Environmental Racism
This page features a small selection of UConn library and external resources to support learning and research pertaining to EcoRacism. This list is meant to be exploratory and is not a comprehensive representation or list of the library's holdings.
For additional assistance, please contact Stephanie Birch, Research Services Librarian for Africana Studies at stephanie.birch@uconn.edu.
What is Environmental Racism?
EcoRacism (also called environmental racism) refers to the way race and racism cause exposure to environmental dangers. There are many types of environmental dangers, including the pollution of natural resources, exposure to toxins and hazardous materials or waste, as well as poor infrastructure creating barriers to accessing safe and affordable housing, public transportation, employment, grocery stores, education, and medical services.
Screenshot from the Mapping Inequality project at the University of Richmond showing redlining districts in Hartford, Connecticut circa 1940. Districts were assigned a grade based on desirability. Black populations were frequently segregated into areas with D grades (shaded in red on the map), which were considered hazardous -- for mortgage lenders but also to the Black families relegated to these areas. Red-line districts in Hartford were situated in former swampland and near river banks, where single and multi-family dwellings were at risk for flooding. These areas were also in close proximity to industrial plants, exposing residents to waste and pollutants.
From the UConn Library Collection
A Terrible Thing to Waste: environmental racism and its assault on the American mind by
A "powerful and indispensable" look at the devastating consequences of environmental racism (Gerald Markowitz) -- and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities. Did you know... Middle-class African American households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are more polluted than those of very poor white households with incomes below $10,000. When swallowed, a lead-paint chip no larger than a fingernail can send a toddler into a coma -- one-tenth of that amount will lower his IQ. Nearly two of every five African American homes in Baltimore are plagued by lead-based paint. Almost all of the 37,500 Baltimore children who suffered lead poisoning between 2003 and 2015 were African American. From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught of toxic exposure and institutional negligence causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people across the country-cutting lives tragically short and needlessly burdening our health care system. But these deadly environments create another insidious and often overlooked consequence: robbing communities of color, and America as a whole, of intellectual power. The 1994 publication of The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, using copious data that instead point to a different cause of the reported African American-white IQ gap: environmental racism - a confluence of racism and other institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and insufficient sanitation services. She investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrition, and even pathogens as chief agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected -- and what can be done to remedy this devastating problem. Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.
Call Number: GE230 .W375 2019ISBN: 0316509434Publication Date: 2019-07-23
Baptized in PCBs: race, pollution, and justice in an all-American town by
In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama, began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice, exposing how systemic racial and class inequalities reinforced during the Jim Crow era played out in these intense contemporary social movements. Spears focuses attention on key figures who shaped Anniston--from Monsanto's founders, to white and African American activists, to the ordinary Anniston residents whose lives and health were deeply affected by the town's military-industrial history and the legacy of racism. Situating the personal struggles and triumphs of Anniston residents within a larger national story of regulatory regimes and legal strategies that have affected toxic towns across America, Spears unflinchingly explores the causes and implications of environmental inequalities, showing how civil rights movement activism undergirded Anniston's campaigns for redemption and justice.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781469615592Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Clean and White: a history of environmental racism in the United States by
Clean and White offers a history of environmental racism in the United States focusing on constructions of race and hygiene When Joe Biden attempted to compliment Barack Obama by calling him "clean and articulate," he unwittingly tapped into one of the most destructive racial stereotypes in American history. This book tells the history of the corrosive idea that whites are clean and those who are not white are dirty. From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race and waste have shaped where people have lived, where people have worked, and how American society's wastes have been managed. In the wake of the civil war, as the nation encountered emancipation, mass immigration, and the growth of an urbanized society, Americans began to conflate the ideas of race and waste. Certain immigrant groups took on waste management labor, such as Jews and scrap metal recycling, fostering connections between the socially marginalized and refuse. Ethnic "purity" was tied to pure cleanliness, and hygiene became a central aspect of white identity. Carl A. Zimring here draws on historical evidence from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism. The material consequences of these attitudes endured and expanded through the twentieth century, shaping waste management systems and environmental inequalities that endure into the twenty-first century. Today, the bigoted idea that non-whites are "dirty" remains deeply ingrained in the national psyche, continuing to shape social and environmental inequalities in the age of Obama.
Call Number: GE230 .Z56 2017ISBN: 9781479874378Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Confronting Environmental Racism: voices from the grassroots by
The connection between racism and environmental quality is increasingly visible. People of color in urban and rural areas are the most likely victims of industrial dumping, toxic landfills, uranium mining, and dangerous waste incinerators. This groundbreaking anthology grows out of the National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit and brings together leading scholars, environmental leaders, and social justice activists of the emerging environmental justice movement.
Call Number: HC110.E5 C665 1993ISBN: 0896084477Publication Date: 1999-07-01
Dumping in Dixie: race, class, and environmental quality by
This book provides the major economic, social, and psychological impacts associated with the siting of noxious facilities and their significance in mobilizing the African American community. It explores the barriers to environmental and social justice experienced by African Americans.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780429974908Publication Date: 2018-04-24
Flint Fights Back: environmental justice and democracy in the Flint water crisis by
An account of the Flint water crisis shows that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water is part of a broader struggle for democracy.When Flint, Michigan, changed its source of municipal water from Lake Huron to the Flint River, Flint residents were repeatedly assured that the water was of the highest quality. At the switchover ceremony, the mayor and other officials performed a celebratory toast, declaring "Here's to Flint!" and downing glasses of freshly treated water. But as we now know, the water coming out of residents' taps harbored a variety of contaminants, including high levels of lead. In Flint Fights Back, Benjamin Pauli examines the water crisis and the political activism that it inspired, arguing that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water was part of a broader struggle for democracy. Pauli connects Flint's water activism with the ongoing movement protesting the state of Michigan's policy of replacing elected officials in financially troubled cities like Flint and Detroit with appointed "emergency managers." Pauli distinguishes the political narrative of the water crisis from the historical and technical narratives, showing that Flint activists' emphasis on democracy helped them to overcome some of the limitations of standard environmental justice frameworks. He discusses the pro-democracy (anti-emergency manager) movement and traces the rise of the "water warriors"; describes the uncompromising activist culture that developed out of the experience of being dismissed and disparaged by officials; and examines the interplay of activism and scientific expertise. Finally, he explores efforts by activists to expand the struggle for water justice and to organize newly mobilized residents into a movement for a radically democratic Flint.
Call Number: Print & eBookISBN: 9780262536868Publication Date: 2019-05-07
From the Ground Up: environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement by
Publisher Fact Sheet Critically examines the eruption of the environmental justice movement by combining storytelling & case studies from communities around the U.S. that have chosen to stand up against corporate polluters. Annotation When Bill Clinton signed an Executive Order on Environmental Justice in 1994, the phenomenon of environmental racism -- the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards, particularly toxic waste dumps and polluting factories, on people of color and low-income communities -- gained unprecedented recognition. Behind the President's signature, however, lies a remarkable tale of grassroots activism and political mobilization. Today, thousands of activists in hundreds of locales are fighting for their children, their communities, their quality of life, and their health. From the Ground Up critically examines one of the fastest growing social movements in the United States, the movement for environmental justice. Tracing the movement's roots, Luke Cole and Sheila Foster combine long-time activism with powerful storytelling to provide gripping case studies of communities across the U.S -- towns like Kettleman City, California; Chester, Pennsylvania; and Dilkon, Arizona -- and their struggles against corporate polluters. The authors effectively use social, economic and legal analysis to illustrate the historical and contemporary causes for environmental racism. Environmental justice struggles, they demonstrate, transform individuals, communities, institutions and even the nation as a whole
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780585424941Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Refining Expertise: how responsible engineers subvert environmental justice challenges by
Winner of the 2015 Rachel Carson Prize presented by the Society for Social Studies of Science Residents of a small Louisiana town were sure that the oil refinery next door was making them sick. As part of a campaign demanding relocation away from the refinery, they collected scientific data to prove it. Their campaign ended with a settlement agreement that addressed many of their grievances--but not concerns about their health. Yet, instead of continuing to collect data, residents began to let refinery scientists' assertions that their operations did not harm them stand without challenge. What makes a community move so suddenly from actively challenging to apparently accepting experts' authority? Refining Expertise argues that the answer lies in the way that refinery scientists and engineers defined themselves as experts. Rather than claiming to be infallible, they began to portray themselves as responsible--committed to operating safely and to contributing to the well-being of the community. The volume shows that by grounding their claims to responsibility in influential ideas from the larger culture about what makes good citizens, nice communities, and moral companies, refinery scientists made it much harder for residents to challenge their expertise and thus re-established their authority over scientific questions related to the refinery's health and environmental effects. Gwen Ottinger here shows how industrial facilities' current approaches to dealing with concerned communities--approaches which leave much room for negotiation while shielding industry's environmental and health claims from critique--effectively undermine not only individual grassroots campaigns but also environmental justice activism and far-reaching efforts to democratize science. This work drives home the need for both activists and politically engaged scholars to reconfigure their own activities in response, in order to advance community health and robust scientific knowledge about it.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780814762394Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Toxic Communities: environmental racism, industrial pollution, and residential mobility by
Uncovers the systemic problems that expose poor communities to environmental hazards From St. Louis to New Orleans, from Baltimore to Oklahoma City, there are poor and minority neighborhoods so beset by pollution that just living in them can be hazardous to your health. Due to entrenched segregation, zoning ordinances that privilege wealthier communities, or because businesses have found the 'paths of least resistance,' there are many hazardous waste and toxic facilities in these communities, leading residents to experience health and wellness problems on top of the race and class discrimination most already experience. Taking stock of the recent environmental justice scholarship, Toxic Communities examines the connections among residential segregation, zoning, and exposure to environmental hazards. Renowned environmental sociologist Dorceta Taylor focuses on the locations of hazardous facilities in low-income and minority communities and shows how they have been dumped on, contaminated and exposed. Drawing on an array of historical and contemporary case studies from across the country, Taylor explores controversies over racially-motivated decisions in zoning laws, eminent domain, government regulation (or lack thereof), and urban renewal. She provides a comprehensive overview of the debate over whether or not there is a link between environmental transgressions and discrimination, drawing a clear picture of the state of the environmental justice field today and where it is going. In doing so, she introduces new concepts and theories for understanding environmental racism that will be essential for environmental justice scholars. A fascinating landmark study, Toxic Communities greatly contributes to the study of race, the environment, and space in the contemporary United States.
Call Number: Print & eBookISBN: 9781479852390Publication Date: 2014-06-20
Toxic debt : an environmental justice history of Detroit by
Toxic Debt is not only a book about racism, capitalism, and the making of these environmental disasters. It is also a history of Detroit's environmental justice movement, which emerged from over a century of battles over public health in the city and involved radical auto workers, ecofeminists, and working-class women fighting for clean water. Linking the histories of urban political economy, the environment, and social movements, Toxic Debt lucidly narrates the story of debt, environmental disaster, and resistance in Detroit.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1469665786Publication Date: 2022
Online Resources
Climates of Inequity | A public memory project addressing environmental injustice in over 20 cities across the U.S., partnering with communities on the frontlines who are developing strategies for resistance and resilience.
ENRICH Project | A project examining and addressing the social, environmental, political, and health effects of environmental racism and climate change impacting Indigenous, Black, and other marginalized communities across Canada, utilizing community-based research practices and multi-modal approaches.
Environmental Racism in Greater Boston | A research series from Harvard's research center for environmental health examining environmental racism in Greater Boston. Environmental racism refers to the disproportionate health hazards affecting people and communities of color. The goal of the project is to promote environmental justice in the area.
Redlining and Environmental Racism | University of Michigan blog post by Danielle Vermeer explaining the connections between redlining practices and environmental racism.
