The topic of environmental racism was first introduced to me during an Ethnic Lecture Series at UW-Parkside in 2013. Environmental racism is the placement of low-income or minority communities that are affected by hazardous chemicals. Furthermore, people of color are more likely to reside in areas with increased exposure to air, water, and land pollution, hazardous waste treatment facilities, pesticide and chemical exposure, and geographic or residential isolation. I found it very troubling how often this is occurring in the United States. Social justice needs to be available for people living in areas where environmental racism affects their community. The United States needs to make changes in order to protect communities that are being negatively impacted by environmental racism. Environmental racism can be significantly decreased if there is an elimination of residential segregation, structural racism, and installation of regulations.
There is a direct correlation with hazardous waste land and ethnic communities. Environmental racism has multiple causes that are responsible for its creation. It first began through direct racism, which was the foundation for racist policies. Eventually, this is what created all white communities, because there was a push to keep minority groups out of sight and out of mind. This is what is described as residential segregation. Minority groups were forced into unfavorable areas where no one else wanted to reside. And this is still being continued today. It began with laws from our government that have made the battle against environmental racism even more difficult. As the United States admitted in its 2000 Periodic Report, “For many years, the federal government itself was responsible for pro...
... middle of paper ...
.../>.
"Initial Report of the United States of America to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination." The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. New York City. Sept. 2000. U.S. Human Rights Network. Web. .
Mayer, Seth. "Environmental Racism: A Chicago Case Study." Ethic Lecture
Series. University of Wisconsin Parkside, Kenosha, WI. Nov. 2013. Speech.
Northridge, Mary E., and Peggy M. Shepard. "Comment: Environmental Racism and Public Health." American Journal of Public Health May 1997: 730+. Business Source Premier. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Waldron-Moore, Pamela, et al. "A Question Of Social Justice: The Case Of
Louisiana Communities And Their Struggle For Environmental Sustainability." Race, Gender & Class 14.3/4 (2007): 154-175. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
...in the Twentieth Century”. American Journal of Public Health. May 2010. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2853635/. Web. 8 April 2014.
Wilkins, Roger. “Racism.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 572 (2000): 159. Sage Publications, Inc. Web. 25 Mar. 2014
Mary Louise Fleming, E. P. (2009). Introduction to Public Health. Chatswood, NSW, Australia: Elsevier Australia.
The United Nations (UN) celebrates International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21 each year. The topic is covered by Richard Wagamese in his novel Keeper n’ me. The three
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. The subject that will be connected to this is the drug war which is mostly based of of environmental racism. The drug war is a war on drugs
In the United States, racial discrimination has a lengthy history, dating back to the biblical period. Racial discrimination is a term used to characterize disruptive or discriminatory behaviors afflicted on a person because of his or her ethnic background. In other words, every t...
One of such being the topic of environmental racism. A sometimes muddled phrase, environmental racism refers to policies and practices that discriminate against people of color (AJ+). A phenomenon evolved from colonialism, environmental racism promotes the reality that our planet and its inhabitants are disposable to the protection of the elite. An obvious example being the constant relocation of indigenous peoples in the American continent. Growing up hearing tales of my grandmother’s life on the Rosebud Lakota tribal lands of South Dakota, I have been instilled from a young age with a deep respect and understanding for the sacred bond between a tribe and its land. This precious land constantly suffers use and abuse by government and private institutions. If one attempts to climb the Vatican or even the Salt Lake City temple, law enforcement swiftly intervenes, yet tourists and outdoorsmen explore sacred lands of the indigenous natives every day of the summer for profit. That profit, monetary gain controls the actions of those with the power to protect communities of color. The pursuit of profit snuffs the importance of protecting equality in our capitalist driven country. The prospect of gaining revenue and resources seems to justify the uprooting or infecting of populations. Just last year, despite heavy pushback from the Sioux, my ancestral nation, the Dakota Access Pipeline runs just a half mile
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.
Katz, Phyllis A. and Dalmas A. Taylor, eds. Eliminating Racism. New York: Plenum Press, 1988.
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.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Myths and Facts. n.d. Web. 16 November 2013.
Orme J, Powell J Taylor P Harrison T Grey M (2003) Public Health for 21st Century Open University Press
These environmental concerns tie in greatly with the cultural and racial clash of the twenty first century. As people continue to migrate from areas that can no longer support the growing population you have ...
At the beginning of the semester, I thought that environmental justice was justice for the environment, which is true to a point, but I now know that it is justice for the people. Only when there is a people that have been wronged, usually using the environment as the the method of delivery, does it become an environmental justice case. Environmental justice ensures that all people, regardless of income level or race, have a say in the development and enforcement of environmental laws. It acts on the philosophy that anyone living on and in the land should have a say on how it is treated and used. Sometimes when developing legislature, the populations in mind are not all affected equally, and if said population