Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable, and Livable Communities Review

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Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable, and Livable Communities ReviewThis latest joint publication by several key scholar in the field of environmental justice, Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S Johnson and Angel Torres, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the intersections of racial, social, and environmental justice movements. These three scholars bring together a wealth of on the ground social movement analysis and insight, as well as providing an excellent survey of current developments and debates within environmental justice circles.
One such example is the role of youth leaders at the 2002 Summit II (National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit), where young people were instrumental in pushing for more youth leadership and recognition as movement leaders. Chapter 5 on University Based Programs is particularly relevant for anyone working in or teaching in higher education, as it offers some important insights into changes, advances and developments in resources and centers dedicated to environmental justice work.
This book, coupled with Sze's Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice (Urban and Industrial Environments), Bullard's Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, Johnson's "Environmental Justice Reader: Addressing the History, Issues, Policy & Change" and Torres' "Sprawl City: Race, Politics, and Planning in Atlanta" would make for a powerful environmental justice curriculum in the classroom.
If you're looking for a beginner's book for environmental justice some of these might not be the best choice--but the Johnson edition would be recommended. Cole and Foster's "From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement", or Schlosberg's Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature or Adamson, Evans, Stein's "The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy" might be good choices to explore.
If you don't believe that environmental issues, structural racism, white privilege, capitalism and gender hierarchy (to name just a few areas) are all interconnected problems, you might find the approach taken here challenging, but that's the point. Anyone who argues that race, class and gender can be solved by free-market liberalism and the philosophical and political logic of individualism and hard work will probably find a lot to disagree with in this book, as a key premise is that economic and racial inequality are structural problems--ie: intentionally created and reproduce by the dominant culture in order to maintain a certain status quo: white, male, heterosexual, Anglo, Christian, capitalist, imperialist/nationalist. However, even if you disagree politically with the authors, the problems are still real and must be addressed. This book offers a useful approach for moving us closer to doing just that.
As to suggestions that this book is "socialist propaganda" and that Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, or Walter Williams would be better resources for understanding environmental justice and race issues, it is worth restating--as Bullard, Johnson, Torres do, that racism and discrimination are structural elements of the American way of life, and cannot be "undone" by telling people to work harder or by making token adjustments to the current American way of life or market economy. Anyone who argues you can have environmental justice without social justice, as this book helps make clear, either fail to understand structural racism, white privilege and class politics, or they benefit from maintaining a discriminatory status quo. As the authors write:
"It was not difficult for people of color to view environmental and health issues through a racial lens, since many of their communities were systematically targeted for some of the nation's worst polluting facilities. Environmental inequality was seen as socially produced and an extension of White racism...At the outset of the [Environmental Justice] movement, many White allies in the mainstream environmental movement were reluctant to use the term "environmental racism." Some of the groups were even hostile to the idea" (pg. 51-2).
And yes, as this always comes up in response, even people of color can be co-opted into maintaining and advocating for white power and privilege, especially under the guise of conservative politics and individual liberties--as Dr. Williams and Shelby Steele's politics make painfully clear. The only thing "social" about this book is its emphasis on marginalized communities and how environmental injustice operates in our society. We need to remember advocating against inequality is neither socialist nor propaganda--but conservative pundits arguing that it is certainly fits the definition of propaganda!Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable, and Livable Communities Overview

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