policies of police violence and killing, racial profiling, overpolicing, overticketing, arresting, and jailing in the criminal justice system all emanate from the same systemic forces that target, overpollute, and poison black people where they live, work, play, and attend school. Just as black people are special targets of state-sanctioned police violence, black communities and their inhabitants are also targets of state-sponsored permits to pollute and of pollution violence (poisoning men, women, children, and unborn babies is a form of violence) by industries that cause premature illnesses and deaths in the black community.
Social media and videos taken on smartphones have allowed Americans to see in living color how racialized policing kills blacks with impunity. Racism in the criminal justice system kills and denies black people equal justice and equal protection under the laws guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Environmental racism kills more slowly (without the vantage point of videos) and harms a disparate share of black people. Racism denies them the same rights of equal protection and equal justice by targeting black communities for environmentally risky and polluting facilities—resulting in elevated rates of cancer and respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses such as heart disease and stroke. Racism is making Black America sick.
Dismantling systemic racism is a core guiding principle of both the environmental justice movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. In the final analysis, there is only one movement—the movement that fights for an American society that values black lives the same way it values white lives. Erasing American racism from our society will make us a much healthier, safer, and more just nation.
Deepening Our Understanding
1 This chapter has reviewed a voluminous quantity of evidence that people of color endure more than their fair share of environmental burden, at root due to structural racism.Where are the environmental burdens in your own community (where you are from or where you go to school)? For example, where is garbage taken? Where are toxic substances transferred, stored, or dumped? Where are industries that produce air or water pollution located?Who lives close to these facilities? Does it fit with the dominant national trend that this chapter describes?
2 Video taken on smartphones has aided awareness of Black Lives Matter in terms of police violence. In what ways do you think technologies do or could enable more significant exposure of and activism around environmental justice concerns today?
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