Publisher's Synopsis
There is a functional link between racism, poverty and powerlessness, and the chemical industrys assault on the environment.When Barry Commoner said this, he could have been referring to stories of toxic fish consumption from the Detroit River, hazardous waste incineration in Louisiana, pesticide exposure among farm workers, or uranium production and its effects on Navajo communities. Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards takes us a step further by exposing these and other environmental incidences, analyzing the complex of issues, and becoming itself an advocate for environmental justice. This is a book about the poor and people of color and their struggle to take control of one of the most basic aspects of their lives: the quality of their environment. The authors tell us that we cannot assume that everyone is equally protected from harmful pollutants by laws or regulations. And, while conventional wisdom holds that the supposedly unempowered are also unconcerned about environmental quality issues, these people have found new and less conventional channels, such as the church and neighborhood groups, for advocating for environmental justice.;Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards is dedicated to exposing the fact of environmental inequity and its consequences in the face of general neglect by policymakers, social scientists, and the public at large.This collection of sixteen articles, the majority of them written by scholars of color, reviews the differential impacts of environmental insults on people of color, such as the consumption of toxic fish from the Detroit River, fallout from hazardous waste incineration in Louisiana, pesticide exposure among farm workers, and the effects of uranium production in Navajo communities. Further, the authors illuminate the failure of traditional, political, economic, and environmental institutions to address these social and life-threatening conditions and advocate new approaches for creating environmental justice.
