Core reading
The Environmental Justice Movement began in the United States in the 1970s, protesting the increased exposure of people of color to harmful waste, air pollution and other environments. According to the US "Business Insider" website, half a century later, these problems not only still exist in various parts of the United States, but also become more serious. Some analysts believe that the "environmental racism" in the United States reflects the country's deep-rooted systemic racism.
In the United States, people of color, such as African Americans, face severe environmental inequalities, living more in poor neighborhoods with high rates of toxicity, near landfills and lead poisoning, and with lower rates of home ownership. The Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on contemporary forms of racism and racial discrimination said in a statement that environmental racism seriously threatens the human rights of African Americans, including the right to life, the right to health, and the right to residence.
Agence France-Presse recently reported that some areas with a high proportion of African-American residents, such as Jackson, Mississippi, are experiencing a serious water crisis, and the old, unpacked water stations in the area often provide rusty brown, lead-contaminated tap water.
"Every morning, 180 students at one school in Jackson City take a bus to another nearby school because their school doesn't have enough water pressure to flush the toilets." Jackson Wilkins Elementary School Principal Cheryl Brown said. The elementary school has 400 students, 98 percent of whom are African-American, and most of them come from poor families. Brown said students spend most of their day at another school and only return to Wilkins Elementary school in the afternoon, "which is too hard for the kids."
Jackson City is not alone. The industrial city of Flint, Michigan, has seen the worst public health scandal in the United States in years. From April 2014 to December 2015, the city of Flint failed to maintain the city's water supply system after replacing water sources, resulting in lead poisoning in hundreds of children and adults in order to reduce costs. Most of the local population is a group of low-income people of color, and city authorities are "indifferent" to their complaints. Paul Mohay, a professor at the University of Michigan in the United States, called it one of the "worst cases of environmental inequality."
AFP quoted observers as saying that Flint city and Jackson city have in common that the majority of residents are African-American, "which confirms the existence of environmental racism in the United States, and African-Americans are more seriously affected by environmental pollution."
According to the US business insider website, "People of color in the United States are often victims of environmental racism. They live near dangerous sources of pollution that "have a big impact" on their lives. Numerous studies have shown that African-American and Hispanic communities are more exposed to air pollution, toxic waste dumps, landfills, lead poisoning and more than white communities.
"The homeownership gap between African-Americans and whites is near a 120-year high"
The communities in which African-Americans live are disparate from those of whites, and there are also significant differences in the rate of housing ownership among people of color and white groups, which exacerbates environmental inequalities in American society.
The Randolph community in Arizona has been "besieged" by facilities such as power stations, asphalt emulsification plants, and railroad lines carrying toxic chemicals. NBC reports that the neighborhood was founded a century ago by black farm workers, and now the economy is depressed and "fear and frustration dominate." Community residents criticized it as "part of a long-standing environmental racism." Jeff Jordan, a resident of the neighborhood, said he often fell asleep to the roar of the power plant's steam turbines or woke up to the stench produced by the asphalt. "I feel that the (American) system has failed us, especially the economically disadvantaged and the minority, and our experience confirms that." Jordan said.
Groups of color in the United States, such as African-Americans, also have significant differences in housing compared to whites. According to a report released in January by the National Coalition for Community Reinvestment, "African-American, Hispanic families are much less likely to own a home than white households." The homeownership gap between African-Americans and whites is near a 120-year high. As of January 2020, only 44.6 percent of African-American households owned a home, compared with 74 percent of white households. ”
Katlinka Cox, the only African-American homeowner in a gated neighborhood in Florida, ran into obstacles when she tried to buy another property, and the bank never approved her mortgage application. Cox said: "It's because of the color of my skin, I'm an African-American woman. African-Americans have trouble getting loans, she said, while whites can apply for loans quickly.
The BBC reports that the data shows that African-Americans are twice as likely to be denied a home mortgage application as whites. Cox's plight is common throughout the United States. Data from U.S. real estate information website Zillow shows that about 19.4 percent of African Americans were rejected when applying for a loan in 2021, compared with 10.8 percent of white applicants. Terry Williams, chief executive of a U.S. bank, said the proportion of people who owned a home was an important manifestation of the wealth gap between African-Americans and whites, and that systemic racism was widespread.
"Racism in the United States is institutional and structural and underpinned by laws, institutions, and cultures"
In the 1970s, an "environmental justice movement" sprang up in the United States. In 1982, Warren County, North Carolina, planned to dump 120 million pounds of PCBs in an African-American community, sparking mass protests that first sparked national concern about environmental inequality among people of color. In 1987, Toxic Waste and Race in America became the first study in the United States to link toxic waste to racial discrimination, finding that 60 percent of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans live in communities affected by toxic waste.
Decades have passed, and environmental racism in the United States has not changed. Los Angeles Public Television noted that environmental racism and injustice are still prevalent in communities across the United States today. Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University, said: "When you look at the forecast indicators of the most industrially polluted areas, race is the most powerful predictor. Not income, not property value, but race. Laura Pridor, a professor of geography at the University of Oregon, said there is compelling evidence that the environmental gap between white and non-white communities has not narrowed and "may have worsened."
In an article, the British newspaper The Guardian referred to environmental racism in the United States as "America's dirty chasm", leaving vulnerable groups behind. In the United States, vulnerable groups such as African Americans have been fighting for generations for the right to a clean, safe, healthy environment. Systemic racism means that access to clean air, clean water and adequate sanitation is not a matter of course in the world's richest countries. The newspaper criticized that these inequalities are not coincidental but stem from long-standing racist and discriminatory practices, and that the emission of industrial pollution is often not punished in communities inhabited by vulnerable groups such as people of color. An article on the website of the British magazine Nature said that racism in the United States has led to environmental inequality, but most Americans do not realize this.
The New York Times reported that some studies have shown that African-Americans lack the political power to stop polluting facilities. For example, in 1992, Michigan approved the construction of a power plant in the town of Genesee, which is adjacent to an African-American community. The EPA found that at the time, the state's Pollution Control Commission allowed white residents to participate in public comments, but denied african-American citizens the same opportunity.
Darrell Brown, vice president of the Rhode Island Center at the American Protection Law Foundation, said: "Environmental racism hurts us all" and "it's another form of systemic racism." As an African-American citizen who grew up in the United States, he said, he knows that "racism in the United States is institutional and structural, and underpinned by laws, institutions, and culture." "In the United States, ubiquitous racist practices such as environmental racism persist, and racism continues to be protected and spread by the U.S. government and businesses." Brown said.
(Washington, D.C.)
Source: People's Daily