In FEMA’s alphabet, DEI comes first.
A startling 2023 FEMA webinar features federal health and disaster personnel trumpeting the urgent need to move away from policies that benefit the greatest number of people and instead turn focus toward “disaster equity” where aid is distributed based on innate characteristics like sexual orientation and gender identity.
The roundtable discussion, recorded in March of last year, was entitled “Helping LGBTQIA+ Survivors Before Disasters,” included panelists like Maggie Jarry of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and was moderated by Tyler Atkins, an Emergency Management Specialist at FEMA who uses he/they pronouns.
The panelists covered a range of topics around the notion that disaster services are short-changing marginalized groups when it comes to relief efforts.
“LGBTQIA people, and people who have been disadvantaged already, are struggling. They already have their own things to deal with. So when you add a disaster on top of that it’s just compounding on itself,” Atkins mused to the group.
“I think that is maybe the ‘why’ of why we’re having these discussions, because it isn’t being talked about, it isn’t being socialized, we’re not paying attention to this community,” he claimed.
As the remaining panelists nodded in enthusiastic agreement, Jarry made a startling revelation that federal agencies ostensibly tasked with saving as many lives as possible in a disaster should be focusing their attention elsewhere.
“The shift we’re seeing right now is a shift in emergency services from utilitarian principles — where everything is designed for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people — to disaster equity. But we have to do more,” she urged.
She then suggested existing disaster management agency policies may have been deliberately engineered to leave out vulnerable communities
“The topic at hand here is, are the policies that have been developed actually biased in benign neglect or intentional erasure of the specific communities that are probably most in need of those services, and does the aid then bias toward people with assets or other types of situations that weren’t part of the norm of this industry in the past.”
Atkins, visibly moved by her oratory, capped off her words with a DEI word salad.
“The topic of preparedness and preparedness resources and the intersectionalities within equities and discrimination and hate — it’s a real thing that needs to be discussed, needs to be vocalized, and we need to start looking at how we can find solutions to this.”
The initiatives raised at the panel discussion echo many of those on FEMA’s own website, which proudly proclaims instilling “equity as a foundation of emergency management” as goal 1.
“Underserved communities, as well as specific identity groups, often suffer disproportionately from disasters. As a result, disasters worsen inequities already present in society,” the declaration reads in part.
“This cycle compounds the challenges faced by these communities and increases their risk to future disasters. By instilling equity as a foundation of emergency management and striving to meet the unique needs of underserved communities, the emergency management community can work to break this cycle and build a more resilient nation.”
FEMA has come under fire after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted to reporters that the agency “does not have the funds” to safeguard Americans through the remainder of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, its coffers depleted in part by the more than $1.4 billion it has spent addressing the migrant crisis since fall 2022.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment by The Post inquiring whether the sentiments expressed by the panelists are reflective of the agency as a whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.