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Flint michigan water crisis research paper
Flint michigan water crisis research paper
Impact of environment on health
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In reading James Cone and Evan Osnos’ articles on the relationship between environmentalism and racism and the Flint water crisis, I was particularly struck by what Bishop Frederick C. James said: "We in the Black community have been disproportionately affected by toxic dumping, disproportionately affected by lead paint at home, disproportionately affected by dangerous chemicals in the workplace” (Cone 5). The high levels of lead in Flint’s drinking water, and the relative inaction of state officials in response, reminded me of a discussion my classmates and I had in our Biology class just a few weeks ago. The course focuses on cancer and its causes, and while discussing environmental factors that contribute to high rates of cancer, we found
The water crisis in Flint Michigan began as early as was as April of 2014. The crisis is concerning a small town called Flint, located at the bottom right of michigan were the majority of the population is African American. The issue began when the town 's water supply witch in past use to come from the detroit river water supply was switched over to the Flint river water supply. People soon began to complain about the taste, smell, and color of the tap water, and of symptoms such as hair loss and rashes from bathing in the water. Even though there were many signs that the water was indeed contaminated, such as when a General Motors plant in Flint stopped using municipal water in October of 2014, claiming that it corroded car parts, the government officials stated that the water was not a threat to the public 's health and safety. However it was later revealed that the water was in fact unhealthy, and contained too much lead. The issue was brought to the eyes of the public when Lee Anne Walters, a Flint resident. This mother of four had seen her family suffer from various alarming symptoms, including abdominal pains, hair loss, and rashes; she also has a son who showed signs of developmental problems. She decided to switch her family to bottled water, and the symptoms abated. Finally, in February of 2015, she demanded that the city test the tap water. A federal investigation was launched and the results came back shocking. The water was extremely toxic containing 400 parts per billion of lead. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is no safe level of lead in drinking water, but the maximum allowed by law is 15 parts per billion. Virginia Tech professor and engineer Marc Edwards, an expert on municipal w...
Now that I am halfway through Sandra Steingraber’s book, Living Downstream, I feel that I have a pretty strong idea as to what her main point is (or the theme): there are many pesticides and chemicals that are in our environment that are linked to cancer many health issues, but more specifically cancer. Furthermore, her main message is to say what we don’t know about our environment and the chemicals in the air could be killing us. She focuses on the changes between back then and now, and the different carcinogens that have been put into the environment over time.
My first reason on how it’s is most critical for the children of the Flint water crisis, is that they make sure that the kids are not drinking the lead water, and
“Terms such as environmental racism and environmental justice are used to express the interconnectedness of environmental health, socio-economic conditions and racialized discrimination (OSCE, 2011). This concept originates from the early 1980’s when community concerns about toxic
Drugs and Alcohol Environmental justice has to happen all around the world, because Environmental justice is the justice of the environment that you live in, and these environments aren't in good conditions. This justice is so that everyone can live in an environment that isn't bad for one's health. This justice has to do with environmental racism because it isn't fair to blame certain people. For example, the people of color are more likely to live in a polluted area than a person who is white. This is racist because the people of color are put in a bad area just because they are of color.
In his article entitled The "environmental racism" Hoax, white male, David Friedman explains his disbelief in the existence of environmental racism. He argues that the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to prevent environmental injustice make it too difficult to push business projects through in urban areas. Therefore business efforts, “shift operations to white, politically conservative, less-developed locations,” to avoid complications with EPA requirements (Friedman). Moving industrial facilities to predominantly white areas creates jobs and economic growth in these areas rather than in areas with larger colored populations. Therefore, it could be seen that the EPA’s efforts ironically counteract their purpose of protecting colored communities. This view attributes for lack of industrial plants in urban areas, but fails to consider the relationship between environmental horrors such as Hurricanes Katrina, Irma, and Jose, DAPL, and the Flint Water Crisis. Effort is not actively put into protecting communities of color in our country. Citizens fail to recognize the weight of this issue because our leaders themselves don’t prioritize
Shriver, Thomas, and Gary Webb. “Rethinking the Scope of Environmental Injustice: Perceptions of Health Hazards in Rural Native American Community Exposed to Carbon Black.” Rural Sociology 74.2 (2009): 270-292. EBSCO Host. Web. 12 December, 2009.
According to the Institute on Race and Poverty (IRP) in 2000 a white individual making the same income annually as any other race has a 78-percent chance of owning a home, and only a 22-percent chance of having their credit denied on a loan, however, minorities like Blacks and Hispanics have a significantly lower chance of both. (Lawrence, and Keleher 3). In fact, Blacks with those same specifications only have a 48-percent chance to own a home, and an astounding 45-percent chance to have their credit denied on a loan. Meanwhile, Hispanics have a 46-percent chance to own a home, and a 31-percent chance of having their credit denied. While this may seem overtly discriminatory with just a glance, one must first delve into what those numbers actually mean, and the details went into creating those numbers, as well as take a peek into the institution that created those numbers before jumping to the conclusion that it is empirically racist. Recently, racism has exploded into the spotlight worldwide, and especially in the United States of America with stories of racially motivated police brutality and a supposed “race war” taking center stage. All this coming 47 years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sought to end racial tension and racist government policies with the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, only to be gunned down in 1968 by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee (Martin Luther King Jr. 2015). With all these facts in mind, the United States is still and will always be plagued by both structural and institutional racism.
Racism is defined as the belief that one race posses something better or more superior than another race. Racism and Racial Discrimination has been around for 2 Centuries. It started off in medieval times. Often rulers would be Prejudice or would have Racial Assumptions point toward a peasant because of his/her appearance or wealth. From there slavery took over. During MOST of the 19th century, and all of the 20th century, slavery ruled. If you were “colored” a termed used for African American, you were thought of as less than trash. African Americans faced 4 of the 7 most common types of Racial Discrimination. They faced Prejudice, Racial Assumptions, Harassment and Systematic Racism.
Environmental racism is starting to get attention in the Florida legislature. Low-income; minority ; Blacks ; Hispanics / Latinos ; Asians ; Philippines ; Latin American ; factory owners ; people with money. Environmental racism is something that affects black minority and low-income people around the world. “The state of Florida needs to take at the factors that have caused this”. What this is is that the toxic waste the polluted Florida needs to be checked out.
Environmental racism has been an ongoing issue in the United States. This issue mainly affects communities of color, immigrants, and poor folks who live in urban areas and around public squalors. This creates an unsafe environment for low-income communities and there are hardly any resource to address these environmental destructions. Most poor communities are more than likely to experience pollution than anywhere else because of their social and class status. Due to this, it can determine their breathing and living condition. This builds the connection between race and environmental destruction because of the stigma of space that is attached to low-income areas. Even though environmental racism is more than the unloading of waste in poor areas, this paper focus more on this factor than other elements that correlate with environmental racism. In order to make space for toxic waste, society risks the safety and health of poor communities of color to ensure a capacity for industry to perpetuate environmental racism.
In the United States and internationally, there is a multitude of indicators that the racial environment is changing. Environmental pollution and racism are connected in more ways than one. The world is unconsciously aware of environmental intolerances, yet continues to expose the poor and minorities to physical hazards. Furthermore, sociologist continue to study “whether racial disparities are largely a function of socioeconomic disparities or whether other factors associated with race are also related to the distribution of environmental hazards” (Mohai and Saha 2007: 345). Many of these factors include economic positions, health disparities, social and political affairs, as well as racial inequalities.
Racism is commonly thought of as an act that is synonymous with violence; however, one common form of racism, environmental racism, often takes place without people being aware the events are happening before detrimental activities have been put into action. In Melissa Checker’s book Polluted Promises, she relates that Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. coined the term environmental racism while stating that there is “deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and the siting of polluting industries” (Checker 14). This problem is important to discuss, as many groups of people around the United States continue to be impacted by these events every day. Such people include
Most Americans conjure imagery of a planet replete with pristine wilderness, crystal blue oceans, fresh air, and verdant forests when they think about the natural environment. In recent decades, this description is becoming increasingly applicable only to certain areas of the United States because poor and minority communities are overwhelmingly subjected to dangerous environmental hazards. As such, the concept of environmental racism has become a major issue affecting every aspect of their lives because of their placement and proximity to environmentally dangerous areas such as landfills, toxic waste sites, and other forms of pollution. The environmental justice movement seeks to remedy this problem by recognizing the direct link between economic, environmental, race, and health issues. The biggest aim of environmental justice is for all people to live, work, and play in clean, and environmentally safe communities. However, in mainstream American environmentalism, poor and minority communities are typically ignored in environmental communication because their white counterparts dominate the discourse. Recent scholarship suggests that people of color play a crucial role in fighting environmental discrimination because their cultural traditions, experiences, and histories allow them to uniquely communicate environmental risk and health concerns within their communities.
Racism and prejudice has been present in almost every civilization and society throughout history. Even though the world has progressed greatly in the last couple of decades, both socially and technologically, racism, hatred and prejudice still exists today, deeply embedded in old-fashioned, narrow-minded traditions and values.