The Father of Environmental Justice
For three decades now, Dr. Robert Bullard has fought tirelessly to ensure that low-income and minority communities are not ignored when it comes to environmental protections.
Considered the father of the Environmental Justice movement, Bullard’s activism began in 1978 as a young environmental sociology professor in Houston. At the time, his wife, an attorney, enlisted his help in researching a case against the city, which wanted to force a garbage dump on a mostly African-American neighborhood.
Through his research, Bullard uncovered a pattern of institutionalized racism in environmental policy, one that disproportionately targeted the neighborhoods of people of color—regardless of their annual income—for landfills, toxic waste sites, industrial run-off, and other environmental hazards.
That revelation became the basis for the entire EJ movement:
“Just because [a community] is poor or physically located on the wrong side of the tracks doesn’t mean it should be bombarded with all of the things that other communities don’t want in their own backyards."
Source & Additional Reading.
Shoutout to
dogonwheels827 for the suggestion/help! Honestly, I had absolutely no idea about this guy or the amazing work that he's done. Also I just lost about half of my jokes about Greenpeace. Make sure you check out the source plus the additional reading! He's not just a badass on the environment.
P.S. - I'm pretty sure MJ's entirely anthology is now in his subthread on Day Six. Just sayin'.
Previously this month: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven
For three decades now, Dr. Robert Bullard has fought tirelessly to ensure that low-income and minority communities are not ignored when it comes to environmental protections.
Considered the father of the Environmental Justice movement, Bullard’s activism began in 1978 as a young environmental sociology professor in Houston. At the time, his wife, an attorney, enlisted his help in researching a case against the city, which wanted to force a garbage dump on a mostly African-American neighborhood.
Through his research, Bullard uncovered a pattern of institutionalized racism in environmental policy, one that disproportionately targeted the neighborhoods of people of color—regardless of their annual income—for landfills, toxic waste sites, industrial run-off, and other environmental hazards.
That revelation became the basis for the entire EJ movement:
“Just because [a community] is poor or physically located on the wrong side of the tracks doesn’t mean it should be bombarded with all of the things that other communities don’t want in their own backyards."
Source & Additional Reading.
Shoutout to
dogonwheels827 for the suggestion/help! Honestly, I had absolutely no idea about this guy or the amazing work that he's done. Also I just lost about half of my jokes about Greenpeace. Make sure you check out the source plus the additional reading! He's not just a badass on the environment. P.S. - I'm pretty sure MJ's entirely anthology is now in his subthread on Day Six. Just sayin'.
Previously this month: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven
Another vital leader of the EJ movement is Dr. Benjamin Chavis, an African-American civil rights activist that coined the term "environmental racism" and formally published findings by the UCC commission in 1987 titled "Toxic Waste and Race in the US", which spoke about the environmental injustice-race correlation in the US and was the motivator behind pushing the US govt into looking further into environmental injustice.
I just couldn't contain myself. I was pretty much like this the entire time.
If anyone would like to check out the health of their neighborhood here are two helpful sites:
http://epamap14.epa.gov/ejmap/entry.htm
http://www.scorecard.org
so finally getting to it now.
*sniffle* I want grown folks night. All I ever get is anime night and D&D night. T_T
The story on Kettleman itself was posted awhile back. It's primarily Hispanic, but same general issues with environmental justice/racism as what's being discussed here.