In June, former Daily Kos writer and current staff writer at The Atlantic, Vann Newkirk II, argued that environmental racism is the new Jim Crow. Because some folks will do anything in order not to see racism and how it impacts people of color in almost every way, predictably, certain fragile souls raised a fuss. But Newkirk’s point was factual and well-taken. More than half of the people who live close to hazardous waste are people of color. And a new study out says that black people are 75 percent more likely to live near industrial facilities which are toxic.
According to Fumes Across the Fence-Line, a report from the NAACP and the Clean Air Task Force—an advocacy group dedicated to reducing air pollution—black people are 75 percent more likely to live in so-called “fence-line” communities that are next to industrial facilities. These facilities release a toxic stew of pollutants—including formaldehyde, which has been linked to cancer, and benzene, which has been linked to brain damage, birth defects, and cancer. [...]
Most fence-line community residents are low-income and predominantly of color. The study reports that more than 1 million black people live within just half a mile of an oil or gas facility and face serious health risks such as cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases as well.
It isn’t science to figure out how this happened. Companies that produce oil and gas are in it to make money and they aren’t concerned about nor accountable to poor communities and communities of color. In our capitalist society, profit is preferable to people. Therefore, entire communities can be poisoned and no one outside of those communities bats an eye. Sadly, this won’t change with Scott Pruitt as the current administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Not only is Pruitt anti-environment, the Trump administration has proposed a 31 percent cut to the EPA’s budget, which includes closing its Office of Environmental Justice.
One of those communities is West Port Arthur, Texas, a town that is 95 percent black and home to two oil refineries that process more than 900,000 barrels of crude oil every day. The Valero refinery is one of the largest in the world and borders the town. Several low-income public housing complexes, which mostly house black residents, line the facility’s fence. West Port Arthur is in Jefferson County, where cancer rates among black people are 15 percent higher than those of the average Texan. These residents are 40 percent more likely to die from the disease. [...]
Asthma is a another dire health impact facing black communities living near oil and gas facilities. About 13 percent of black children have asthma compared to just 7 percent of white children, and their death rate from the illness is higher than for white children—one per 1 million compared to one per 10 million.
It goes without saying that this kind of thing would never happen in Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side of Manhattan where wealthy, white people live. And while it’s possible that this could (and likely does) happen in poor white communities, the history of race and white supremacy in this country is why this is a distinct and significant issue. The lives of people of color, specifically black lives, have never been important to the state—beyond what we could contribute via our labor. To that end, we are disposable. And “companies prefer to take advantage of communities with little political or economic power.” This paints a pretty bleak picture and is why racial justice is central to all other forms of social justice. We cannot just fix the environment without understanding the disparate impact things like pollution, climate change, natural disasters and lack of access to clean water and air have on people of color, especially black people. Not only does structural racism impact black people’s life opportunities through disparities in education, economics and wealth, jobs, housing and health, it’s also taking away our ability to breathe clean air. And without clean air, we really are left with nothing.