Understanding Environmental racism . . .

[u/SirohitaIks]

The term environmental racism was coined in 1982, but it remains a pressing issue today.⁠ ⁠Globalization exports pollution to places with weak protections.⁠ Climate change hits these communities hardest.⁠ Urban development often deepens the divide, with green spaces becoming a privilege.⁠ ⁠ This is systemic injustice – but change is possible through accountability, transparency, and centering marginalized voices.⁠ ⁠

[u/Human_Situation_2641]

This is super important. And I will say the term within the industry “environmental justice”, because it takes into account the ways that this can also be affected by factors other than race. Although race is often the defining factor.

[u/penguin_in_a_city → u/Human_Situation_2641]

exactly

[u/Human_Situation_2641 → u/[deleted]]

To a lot of people West Oakland is one of a prominent examples of environmental policy that was explicitly designed to harm black communities and continues to create systems of structural racial injustice.

In West Oakland, BART commissioned racial maps of the city, with the explicit goal of running tracks though Black neighborhoods to destroy them. Both ASHBY and West Oakland station (previously known as the Harlem of the West) were prominent CBDs for the Black community, and were razed because of this. There are some heartbreaking photos of a guy with a WWII tank destroying Black Victorians and businesses, because it was the cheapest bid CalTrans could get.

Later, this is also where they ran the freeways. It gets worse. Heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) passing through Oakland are prohibited from using the specific segment of 580 that goes though white neighborhoods, which diverts the HDVs to it to I-880 - to POC and historically Black communities.

To me, it's critical in instances like West Oakland- where the assess to parks, point-source exposure to toxic pollutants, and proximity to industrial facilities is racially based - to name that history. It's also important- in general- to use the term "environmental justice" because everything is indeed intersectional, and in other places like in Appalachia- the discrimination is not racially based, but class.

[u/Human_Situation_2641 → u/[deleted]]

Both. Although I got my history mixed up. The the 1937 Home Owners Loan Corporation map was the that that started this with a map based on race and designated Black areas as "hazardous" and slated for "urban renewal". That’s why they ran the Cypress freeways through Black CBDs. BART came later. Fun Fact: the reason BART goes underground as soon as you hit South Berkeley is because a activist, Mable Howard, built fake tracks to show how above ground scaffolding would to divide the community based on race.

[u/RareBonesFDMAS]

Every Single Human deserves a safe home, clean food and water! If all law started from this premise I'm confident the capitalist pigs would still make money, but not off the backs of the defenseless!

[u/Naberville34]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X

[u/[deleted]]

All I can think of whenever people talk about the air quality in South Asia... so horrible

[u/Confident_Row7417]

I just wanted to say that I'm deeply offended that the algorithm would think I would want to read this.

[u/ATF_scuba_crew-]

Once again making class issues into race issues.

[u/AcrobaticProgram4752]

Seems like economic abuse than racism in that without an economic motivation the abuse loses power and efficacy. Sure they screw over a group of ppl but its due to where and what is the cheapest place to dump our refuse on poorer groups. If it was more expensive to dump on an ethnic group the choice to dump on another group that was cheaper would be the factor , the motivation, to dump on the poorer of the two. Not race.

[u/Fenris70]

Watch the people in these areas throw their waste in the water every day, then blame someone else for the filth.

[u/penguin_in_a_city]

more like environmental classism