You know, I personally think that gentrification happens long before you start seeing white people in formerly people-of-color neighborhoods. It starts happening when we start telling the young, hard-working, quote-unquote "smart" kids that they need to measure success by how far they get away from our communities.

I want to be known as someone who got caught trying. Yup. Trying to make communities that didn't think much of themselves see themselves as fabulous, powerful, beautiful, loving, kind, members of this world. That's what I want people to say about me.

It's time to stop building the shopping malls, the prisons, the stadiums and other tributes to all of our collective failures. It is time that we start building living monuments to hope and possibility.

Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.

Poor people of all colors are getting poorer and our communities are getting more toxic. There is a misconception that to grow our economy we will have to do business as usual, because cleaning up the environment, mitigating climate change is just too costly. Well, I say the business of poverty is just too expensive a bill for humanity to pay any longer.

Sustainable South Bronx advocates for environmental justice through sustainable environmental and economic development projects.

Race and class are extremely reliable indicators as to where one might find the good stuff, like parks and trees, and where one might find the bad stuff, like power plants and waste facilities.