Colin 4 Westchester

Westchester just completed a Waste Reduction Study—and it’s about a lot more than trash cans.

Waste policy is climate policy: it affects how much organics (food scraps + yard waste) get diverted, how many truck miles we rack up moving waste, and whether communities have equal access to the programs that cut emissions and improve public health.

A few takeaways:
• The study points to organics diversion as one of the biggest levers for reducing emissions.
• It highlights participation gaps—especially in multi-family / dense housing—and why “access” matters as much as “awareness.”
• It explicitly recognizes Peekskill as a NYS Disadvantaged Community (DAC) in the area of the WIN Waste facility—meaning equity has to be part of the solution, not an afterthought.

I wrote an article breaking down what the study says, what it gets right (and where it falls short), what it means for Peekskill/Cortlandt/Yorktown, and a simple local call-to-action.

Read it here: https://colindavidsmith.substack.com/p/westchesters-waste-reduction-study?r=7mgcus&utm_medium=ios

5 hashtags:

This is not a “meme.” It’s a dehumanization ritual.

During the first week of Black History Month, the President of the United States reposted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama—two Black Americans who served this country at its highest levels—as gorillas/apes, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” 

Let’s name the signal plainly: this is one of the oldest racist tropes in Western history—likening Black people to monkeys, apes, and gorillas to mark them as less than human. That trope has never been “humor.” It has always been justification: for exclusion, for humiliation, for violence, for the maintenance of a racial hierarchy that depends on stripping dignity before it strips rights.

And that’s why this matters: the point isn’t the clip. The point is the permission it grants.

When a sitting president shares imagery like this, it’s not just revealing personal ugliness. It’s broadcasting a message from the highest office in the country: the old order is welcome again. It’s a dog whistle with a bullhorn—an invitation for millions to smirk at the same lie, to treat Black people as a punchline, to rehearse contempt as community. 

If you’re tempted to minimize it—ask yourself why this specific “joke” keeps resurfacing in the same direction, against the same people, with the same historical payload. Ask yourself why it’s always the imagery of animals, jungle, primates—because the message is not subtle: you don’t belong fully among us.

This is what racism looks like when it wears a suit: plausible deniability for the sender, unmistakable recognition for the target, and a wink to the audience that still wants the hierarchy.

No excuses. No “both sides.” No “just trolling.” This is racist propaganda—performed by a president—aimed at re-normalizing dehumanization as entertainment. 

Condemn it. Demand it be removed. And stop pretending this is merely “offensive”—it’s strategic. It’s social training. It’s how a country learns, again, who is allowed to be fully human.