Enhance Your Quote Experience

Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Colette Pichon Battle

The British Petroleum oil drilling disaster of 2010, when the BP-leased and Transocean-owned Deepwater Horizon exploded, releasing nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, is remembered for its ecological impact, but less remembered are the eleven oil rig workers who perished.

to really, really admit that you understand what is happening to the planet, it will break your heart. If you don’t cry deep, hard tears for the state of this planet and all of the people on it, you don’t yet understand the problem. And so once you get to that place, the only thing that can bring you out of that kind of darkness is belief in something greater than yourself.

Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans
there are all of these researchers who were looking at South Louisiana before Katrina, many people concerned about sea level rise and all of these things for a very long time, but it wasn’t common knowledge. It wasn’t information brought to the communities. The universities knew it, but the communities didn’t know.

Loading...