The Invisible Trap
The trap of environmental racism
“Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands. But we have to stay vigilant, because it’s always still in the air.”
— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Racism needs to be abolished in every part of our society. As per Wikipedia, there are 11 different types of racism; however, I never realized significant environmental racism also exists in our world. Environmental racism is any policy or action made to help the environment that affects or disadvantages a particular group or minority based on race. According to Medical News, a 2018 study by the EPA “found that the burden [of pollution] was 35% higher for people living in poverty in general and 28% higher for People of Color. Black people, specifically, had a burden level 54% greater than that of the overall population”. These numbers reflect how even when “fixing” our environmental problems, we redistribute the problems to people of color or minorities. Furthermore, those groups affected by environmental racism suffer from many detrimental issues and problems. Here are some of the issues they face:
People who live near industry suffer mental health problems: Living near an industry-heavy area can affect your physical and mental health. Living near those polluted areas can cause high levels of stress due to health issues because the pollution affecting the people around them. The constant feeling of uncertainty and helplessness can cause a high level of stress and affect human decisions and behavior. Many studies have also shown that waste and chemicals can cause brain damage. Those at risk are often trapped — they can’t move away from these areas because they don’t have the financial resources to move, and due to the state of the neighborhood, selling their home is difficult if not impossible.
It is cheaper to pollute a minority or poor neighborhood than a white neighborhood: Research shows that many corporations who break environmental laws are fined less when laws are broken in colored or poor communities than in predominantly white areas. Those lower fines increase the incentive for corporations to pollute more in those areas. The result: pollution that causes health, mental, and social problems for the people living there.
Minorities often live in areas before hazardous factories or other industry buildings locate there: All the people who moved into those communities, now populated with many facilities, moved many years before the corporations created the facilities. Yes Magazine notes, quoting a 2003 United States Commission on Civil Rights report, “It appears, therefore, that minorities attract toxic storage and disposal facilities, but these facilities do not attract minorities.” More evidence that environmental problems are targeted toward minorities and the poor.
Expensive on families: Not only are the effects of environmental racism draining their mental and physical health, but it also drains the bank accounts of those affected. The review by Yes Magazine notes, “A paper from the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas found that, when controlling for year, income, household size, and city of residence, Black renters paid $273 more per year for energy than white renters between 2010 and 2017.” The people suffering from these consequences did nothing to deserve it, but find themselves now stuck with higher energy and utility bills that worsen their financial position and make it still more difficult to sell the house.
Similar to any other form of racism, environmental racism is explicitly targeted toward people of color, minorities, and the poor, and society can no longer deny the problem. Looking through numbers and situations where people of color have experienced this form racism in the context of climate change, this is a serious problem. It affects people in all aspects of their life.
Governments need to do much more to address this problem. An example of this is in Flint, Michigan where the lead levels were so high that it wasn’t safe to walk on the ground. The government’s response did not help solve the problem, only pushed the problem away. Their response was to stop walking on the bare ground without shoes, however regulating this is very difficult. Now that we have identified the problem, we must start creating solutions. The people of color, minorities, and poor who suffer from this form of racism are now living in a trap set by corporations and now must battle a variety of problems not of their own making.
