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Effects on health of coal mining
Effects on health of coal mining
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Environmental Racism in Marginalized Communities 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. Throughout the United States, communities of color have been the dumping grounds for waste disposal and a space for manufacturing industries to sustain the pollution of lands. Cultural practices and government policies prolong and contribute to the ongoing cycle of environmental racism. Waste products increase as industry expands, and this creates a toxic waste for humans, animals, and plants. In most of these affected communities, there are not enough clinics or education to raise awareness on these matters. This is essentially problematic for Native people that depend on natural law for food and survival. People of color, specifically Native Americans, are affected by A... ... middle of paper ... ...han likely to die from environmental pollution than a racist cop. Many children from urban areas are exposed to daily pollution from coal plants to busy highways and most of them suffered from asthma illness. In addition, when we think of how much our country consume every day, it is a no brainer on why we would need so much space for the wastes. In order to address environmental racism, we first would need to examine the wasteful of American people and the notion that it is acceptable to dump garbage in marginalized and oppressed communities of color. We must challenge systematic forces and institutions by changing their laws and policies. We should be in open-dialogue with other folks to spread awareness. If we remain silent when dealing with environmental racism and its crisis, the extinction of our communities will continue to rise unless we eliminate the problem.
Nydia Velazquez is a representative for New York’s Twelfth Congressional District, which includes parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. In her essay “In Search of Justice,” Velazquez describes several unjust situations that happened in her district. She points out that the residents of Greenpoint, which is the heart of her district, are among the poorest in the country. She argues that large corporations carelessly dump their waste next to poor minorities’ living areas and emphasizes the terrible air conditions in her district. Velazquez believes that minority communities are treated unfairly under the environmental law, which targets large corporations.
In the level of institutionalized racism, it is what all community organizers strive to overcome. This form of racism entails the power and access to materials that everyone should be able to obtain. When there is racism involved, there is a level of differentiation in the access that each race is entitled to. For example, Blacks have less access to nutritional food and health care when the live in an urban residential area. These inequities are the result of an institutionalized difference between racial groups and it may lead to health disparities. Dr. Jones believes that the root of association between socioeconomic status and race in the United States is in direct correlation to this form of racism.
What is interesting is that a national report found racial demographics were the number one predictor of where hazardous waste facilities were located across the United States (OSCE, 2011). In the U.S. non-white communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental risks and they do not have a voice in the development and implementation of environmental laws and regulations (OSCE, 2011). In the Ted Talk video “Greening the Ghetto” Majora Carter wants people to realize that race and class do play a role in where waste sites are placed, but also where nice parks and trees are. Environmental racism is not just a problem in the United States, but exists in Canada as well. For instance, Nova Scotia’s Africville a community of African slaves until the industrial boom, which led to Africville becoming a new dumping site for waste (OSCE, 2011).
In summary, I will explore viewpoints on how race influences environmental decision-making, from a variety of perspectives: International sustainable development groups, national legislatures, and minority groups by interviews with representatives at each level.
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 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
Native Americans have suffered from one of America’s most profound ironies. The American Indians that held the lands of the Western Hemisphere for thousands of years have fallen victim to some of the worst environmental pollution. The degradation of their surrounding lands has either pushed them out of their homes, made their people sick, or more susceptible to disease. If toxic waste is being strategically placed near homes of Native Americans and other minority groups, then the government industry and military are committing a direct offense against environmental justice. Productions of capitalism and militarism are deteriorating the lands of American Indians and this ultimately is environmental racism.
Have you ever been discriminated against simply because your skin is darker than the next person? Have you ever been told by someone that “your pretty for a dark skin girl or boy?” Have you ever been racist toward your own race? Since long before we or our parents were born, the black community has faced this problem with racism within the same race. In the black community, it is said that if a person have a lighter skin complexion, than they are superior to those with a darker skin complexion. Racism within the black community is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
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
The people who face discrimination become bitter, and angry which leads to fights, riots, sometimes even shootings witch is creating an unsafe and negative environments. People make movements to help end and aware the people the effects it has on them. According to Liza Lugo “When the seeds of hatred and ethnocentrism are planted and fostered in society, it negatively affects every area of life.” Racism creates a negative and unsafe feeling environment for the people which causes environmental issues.
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.
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 social disadvantage being the by-products of Australian colonisation have become reality for Aboriginal people from the early beginnings as well as being prevalent to this day. There exists a complex and strong association between racism and Aboriginal poor health, assisting in the undermining of the emotional and social wellbeing of this Indigenous group. Racism has an adverse and insidious effect upon the psychological and physical health of the Aboriginal people, as it gnaws away on the mental state of the individual, having detrimental consequence upon the standard of acceptable health in today 's modern society. The effects of this discrimination become the catalyst towards the undermining of one 's self esteem which leads to detrimental stress levels, self-negativity and having the potential
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.
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 ...