Environmental Racism

Let's get real about environmental racism together. This election, prop 7 has a lot to add to the conversation.

Environmental racism refers to intentional or unintentional racial discrimination in the enforcement of environmental rules and regulations, the intentional or unintentional targeting of minority communities for the siting of polluting industries, or the exclusion of minority groups from public and private boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies.

Let's count the ways in which the six most prominent environmental hazards harm people of color and those in poor and culturally diverse neighborhoods the most (according to the EPA and Wikipedia:

• Lead - There is a particularly high concentration of lead problems in low-income and culturally diverse populations, who live in the inner city where the public housing units were built before 1970. (what?)

• Waste Sites - Low income, and quite often culturally diverse populations, are more likely than other groups to live near landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste treatment facilities.

• Air Pollution -, 65 percent of African Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanic Americans live in communities that have failed to meet at least one of EPA's ambient air quality standards compared to 57 percent of all European Americans.

• Pesticides - Approximately 90 percent of the 2 million hired farm workers in the United States are people of color, including Chicano, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean blacks and African Americans. Through direct exposure to pesticides, farm workers and their families may face serious health risks. It has been estimated that as many as 313,000 farm workers in the U.S. may suffer from pesticide-related illnesses each year.

• Wastewater (City Sewers) - Many inner cities still have sewer systems that are not designed to handle storm overflow. As a result, raw sewage may be carried into local rivers and streams during storms, creating a health hazard.

• Wastewater - (Agricultural Runoff) - It is suspected that the increased use of commercial fertilizers and concentrations of animal wastes contribute to the degradation of receiving streams and rivers in rural areas, with communities that are often low income and culturally diverse.

Prop 7:
Taking the above informacion into consideration, I looked at the some of the environmental organizations that are opposed to prop 7: the Sierra Club, the NRDC, the California League of Conservation Voters, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Sierra Club’s mission is to explore, enjoy and protect the wild places on earth. The Sierra club president Allison Chin talks about the environment as a nice place to enjoy that expands kids’ minds.

She speaks of summer vacations and bringing inner city kids to the wilderness. That’s all well and good (I mean it, that is a good thing.) But honestly we need to do more than protect the earth for enjoyment purposes only. Where you live day to day is just as important as where you spend summer vacation.

As you can see above, people in culturally diverse neighborhoods are suffering from the way the systems in place that provide everyone with water, food, and electricity. I hate to do this, but I did it. Summer vacations are people with money (whom are usually White people). Asthma and cancer are for people of color. Thanks a lot. I looked up each of the national Sierra Club’s board members to see how diverse the leadership is. While I couldn’t find pictures of them all, to confirm their ethnicity, the result is still ovious that this is a non-diverse group of people who have the luxury to ignore the damage that dirty energy causes to culturally diverse neighborhoods.

1. Allison Chin, President – person of color
2. Robin Mann, Vice President- ?
3. Marilyn Wall, Secretary- white
4. Joni Bosh, Treasurer - white
5. David Karpf, Fifth Officer - ?
6. Robbie Cox - white
7. Jeremy Doochin - white
8. Larry Fahn - white
9. Barbara Frank - ?
10. Ellen Pillard - White
11. Lisa Renstrom - white
12. Sanjay Ranchod – person of color
13. Rafael Reyes – person of color
14. Nathan Wyeth - White
15. Bernie Zaleha - White

The NRDC’s mission is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends, which would lead one to think that they would support prop 7. But then again, the senior staff is completely made up of White people. 4 out of 4. Another environmental organization that does not represent diverse views or people. What do they really know personally about the harms of dirty coal or growing up near an incinerator?
1. Frances Beinecke – White
2. Peter Lehner – White
3. Patricia F. Sullivan- White
4. Wesley Warren - White

The EDF’s mission is to protect the environmental rights of all people, including future generations. Among these rights are access to clean air and water, healthy and nourishing food, and flourishing ecosystems. Prop 7 is going to give us clean air by forcing utilities to stop using dirty energy and switch to clean energy so again, why are they denying people living in culturally diverse neighborhoods a better life? Maybe, because they are used to selling out the environment and because it is easy to do that when your friends aren’t living in low income and culturally diverse neighborhoods that are being the most affected by dirty energy! And go figure:
1. Fred Krupp, President - White
2. David Yarnold, Executive Director - White
3. Marcia Aronoff, Sr VP for programs - White
4. Cynthia Hampton, VP for marketing and communications - ?
5. Paula Tupper Hayes, VP for development - ?
6. Liza Henshaw, C.O.O. - ?
7. Peter Accinno, VP for finance and administration, C.F.O., Treasurer - ?

The LCV’s mission is to advocate for sound environmental policies and to elect pro-environmental candidates who will adopt and implement such policies. It honestly makes sense that the LCV wouldn’t support prop 7 because they’re really about electing political candidates and not in fighting for the people. And again, why would they be when the founder, who is also the co founder of the Sierra Club is David Brower who is White and the current president is Gene Karpinski who is also White. Funny, Marcia Aronoff who is also on the board is also listed above for the Environmental Defense Fund. They are all the same. Hella gross.

The point of this blog post is NOT to say that White people do not want to protect the environment as much as people of color by any means. What I am trying to point out though is that as people who live in low income neighborhoods and culturally diverse neighborhoods, it is important that we take a step back and ask whether these environmental groups are really steering us in the right direction and whether or not they really represent us.

I don't think that they do. On Nov 4th I'm voting yes on prop 7 for mi familia.

It’s late peace out hommies I’ll write more manaña.