U.S. Devotes $195 Mil to “Redress the Legacy of Harm” in Racist Transportation Infrastructure

In the Biden administration’s latest racial equity project, American taxpayers will spend $195 million to help connect minority communities that are cut off from economic opportunities by racist transportation infrastructure. The costly plan is known as Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) and it is part of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) “Equity Strategy Goal to reduce inequities” across the nation’s transportation systems and the communities they effect. In its announcement, the DOT writes that “preference will be given to applications from economically disadvantaged communities, especially those with projects that are focused on equity and environmental justice, have strong community engagement and stewardship, and a commitment to shared prosperity and equitable development.” The language sounds like material found in a communist manifesto.

DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg justifies the investment by explaining that “transportation can connect us to jobs, services, and loved ones, but we‘ve also seen countless cases around the country where a piece of infrastructure cuts off a neighborhood or a community because of how it was built.” RCP is the first-ever initiative funded by the federal government that is completely dedicated to unifying neighborhoods living with the impacts of infrastructure that divides them, Buttigieg adds. It will help reconnect communities that are cut off from economic opportunities by what the administration seems to claim is a racist transportation infrastructure. In fact, the lengthy grant announcement states that the multi-million-dollar community reconnection program “seeks to redress the legacy of harm caused by transportation infrastructure.” The “harm” includes barriers to opportunity, displacement, damage to the environment and public health, limited access and “other hardships,” according to the document.

In pursuit of redressing the legacy of harm, RCP “will support and engage economically disadvantaged communities to increase affordable, accessible, and multimodal access to daily destinations like jobs, healthcare, grocery stores, schools, places of worship, recreation, and park space,” the administration writes in the grant announcement. Thus, the new program will be implemented in line with a multitude of other federal initiatives launched by a 2021 Biden executive order to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government. Besides the DOT’s Equity Action Plan, the agency grant document identifies them as federal actions to address environmental justice in minority and low-income populations, affordable housing in the nation’s most desirable neighborhoods and a program to strengthen the economy through the creation of good-paying jobs with the free and fair choice to join a union, strong labor standards, and workforce programs. There are many more that were left out of the RCP document.

In the last year, key federal agencies have implemented racial equity plans as per Biden’s order. The Department of Justice (DOJ) created a special initiative to advance equity for marginalized and underserved communities. The Department of Labor (DOL) dedicated $260 million to promote “equitable access” to government unemployment benefits by addressing disparities in the administration and delivery of money by race ethnicity and language proficiency. The Treasury Department named its first ever racial equity chief, a veteran La Raza official who spent a decade at the nation’s most influential open borders group. The Department of Defense (DOD) is using outrageous anti-bias materials that indoctrinate troops with anti-American and racially inflammatory training on diversity topics. The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) created an equity commission to address longstanding inequities in agriculture. The nation’s medical research agency has a special minority health and health disparities division that recently issued a study declaring COVID-19 exacerbated preexisting resentment against racial/ethnic minorities and marginalized communities. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently hired a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer even though most of its employees come from “underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.” Just a few days ago Judicial Watch reported that the administration is spending $6 million to advance racial equity in the government’s food-stamp program that already serves a large minority population.