Help Raven Get on Her Feet!


Background
St. John the Baptist Parish sits in a corridor of industrial facilities between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, informally called Cancer Alley .  For residents of one census tract in the parish, the lifetime risk of cancer from air pollution is by far the highest in the country, coming in at over 800 times the national average . This predominantly black community has sat in the backyard of the DuPont-Denka neoprene plant since 1964. The chemical giant produces the same synthetic rubber that lines our garden hoses, laptop cases and scuba suits. For 54 years, DuPont’s smokestacks have been coughing chloroprene, a likely carcinogen , into the grade-school yard that lies just hundreds of feet from the plant, then on to the community beyond.

Over this year’s Spring Break, a group of fourteen students visited Cancer Alley on a project through Stanford’s Human Rights Clinic. It’s rare for undergraduates to get the chance to do ground-level advocacy work, partnering with community organizers  and activists to drive meaningful systems-level change. There were no bows and ribbons around the trip, but it was all the more meaningful for that. Over the course of two weeks, we were given the responsibility to gain the community’s trust, hear its residents’ stories, and record their concerns. Everywhere we went, health histories and anecdotal data confirmed the town’s talk that St. John the Baptist is a place of bad air, cancer, and early death.


These perspectives have been heavy on our generation’s conscience. In 2014, the crisis in Flint, Michigan made public business out of something communities like the one in St. John the Baptist Parish have known for decades: Environmental racism  is not only real, it is dramatic and pressing. In Cancer Alley, industrialization projects designed to generate state revenue have left the lives of a poor, urban and mostly black population to the mercy of big corporations. As a result, pollution drives down property values, perpetuating a cycle of poverty that’s been around since slavery. People get sick and people die.

The friendships we made in St. John the Baptist Parish were built on a shared commitment to challenge this unfair distribution of power. Through the Clinic, we are continuing to work with the community and pursue big-picture change. But in doing so, we can’t forget the people who live out the very conditions we are trying to fight, which is why I’m writing this letter to you. Our friend, Raven Taylor, who has lived her whole life just blocks away from the DuPont-Denka facility, needs help.


Raven
We met Raven through her reputation as a community leader and a hardworking nurse — the kind of person you call when your head hurts or you’re strapped for cash. When Raven’s health was more stable, her family’s crawfish boils were a well-known specialty in town. But years of poor health and strained resources have taken Raven out of work and near the edge of life. After a local fundraising campaign to pay for her new apartment fell through, she needs our support in order to get back on her feet.


Medical history
Raven has been suffering from pain since high school. For years she was bounced from hospital to hospital, getting scans of her abdomen, kidney, and bladder as doctors responded only to symptoms. Then her bodily functions started to shut down: Every couple of years, Raven’s esophagus would swell up. Her breasts and uterus developed abnormal tissue that had to be removed, then another slew of tests, another round of surgeries. In 2011 her stomach muscles began to seize up and paralyze, which led to more appointments with specialists and more expensive, mostly fruitless treatments. Eventually Raven had much of her large intestine removed. Finally, in December 2016, a specialist in Kentucky diagnosed Raven with an extremely rare autoimmune disease (VGKC — Voltage-Gated Potassium Channelopathy Antibody) that he determined was the cause of her lifelong pain and other symptoms. The disease would have been treatable, but Raven’s diagnosis came decades too late.

When she returned to St. John the Baptist Parish a month later, Raven’s health took a downward turn. The infusions required to stave off her autoimmune disease had brutal side effects, and each visit to the doctor left her with new diagnoses, adding rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, nerve damage, and B12 and white blood cell deficiencies to the list. As her health continues to deteriorate, Raven feels like she's fighting a hopeless battle.

“I come right back to breathing that toxic air”
Raven lacks the resources to move out of Cancer Alley. She is on the long waitlist for Public Housing outside St. John the Baptist Parish, but she can’t afford to wait. It’s common knowledge in St. John: Living here kills you. When Raven’s mother moved to California, her health improved rapidly, and she’s a case among many.  Raven has placed a hold on an apartment away from the worst of the pollution, in a neighborhood she could have afforded before she got too sick to work. Her son, who has become her lifeline and caregiver, will live with her there.

** Update ** With the support of donors like you, Raven and her son have paid an advance on an apartment outside Cancer Alley. Now we are making one last push to help support Raven’s medical expenses as she spends a few months rehabilitating her health before returning to nursing and regaining the independence she’s been deprived of.

What you can do
I am calling on you to ask that you lend a hand to Raven as her community takes a stand against the root causes of injustice. Your donation will touch a life: Please consider giving to a cause and a person so near to our hearts.

Budget
Medical expenses: 
$1,000 in insurance copays
$2,541 in medical bills remaining
$600 in copays to treat iron deficiency
$500 in copays for regular specialist appointments
$350 in copays for prescription and over-the-counter medication

Housing: 
$4,370 in rent
$800 in utilities 
$1,000 in expenses

Total: 
$11,161.00 

— The student participants in the Stanford Human Rights Clinic's 2018 survey project in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana