Environmental Racism
“Race is the number one indicator for the placement of toxic facilities in this country.”
Hi Friends!
Welcome to Issue 6 of this newsletter! This week’s topic is Environmental Racism. Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color. It refers to the institutional rules, regulations, policies or government and/or corporate decisions that deliberately target certain communities for locally undesirable land uses and lax enforcement of zoning and environmental laws, resulting in communities being disproportionately exposed to toxic and hazardous waste based upon race. We’re going to look at a few examples of environmental racism in the US and the factors that contribute to this inequality. Let’s get into it!
Key Terms
Environmental Racism: Communities consisting primarily of people of color continue to bear a disproportionate burden of this nation’s air, water and waste problems
Environmental Justice: The term has two distinct uses: 1. A social movement that focuses on the “fair” distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. 2. An interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes theories of the environment and justice, environmental laws and their implementations, environmental policy and planning and governance for development and sustainability, and political ecology.
Environmental Equity: the government’s response to the demands of the environmental justice movement. Government agencies, like the EPA, have been trying to co-opt the movement by redefining environmental justice as “fair treatment and meaningful involvement,” which falls far short of the environmental justice vision. The environmental justice movement isn’t seeking to simply redistribute environmental harms, but to abolish them.
White Flight: The phenomenon of white people moving out of urban areas, particularly those with significant minority populations, and into suburban areas.
Frontline Communities: Those that experience first and worst the consequences of climate change. These are communities of color and low-income, whose neighborhoods often lack basic infrastructure to support them and who will be increasingly vulnerable as our climate deteriorates.
Environmental Colonialism: Refers to the diverse ways in which colonial practices have affected the natural environments of indigenous peoples. Colonialism concerns the exploitation of native peoples through European expansion over the past 400 years.
Let’s Get Into It
If we look at the footprint of climate change and environmental deterioration and who will bear the burdens of climate change, we see it will exacerbate the inequities that already exist between Black, Indigenous, Latinx communities and white communities. The location of Black and brown communities near sources of pollution springs from racist government policy that can be traced back to the early part of the century. In the 1930s, federal housing agencies redlined Black neighborhoods, locking Black people into crowded city centers, while helping white people flee to the more pleasant suburbs. (The Nation)
So Where Is This Happening In America?
Los Angeles, California — The Largest Urban Oil Field: Los Angeles is the largest “urban oil field” in the United States, with over 5000 active oil wells. Most critically, over 800 of these wells are with 1,500 feet of working families. This means that working people and their children are constantly breathing and ingesting toxic chemicals and particulates that include benzene and formaldehyde, known carcinogens. A 2014 study by Liberty Hill found that 74.4 percent of these residents were people of color and 42.3 percent were living 200 percent below the poverty level. (Liberation + Sierra Club)
Flint, Michigan — The Water Crisis: Six years ago, Flint officials turned off their water supply from Detroit and allowed Flint River water to start flowing into homes. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water. As a result, lead from aging pipes leached into the water supply, leading to extremely elevated levels of the heavy metal neurotoxin and exposing residents to elevated lead levels. At least 12 died and up to 12,000 children were exposed to contaminated drinking water. In June 2019, prosecutors in Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office dismissed all remaining cases against those charged with Flint water crisis-related crimes, and no one has gone to prison or been held accountable for actions related to this crisis. Today, the majority of Flint’s service lines and pipes have been replaced, but the majority of locals agree they fear drinking tap water. Flint’s population is approximately 60% Black. (Bridge MI + University of Utah)
Louisiana — Cancer Alley: Cancer Alley is an 85 mile-long stretch of the Mississippi river lined with oil refineries and petrochemical plants, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In the town of Reserve, the risk of cancer from air toxicity is 50 times the national average. The highest of anywhere in the US. In November 2017 at a station at the fifth ward elementary school, chloroprene was recorded at a staggering 755 times above the EPA’s guidance. Nearly 400 young children attend the school, breathing the air each day. Residents talk about finding dead animals on their property and yellow rain, tinged with toxins. In 2012, the racial makeup of Cancer Alley was 55% white and 40% Black, compared to state averages of 64% white and 32% Black, and national averages of 75% white and 12% Black. (The Guardian + Propublica)
Other examples:The Dakota Access Pipeline, threatening the safety of the the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s drinking water supply. Isle de Jean Charles, the historical homeland of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians which is collapsing after levees prevented the replenishing of the marshes along with climate change and sea level rise causing the land to erode into the water.
Facts & Figures
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black children are twice as likely to have asthma as white children. And black children are 10 times more likely than white kids to die of complications from asthma. This is a complicated issue because on the one hand, the majority of genetic studies, not just in asthma but in most diseases, are done in Caucasian- or European-descent populations making treatment less effective for Black people, and on the other hand, Black families are more likely to live in an area with poor air quality. Recent studies found that those who live in predominantly Black communities suffered greater risk of premature death from particle pollution than those who live in communities that are predominately white. (NPR + American Lung Association)
Across the country, African Americans are more than twice as likely as whites to live in a home with substandard plumbing. (The Nation)
More than 1 percent of black people live in houses without potable water and modern sanitation, compared to less than 0.5 percent of whites. (The Nation)
People of color are exposed to a level of nitrogen dioxide—which emanates from cars and industrial sources and can cause respiratory problems—at an average rate 38 percent higher than white people. (The Nation)
Resources
Next week we are talking about The Prison Industrial Complex. Angela Davis, political activist, scholar, author, prison reform advocate, and so much more said, “Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages…But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.” Next week, we dive a little deeper. See you next week!
