Abstract
This paper is organized around two points. The first concerns the literature on environmental justice (EJ) studies and its lack of incorporation of social scientific theories and concepts concerning racism. This is surprising, given EJ studies' strong interest in challenging a form of racism - environmental racism. This, in turn, allows for a critique of theories of racism for their lack of attention to the ways in which society-environment relations structure racist practices and discourses, and a critique of scholars who have understated the continuing impact of racism on communities of color. The second point concerns the degree to which modernization has led to an improvement in the environmental impacts associated with market economies and their production systems. Drawing on ecological modernization, risk society, and the treadmill of production theories, I argue that, as with popular and scholarly views on racism, many scholars have overstated the level of progress society has made on this front. I also argue that this is largely because - via practices such as environmental racism and globalization - many of the worst dimensions of the market economy's externalities are out of sight and out of mind (due largely to spatial and residential segregation and international hazardous waste exports), making it possible to either ignore or dismiss claims to the contrary.
Highlights
On one morning in 1987, on the far Southeast Side of Chicago, several African American community activists, along with their Anglo allies from an environmental organization, engaged in an act of civil disobedience against a hazardous waste incinerator operator located in the neighborhood
I explore two questions in this paper: 1) how well do scholarly models of racial inequality explain racism when we examine the impact of environmental harm on people of color? And 2) Are environmental conditions improving in the U.S and globally?
Given the high level of toxicity of everyday life in the global North, if one is not planning on reducing toxic inputs into production, it makes sense to seek outlets for dumping some of the most hazardous of substances elsewhere; the problem of waste export to global south nations, which may allow us to embrace the idea of ecological modernization because the more visible dimensions of pollution are “out of sight, out of mind,”
Summary
On one morning in 1987, on the far Southeast Side of Chicago, several African American community activists, along with their Anglo allies from an environmental organization, engaged in an act of civil disobedience against a hazardous waste incinerator operator located in the neighborhood. People for Community Recovery was born out of a conflict over health and environmental justice that had both deep local roots and an international reach This organization faced insensitivity from elected officials and government agencies whose charge was to protect the environment and public health. Communities of color in the U.S and nations in the global South confront a disproportionate burden of toxic waste (e.g., hazardous waste dumps, polluting industries, etc.), at the hands of states and industries that produce and distribute these poisons unevenly across the landscape. This phenomenon is usually referred to as environmental racism or environmental inequality. I explore two questions in this paper: 1) how well do scholarly models of racial inequality explain racism when we examine the impact of environmental harm on people of color? And 2) Are environmental conditions improving in the U.S and globally?
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