Wednesday, September 28, 2016 – ’62 Center, Williams College
Is it a coincidence that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prisoner population and also produces 25% of the world’s greenhouse gasses? Mass incarceration accompanied by mass extinction. Speaker and activist, Van Jones, says no. On Wednesday, September 28, Van Jones spoke to Williams College students, faculty and community members on his initiative; “Green Jobs, Not Jails.”
While attending Yale Law School, Jones volunteered in the New Haven community. While volunteering, he noticed how different the treatment of people involved in drugs between those in the New Have community and those on Yale’s campus. At Yale, students were considered to be “experimenting” with drugs, while the citizens of the New Haven community were dragged from their homes and arrested. According to Jones, black people are six times more likely to go to jail than whites.
After graduating from Yale, Jones moved back to the Bay area and started a human rights organization. The organization successful shut down five youth prisons, helping to create an 80% decrease in the youth prison population without increasing crime. However, after awhile, he burned out. He decided he needed to get healthy. Jones spent time in retreats, eating healthy and recognizing that these “green” benefits of clean air and clean food were not available to everyone, specifically lower class families.
It was with this observation Jones recognized the need for green jobs, not jails in Oakland, California. Young people, desperate for work, make drastic decisions. In California, there were so many solar projects and hardly enough workers to complete these projects. The state needs trained workers to install solar panel systems to businesses and homes. This was Jones’ idea to fight pollution and poverty at the same time. Shortly after, he was called to Washington D.C. to work with former President George W. Bush, who spread programs across the country. When President Barack Obama was elected, Jones was asked to be a member of his administration. Very quickly, Jones went from begging for small investments to keep his idea afloat, to running an 80 billion dollar program for the President of the United States.
In Jones’ final message to the Williams College community, he stated: “you can’t give a kid money, and he’ll stop being poor. He’ll stop being broke… Every kid needs a ladder to climb. Ecological solutions are a way to put green rungs on the ladder of opportunity.”
-Caroline Beckmann, ’17
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