Environmental racism might be an unfamiliar term for many of us but with the hurricane season and global warming on the rise, environmental racism is more apparent than ever. A statement from the Environmental Protection Agency reports, “Racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming planet.”
The horrific aftermath from Hurricane Ida in Louisiana may just look as if the hurricane was to blame for the mass destruction. However, “it was the direct result of the failure of political and corporate leaders, year after year, to build adequate infrastructure, implement equitable protections for relief and provide Black communities with the same resources and protections afforded to wealthy, white neighb
orhoods”, according to Rashad Robinson. Simply put, the hurricane was inevitable, but the destruction of African American communities was preventable. Governments are allocating their money and resources to organizations that are already over-funded and who are of no benefit to the African American community. It seems as if politicians and corporations are too concerned with their own agendas and speaking to the voters and stakeholders that matter to them, that they disregard the hurt that they are putting on the minority communities. We are seeing a repeat of what happened after Hurricane Katrina over ten years ago when African Americans didn’t get the help and support they needed and deserved. Here we are, a decade later, putting these communities in the exact same position.
Aside from the lack of appropriate funding and infrastructure in minority communities, the people living here are also disadvantaged in the fact that they can not just get up and flee from their homes when they get word of an approaching natural disaster. It might seem as if the aftermath of Hurricane Ida is not to the degree of Hurricane Katrina. However, Hurricane Ida impacted these already financially strained communities in the midst of the pandemic. More than ever, people are out of work, food, and even home. This whole epidemic of environmental racism and the media portraying these African American and minority communities reminds me of Aijaz Ahmad’s essay challenging the use of the word “Third World” as an Othering term.
The author of the article I read regarding this issue was written by Rashad Robinson who is the president of Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. The are many resources on the site useful for advocates of racial justice and a place to donate as well. These resources can serve as a solution to reduce racial injustice in African American communities before and after natural disasters occur.
References
Ceant, Wen-kuni. “If You Want Proof of Environmental Racism, Look No Further Hurricane Ida.” TheGrio, 13 Sept. 2021, https://thegrio.com/2021/09/13/hurricane-ida-racial-implications/.
Robinson, Rashad. “Hurricane Ida’s Destruction Was the Result of Years of Systemic Racism.” Salon, Salon.com, 5 Oct. 2021, https://www.salon.com/2021/10/05/do-black-lives-matter-hurricane-idas-destruction-was-the-direct-result-of-systemic/.
Very interesting post and I think it is relevant to what we are dealing with these days. I was not familiar with the actual term Environmental Racism but it surely seems like it is the structural systemic injustice towards African American communities by politicians and leaders. There are many communities that are not getting proper attention from leaders to recover from natural disasters like hurricanes. Those communities and facing hardship and are vulnerable to other similar disasters since they do not have the resources to build stronger structures.