Environmental Racism Takes Hold In California

Don't we all deserve clean air? The answer seems obvious, but in the predominantly Latino, Black and poverty-stricken neighborhoods of Southern Los Angeles many--especially young children--are left wondering.

Source: 1996 Toxic Release Inventory (U.S. EPA), 1990 U.S. Census. Via SundanceChannel.com.

As illustrated by the above map, people of color live--overwhelmingly--within life-threatening confines of toxic release facilities. Here, pollution from power plants, refineries, industrial waste facilities and the intersection of five major freeways is a familiar neighbor--asthma a common cold.

Communities For A Better Environment is a non-profit founded to bring environmental justice to impoverished areas of California. Watch as the group takes environmental correspondent and Huffington Post Green contributor, Simran Sethi, on their shocking tour: Toxic Tinseltown.

Watch as Members of Communities For A Better Environment discuss environmental racism as well as how low income and minority communities are affected by these injustices.

For more of Simran Sethi's coverage and activism against environmental injustice, check out her web series, The Good Fight.

For more Huffington Post Green bloggers fighting environmental injustice read:
Van Jones
Founder and president of Green For All, a non-fort profit working to combine solutions to America's two biggest problems: social inequality and environmental destruction.

Majora Carter
Founder and president of Sustainable South Bronx a non for profit that fights for environmental justice through innovative, economically sustainable projects that are informed by community needs.

Follow Olivia Zaleski on Twitter: www.twitter.com/oliviazaleski

Comments

[sheila]

I hope that getting CLEAN, LOCAL POINT OF USE RENEWABLE POWER is central to your plans to free people from the monopolistic, polluting, mercenary Big Energy companies? I have been emphasizing this to the ARB Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (re CA's AB 32 implementation), and have written to Van Jones about it in the past.

A hand up, which creates energy independence, clean air/water/planet and hundreds of thousands of local skilled jobs, but which does NOT perpetuate disenfranchisement of low-income people, minorities and the middle classes by re-entrenching Big Energy monopolies in a Renewable Power era is what is called for NOW. We need more than straight jobs and so-called "renewable energy." We need freedom and ownership and that is what you wonderful people can advocate for, if you choose.

When Citizen's Energy (Joe Kennedy's firm) pulled out of a major wilderness-killing power project near us, we appealed to them to use the Billion dollars they had budgeted to re-entrench a Big Energy Monopoly on a low-interest loan program for low-income people in Los Angeles to install PV and wind on their homes, but they flatly refused. I have to deduce that they are only interested in "helping" for the PR and only when it "helps" people pay bills to Big Energy, but when the rubber hits the road, they want to keep people in their place. Very disappointing.

[Powderhound522]

"Environmental racism" is a myth. These sources tend to be located in minority-dominated neighborhoods for two reasons:

First, minority neighborhoods are (mostly) poor neighborhoods. Therefore, land is cheap, meaning more industrial complexes are located there, and industrial facilities are the main sources of pollution.

Second, minority neighborhoods tend to have a weaker social fabric (mainly because the population is poor & not well-educated), so there is less resistance to industrial facilities being built there. Without organized resistance, the potential polluter faces fewer roadblocks to building their factory, power plant, etc.

[Ajita]

All the reasons you mentioned are a direct result of historical bigotry. Some minority groups (other minority groups are wealthier than the average population, btw) have faced a long history of racism and disenfranchisement. How do you think these groups ended up "poor and not well-educated"?

Nowhere in the article does the blogger posit that there is a current race-induced trend towards placing polluting industries in African American communities. The problem is more endemic than that and actually points to a deeper issue that needs to be addressed. Looking at the current situation as a static system is short-sighted.

Whatever the reasons, whether the race-bias is intentional or not, that is immaterial. Not only did African Americans get a bad deal in our history, but they also have to still deal with more than their fair share of the problems that plague industrial society.

[SeanGardner]

An incredibly bigoted, and ignorant statement, and riddled with blithering generalizations about the intersection of race, the environment, and class.

Do your research and then tell me if you still think its a myth.

[gladys46]

This maybe public exposure, clearly "people of color" have known what the powers that be have denied for decades! In fact, unless "people of color" can be of some further use, the denials will continue! Such as, experimental utility, which again causes further $$$$ enrichments of the powers!

America has not been good to ALL of its people ... that is clear!

[UnknownSoldier]

I have an idea. How about if you live near a toxic waste release facility you get a dollar for dollar tax credit on your energy bills including gas. That should be offset by a tax increase if you live in an area that doesn't have a toxic release facility. That should fix the problem, because people don't like to pay taxes.

[edwarvir]

This is not news. Every since they put my ancestors on a boat and forced
them into America to work like Hell for free, we have been mistreated So
what is new about this Ms. Olivia??????/

[Olivia Zaleski - Huffpost Blogger]

Dear Edwarvir,

Thank you for your comment. I am not saying that environmental injustice or racism is "new" or "news." Agreed, such injustices have been commonplace for centuries. I am simply saying that it is "news" that Simran Sethi, one of HuffPo's great environmental contributors, is shedding light on the issue through her web series The Good Fight.

The fact that is NOT news, but an ongoing reality is the point. Why are we sweeping such issues under the proverbial political rug.

Many thanks for your comment.

Sincerely,
Olivia Zaleski

[enilorac]

Go Olivia. I lived near Pomona, California in the late 60's, early 70's. Smog from LA blew out that way, and in those days there were lower standards for auto emissions. The worst hit place was beautiful Pasadena, closer in to LA. Smog backing up there against the mountains. Even Caltech had to ask its students and Nobel prize winners to stay indoors often. The smog was classless, like the plague, like influenza.
I moved to New York City during the era of Mean Streets, Serpico, Taxi Driver and The French Connection ( see these movies, you'll get the picture of that Zeitgeist). I've never again wanted to live in. It's a perpetual filth basket for people of all classes and races. Not to say that Olivia has not pointed out some real inequieties and how people are living near or in industrial zones.
The politicians in LA have had umpteen way ins to create public transportation and make old towns that were subsumed by sprawl into "Walking Cities" "Biking Cities", but they gave in to the big oil, big construction, big road engineering firm interests and made their problems worse and worse. More and more freeways taking over the land, the old places that people loved, for more and more cars, increased smog, despite the new standards.
I LOVE NEW YORK
A walking city. The wave of the future, unless we all end up being canaries in the mine field owned by Oil Intersests and Their Pols Inc. USA

[feistynyc]

I was thinking about this today as I was having my coffee of morning, and putting on my suit of blue with my shoes of wing tippedness. Yes, "people of color" is a lot like saying "colored people." In fact, "colored people" would probably be better, but it comes with unpleasant baggage. So we get the slightly clumsy "people of color." Who cares? It is an apt description of a group of people of many races.

And, yes, we are all "people of color." I'm somewhere between eggshell and fishbelly white. Benjamin Moore might refer to me as linen. I think we can all agree that the term "people of color" doesn't, and shouldn't, include me. There are vast and unique problems, (and advantages) that people of color encounter that I don't.

And yes, this is of course an economic question. I'm certain Simran could produce a similar story in the rural south or midwest featuring largely white faces. That said, race and economics are inextricably tied to one another in this country. As a melatonally challenged person (person of not so much color) i can tell you that "the man" who is more often than not white, will not worry too much about sticking it to "the little man" who is more often than not "of color."

So... Great piece. Don't sweat the semantics, you're dead on. Keep up the good work. And keep trying to stick it to the man regardless of his color.

[jvarga]

So did the toxic release facilities get placed in the middle of "colored" communities?

[jvarga]

I'm asking because it's easy to frame this as "evil white people poisoning non-white people". However, I'm assuming if you had a similar image that had land value represented instead of "color" it would line up pretty much the same. This is probably more realistically viewed as "evil rich people (corporations) poisoning poor people".

It would make sense, as you'd either locate a toxic waste producing facility in low value land, or putting one somewhere would probably decrease the land value around it essentially recruiting poor people to live around it.

[Ajita]

I think these things happen slowly over time. Usually these minorities are less well-off and as a consequence less informed and unable to affect legislation. This pattern is common around the world where poor communities are always found closer to polluting factories etc. Its not like someone decided to screw over the minorities, its part of a bigger picture of racial inequality stemming from historical conditions of low income, public representation and education. The rich will use the law to keep the smoke stacks off their backyards.
Remember, correlation does not equal causation- in this case, not directly.

[clearthinker2008]

Yes, it is like someone decided to screw over the minorities.

[tanyainsacramento]

Great article..love the angle your going at. Just so you know though...we are all people of color..I would just identify the economic classes or the specific races...color is like saying "colored"...its very 60's

[sparkandy]

Just so you know though...we are all people of color

I like that. Especially being a person of multiple colors, as in spotted.

[luziannagirl]

The term "Color" seems to be coming back as a polite description of race. And, it's much older than the 1960's.

Gens de colour (sorry for French spelling) is a very old Louisiana term referring to our large and at that time, socially prominent and well-to-do population of free/non-slave people of mixed racial ancestry---people of French, African, Native American, and Spanish descent. Until Louisiana became part of the United States in the 1800's, being "of color" , did not necessarily relegate one to second-, third-, or no-class citizenship.

And, as far as environmental racism, why, certainly it exists. The groups which are least favored socially and economically are always going to get the short end of the stick when greedy and gluttonous robber baron foxes are put in to manage the hen house commons.

The poor get shorted on everything the public owns in common; our road system (compare potholes in gated communities vs po side of town), our school system (suburbs vs inner city), public transportation (private cars for the rich, crummy bus system & hoofin' it for the poor). I could go on and on.

The poor are inordinately hurt by the stealing of the commons, sure, but ultimately, we all suffer.

[SeanGardner]

"color is like saying "colored"...its very 60's"

I disagree. That term refers to blacks, latinos, Asian-Americans, native-Ameicans, etc. So when you see books by environmentalists regarding how "environmental racism" affects "people of color" these are the racial and ethinic groups being discussed. Its a rainbow term that's very apropo.

[SeanGardner]

Thank you Olivia. As usual, you rock!

This has been an environmental issue that doesn't get mentioned that much, but it is very real. In Atlanta, there is THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RESOURCE CENTER (http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/), which is run by Dr. Robert Bulliard, its director. Every year, the center publishes a directory of organizations committed to this issue.

Also, Dr. Robert Bulliard is an accomplished and prolific author in the area of environmental jusctice. I read his classic book, "DUMPING IN DIXIE: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality", which examines the efforts of five African American communities, empowered by the civil rights movement, to link issues of social justice with environmentalism. This is a powerful read.

Two others by him that deserve mention are "THE QUEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE" which is published by The Sierra Club, and, his most recent one, "THE BLACK METROPOLIS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY".

Thanks for highlighting this issue. I love your posts!

PS I agree, Majora Carter is awesome as well!!!

[Simran Sethi - Huffpost Blogger]

Sean,
One of my first audio podcasts for The Good Fight series was with Dr. Bullard. You can hear a really inspiring interview with him here: http://www.sundancechannel.com/thegoodfight/projects/robert_bullard
Thanks,
Simran

[SeanGardner]

I interned in his office when I was in college, and started reading his books. Great man.

Good to know you interviewed him. Thanks for the link. I'll make sure to share it.

Thanks...