In the latest issue of Orion magazine, Lacy M. Johnson writes:
When the next freeze or fire or pandemic or hurricane hits us, vulnerability will determine who gets to live, and who will die, and how. The disaster won’t be the weather, but the shape of the wound structural violence has already made.
This is a profound insight that history can help our students grasp.
For better or worse, St. Patrick’s Day is a brief period when people pay attention to all things Irish. It is a good time to revisit Ireland’s Great Famine and the refugee exodus it unleashed.
Studying the so-called Potato Famine can help students recognize that this was no natural disaster, it was the product of structural violence. As Bill Bigelow writes
— source zinnedproject.org | Bill Bigelow | Mar 17, 2022