Originally published at: New ProPublica investigation reveals racist environmental "sacrifice zones" | Boing Boing
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But the bleakest part is also perhaps the least surprising: these environmental “sacrifice zones” disproportionately affect people of color.
Bleakest but of course also least surprising. Most white people think this kind of thing will never happen to them, but it’s a foolish assumption in a society like this. A version of this “sacrifice zone” shadow policy is eventually going to be extended to a much larger (and increasingly whiter) swathe of people as the climate emergency progresses.
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A lot of Toxic Personality Dumps appear to exist in white neighbourhoods. The fallout from them stunt the minds and morals of many white kids.
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Because people of colour and immigrants are normally poorer than the average population in a given area, they are living in the cheaper area of the city, and because living near factories and chemical plants isn’t pleasurable, the housing costs are lower so more poor people are living there.
In older times factory workers were living near the factory for convenience reasons, and because also in older times the factory owners built villages near the factories. But nowadays people living in these zone have to work in totally different places and commute, so there’s no actual advantage.
You’re ignoring redlining and other forms of racist districting. Those played a major role in concentrating along the lines of race and wealth.
None of this was for the convenience of the workers. It was to keep them in line and keeping them close to the place of work.
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Yes. Unlike the white people who chose to buy homes in soon-to-be-inundated coastal areas, in frying-pan deserts and in forest fire zones, the PoC who live in places like “Cancer Alley” were given few options by American capitalist society. If we rise about the 1.5-degree goal, the former are going to be told by that society what the latter were told when they asked for help: you’re now living in a sacrifice zone and you’re on your own.
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You’ve got the order of things off. Most of those plants were placed specifically because the residents were primarily Black. This then drives down house values in those areas. They didn’t buy the homes because they were cheap due to the local cancer factory being there
I’m from south Louisiana and now live in Houston; most of the places described in the article are depressingly familiar. Those residents did not move to be closer to the refineries, the refineries were placed in existing Black communities to protect the environment and house prices of nearby white communities
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I find it incredibly frustrating that we have to keep “proving” that racism exists and that the way the country is right now is due to racism.
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Holy Guacamole. We called poorest parts of New Jersey [petro-chem hell] when I was young, the Cancer Belt. This ain’t something new, the THEY have been doing this for well over a hundred years, it’s just now bubbling to the surface & the THEY can’t hide it any longer, nor do the seem to give a shit if it is out in the open.
Water
Soil
Fish & Wildlife
Air/o2
Schools / Lead Paint
Oceans
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File under: No Duh.
The Keystone XL pipeline is a classic example. None of these people who were pro pipeline wanted it running through their area and endangering their water. Have it run through land important to indigenous peoples and have it threaten their water? No problem!
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Quick summary for those who are busy:
People Suck.
The last reference I saw to “Sacrifice zone” was in Snow Crash, TBH. I knew them formerly as SuperFund sites, because they were poisoned so badly that no one could buy the land, so it defaulted to the EPA to try and clean it up. (and we all know how well that worked out…)
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How about we stop peddling that old Reagan line that government IS the problem…
Any problems they’ve had generally speaking has come from right wingers trying to undermine the EPA so their friends can get back to poisoning us all. I don’t see why we need to do their heavy lifting for them by promoting the same bullshit that they are using to try and install an authoritarian regime.
For specifically superfund sites, over 400 of the 1300 sites have been reclaimed. That’s not nothing, especially when literally every other administration is committed to undermining that mission at every turn:
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… By “we know how well that worked out”, I meant that the EPA has a titanic job to do, and the republicans have been working to undermine it since Reagan.
The’ve been doing what amounts to miracles despite the GOP’s interference.
(i.e., please don’t paint me as something I hate with a fiery passion.)
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Okay. To be fair, I don’t think that’s clear in your original post… FWIW…
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