6 Types of Environmental Racism
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Racism is apparent in many structures and institutions in the United States. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the effects of racism are prevalent in how climate change impacts people and their environments. This idea is known as Environmental Racism.
Environmental racism is described as any policy, practice, or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages (whether intended or unintended) individuals, groups, or communities based on race. It refers to how minority neighborhoods are disproportionately burdened with hazards, including toxic waste facilities, garbage dumps, less tree covering, lack of green spaces, and more roads and highways that cut through communities.
This proposed definition is by Dr. Robert Bullard, often known as the "Father of Environmental Justice." Professor Bullard is a Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. His many books on environmental racism include, "Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States" and "Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality," the latter of which is considered a standard text in the environmental justice field. Additionally, he's contributed to various studies throughout his career.
In 2021, President Joe Biden named him to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. In 2019, Apolitical named him one of the world's 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy, among the likes of U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and youth activist Greta Thunberg.
In this article, Dr. Bullard provides context for six different types of environmental racism and discusses its effects on Black and brown populations in the United States.
The Urban Heat Island Effect
The United States' complicated racial history continues to affect lives today. Years of federal housing policies like redlining have bred consequences that cannot be understated. Worsened by climate change, an outcome known as the urban heat island effect makes residing in many major U.S. cities disproportionately more difficult for communities of color.
Redlining refers to the process of legal housing discrimination that was in effect until the 1968 Fair Housing Act. This act prevented ongoing housing discrimination, but the damage caused by this decades-old policy was already in effect. Black and Brown people had already been denied opportunities to move into other neighborhoods or purchase homes to build equity. In contrast, White Americans moved into suburban single-family homes, taking local and municipal housing budgets and directing resources away from redlined neighborhoods. As a result, redlining exaggerated the existing racial wealth gap and laid the groundwork for a city design that worked against its poorest and most vulnerable populations.
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The Urban Heat Island Effect refers to a phenomenon where certain areas of a city are measurably hotter than others. For example, recent studies demonstrate that historically redlined Black and brown neighborhoods are, on average, a few degrees higher than historically white neighborhoods in the same city.
"All communities are not created equal. Policy planning and decision making that may have occurred around housing and residential patterns 100 years ago in the '20s is actually showing up 100 years later in the 2020s in terms of Black and brown communities being hotter because of lack of canopy, green space, parks, etc.," said Dr. Bullard.
As a result of redlining and the subsequent lack of funding, these areas consist of less green open space and trees, and more asphalt, buildings, and apartment complexes built with heat-trapping materials like cinder blocks. Car exhaust and tailpipes contribute to warming these places as well. Black Americans are also more likely to live near polluting industries, as these companies were zoned away from white neighborhoods.
In general, densely populated cities are hotter than rural areas. That said, green space and concrete are still unevenly distributed across cities, which leads to even higher temperatures in specific areas. Additionally, urban highway development aimed at connecting struggling city centers tended to cut through redlined neighborhoods that could not fight against the massive project, generating more heat.
All these factors contribute to the Urban Heat Island Effect that continues to afflict communities across the United States. Extreme heat is already the deadliest weather-related occurrence in the U.S., and the urban heat island effect is making city living even riskier for formerly redlined neighborhoods. For example, one study published in January 2020 found that across 108 metropolitan areas, redlined neighborhoods averaged 5°F hotter in the summer than the neighborhoods that scored the highest on HOLC surveys decades ago. The HOLC is the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which was responsible for the maps that determined the "riskiness" of specific neighborhoods that gave way to redlining.
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When we talk about land use planning and equal access to nature, we have to fight… for those things that make us healthy, and the issue of trees, green space, and green canopy is very important.
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Another recent study found that in 37 cities, formerly redlined neighborhoods have about half as many trees, on average, as the highest-rated predominantly white neighborhoods. Trees and plants provide much-needed shade and cool the air around them through evapotranspiration. Without this, these neighborhoods have little recourse or protection from intense rising temperatures.
These disparities can have deadly consequences, as found in New York City between 2000 and 2012. African-Americans made up about a quarter of the city's population during this period, but nearly half of its heat-related deaths. Moreover, the research suggests that as global temperatures rise due to climate change, some places might feel the heat more profusely if they keep losing trees and green spaces to industrial development and urban sprawl. Thus, the effects of climate change will impact the country's most disenfranchised with an even deadlier force.
2. The United States Government, Eminent Domain, and the destruction of Black neighborhoods
When President Eisenhower signed the law that created the U.S Interstate Highway System in 1956, it aimed to connect people in newly developed, post-war suburbs as cities began to expand outward. However, these suburbs were majority white, as Black and brown people had already been denied mortgages and homes in these neighborhoods through redlining. As a result, the new road system, through indifference at some times and racism at others, tore apart areas reserved for people of color and made it even more difficult for them to enjoy the same advantages as their white counterparts.
““The way that highways have been designed… basically highways don’t always follow a straight line. Oftentimes, they detour around affluent white communities and rip through, destroying Black and brown communities,” ”
In the United States, Eminent Domain is a practice where the government can seize private property for public use with compensation. This practice was widely used during highway building and targeted Black, brown, and immigrant communities. Historically, eminent domain abuse was another legal maneuver that disproportionately impacted Black and low-income communities. Homes were bulldozed, businesses flattened, and entire neighborhoods were reduced to concrete. As redlining and racial covenants in the suburbs were still in effect, many people had limited relocation options. Former citizens were forced into subpar housing complexes and denied the opportunity to build generational wealth through homeownership. This abuse of eminent domain added to the existing racial inequity in the country.
In many cases, urban planners at the time purposefully built through Black neighborhoods to clear the so-called "blights," "slums," and "ghettos." At times, because the displacement of African-Americans and urban renewal projects were so intertwined, "urban renewal" was referred to as "negro removal."
Residents who remained on the path of the newly built roads were exposed to more noise and pollution from passing cars. Over time, these effects, as well as being near pollution-producing industries such as trash incineration, has led people in historically Black neighborhoods to experience adverse health impacts such as asthma and low birth weight.
Highway developers often defended taking property in Black neighborhoods by arguing that land was cheapest there. However, it was because of federal redlining and discriminatory real-estate practices that discouraged investment in Black areas, thereby devaluing the land. This cyclical relationship between redlining and highway development contributed to the disenfranchisement of people of color at this time.
3. Urban Food Deserts and Food Insecurity in Black Neighborhoods
"Food desert" has become a common term to describe communities where access to healthy and affordable food is limited, or where there are no grocery stores. When comparing communities with similar poverty rates, Black and brown neighborhoods tend to have fewer supermarkets offering a variety of produce and healthy foods, and more small retail (convenience and liquor) stores with fewer produce options. Additionally, these products are often more expensive or out of line with the income of that community.
“Race is the most potent predictor of which neighborhoods do not have full-service supermarkets and shopping that would be commensurate with the income of the neighborhoods”
According to Dr. Bullard, middle-income Black neighborhoods have fewer grocery stores and supermarkets per capita than low-income white communities. In planning new subdivisions, amenities like grocery stores and shopping centers are accounted for before all of the houses are built in the case of areas where the primary homeowners will be white. Whereas when the residents of a new subdivision are majority Black, it takes more time for those amenities to be accounted for, resulting in a gap in the true livability of that neighborhood.
Additionally, studies have shown that higher concentrations of fast-food options in the United States are inversely related to a given community's racial and economic makeup. In other words, there are more fast-food options in lower-income Black and brown communities than in wealthier white communities. For example, in New York City neighborhoods that are made up predominantly of African Americans, exposure to fast food was similar in both wealthy and lower income areas, suggesting a racially motivated correlation rather than an economic one when examining food deserts.
Accessibility is a strong determinant of the way that people consume. Unfortunately, many minorities live in areas with limited access to healthy food options, promoting unhealthy consumption. This barrier to healthy living increases existing racial health disparities. Black and lower-income people are also more likely to be public transportation dependent, making it even more challenging to obtain healthy food. All of these factors culminate in an unpleasant picture of what access to healthy food options look like for many Black Americans.
"When you look at the food deserts and overlay which population is most likely to use public transit or to be public transit-dependent…and when grocery stores leave, that leaves a huge hole in terms of peoples accessibility and mobility to get to grocery stores that are distances away from that neighborhood," said Dr. Bullard.
4. Hazardous Waste Disposal Near Black Communities
While pollution affects everyone, the extent to which it affects specific populations is not random. In the United States, race is the single most significant factor in whether or not one lives near a hazardous waste facility. These areas are typically targeted because they offer the path of least resistance. Residents usually have fewer resources and political power to fight the oncoming sites.
Researchers found that toxic waste facilities are often built in or around areas where the demographics have been shifting for at least a decade: white people were moving out, and poorer minority residents were moving in. Given other elements of environmental racism, these changes may further erode the opposition resources in these neighborhoods.
The influential 2007 report "Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty," which Dr. Bullard worked on, found that over half of all people in the United States who live within 2 miles of a hazardous waste facility were people of color.
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"Of the 413 hazardous waste facilities, 56% of the residents who lived within a two-mile radius of those facilities were people of color. When we look at two or more of those hazardous waste facilities, that's the clustering effect…when we looked at those clustering facilities, that number jumped to 69% of residents living within a two-mile radius of these hazardous waste facilities."
These facilities are not only a nuisance to residents, but also potentially pose a serious health hazard as air pollution from these sites can cause medical issues. People of color in the U.S are, on average, exposed to a 38% higher level of nitrogen dioxide than white people. When waste facilities pump out nitrogen dioxide, they also tend to emit sulfur dioxide, another respiratory irritant. Fumes from these plants, in conjunction with those emitted by cars and trucks, are linked to various respiratory issues, including asthma and bronchitis. Chronic respiratory illnesses make daily life harder and can shorten life spans. Households around these facilities have a lower life expectancy than those who are not.
This effect is even more concerning considering the households near a superfund site. Superfund sites are polluted locations in the United States requiring a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations. They are deemed dangerous enough to be listed as an area of concern by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
"As a matter of fact, living near a superfund site, on average, can lower your life expectancy by one month. But for disadvantaged communities and communities of color, that number is not one month; it is more like 13 to 15 months," said Dr. Bullard.
As it stands, living near these hazardous waste facilities creates environmental dangers for minority populations.
5. Black Urban Neighborhoods Often Lack Access to Safe Outdoor Spaces
As the COVID-19 pandemic and hot summer months march on, public parks and green spaces are vital refuges for many people. However, access to these public spaces varies wildly across the United States, often along racial and economic lines. As a result, swaths of the population cannot receive the health benefits that green space proximity offers. In addition, the lack of adequate communal spaces in disadvantaged communities takes away the opportunity to safely meet for relaxation and recreation, which is crucial to one's well-being.
A study published by The Trust for Public Land found that parks serving primarily nonwhite populations are, on average, half the size of parks serving majority-white communities and potentially five times more crowded. Alone, this is troubling, but this is only true if the park exists at all.
According to Dr. Bullard, "74% of people of color live in what are called nature-deprived neighborhoods, versus 23% of whites. And when we talk about climate impacts, climate change will accelerate and exacerbate those existing disparities."
Tree cover and plants can help cool areas down, decrease air pollution, and maintain that environment's ecosystem. Of particular note, urban tree cover can help mitigate the effects of urban heat islands.
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As temperatures rise due to climate change, access to parks and green spaces will continue to be essential and can even be a matter of life and death. Having a place to cool off adequately could be the difference between a fun summer day and death from heatstroke. Some American parks are spacious, leafy, and green, while others are small and covered in asphalt. The latter parks will be hotter and are likely to be located in minority and low-income neighborhoods.
In the social distancing age, not only does the park foliage and green area matter, the size of the park matters as well. As mentioned, parks are smaller on average when serving minority populations than white ones. Combined with the fact that they are also more crowded, this does not bode well for social distancing ability, making it even more difficult for Black and brown people to receive the benefits of being outdoors safely.
Conversations surrounding park and green space equity have historically treated all areas similarly. Therefore, cities must specifically work to address pre existing inequities in these places and invest in such a way that these inequities are either reduced or eliminated.
Community engagement is critical in the design of parks so that they address community needs instead of being designed according to outsiders' assumptions. Residents can and should participate in the conversations about what a park can be and what purpose it can serve for their community.
6. Over Policing Impacts Black Health Outcomes
As with housing discrimination, the United States also has a long and complicated history with policing. As a result, it is not unheard of for Black and brown people to have the police called on them for existing in public spaces. This phenomenon became especially apparent during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
While racialized policing is not new, recent studies show the adverse effects that it can have on minority populations. For example, one study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health found that across racial lines, areas with high contact police presence have higher odds of preterm birth, which risks longer-term health problems for the babies. This effect is even higher for Black people, for whom the study found that U.S.-born Black birthing people in high police-contact areas experienced a 100% higher chance of preterm birth compared to residents in low police-contact areas. Additionally, the over-policing of Black and low-income communities can have consequences like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress.
"The same forces that create inequality, inequity, health disparities, and deaths for African-Americans –and it is systemic racism– the same forces also drive over-policing and drive this whole question of ‘Why is it that police treat [B]lack people different when it comes to overkill…when it comes to killing unarmed [B]lack people,’ and the same forces is racism” said Dr. Bullard.
The killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the ensuing protests that happened across the country brought police use of force to the forefront again, and, as a result, some people began to urge elected officials to consider police violence a threat to public health. Disproportionate police-related deaths among Black Americans promote a bitter reality for much of the U.S population.
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Further reasons for treating over-policing as a public health issue include its physical effects on the body. For example, one study found that living in areas with significant racial differences in police use of force is associated with an increased risk of poor/fair self-rated health, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. In other words, even in communities with white people, Black people tend to be policed more heavily, which can lead to adverse health effects.
Even when accounting for actual criminal behavior, Black people, especially young Black men, are more likely to have the police called on them for everyday, innocuous behaviors. These occurrences indicate that the presence of Black men can be perceived as a threat that warrants police action, regardless of whether or not there is an actual threat.
According to a Johns Hopkins Medicine study published in JAMA Pediatrics, exposure to police — even in instances in which the officers are assisting — may be detrimental to the health and well-being of Black youth. It can be associated with poor mental health, substance use, risky sexual behaviors, and impaired safety.
Consistent contact with the police can lead to adultification, wherein Black youth are regarded as adults and treated as such. In addition, the Black youth who were study participants described a constant fear for their lives, hopelessness, feelings of alienation from society, and a lack of support from social institutions, such as law enforcement.
Over-policing makes it very difficult for Black and minority populations to achieve the same quality of life as others in the country.
What's Next?
All these forms of environmental racism negatively affect Black and brown people in the United States. However, while it may be overwhelming, there are steps to mitigate or potentially eliminate the threats that environmental racism poses.
Planting trees to reduce the Urban Heat Island Effect
Trees and other vegetation help cool the environment and provide shade. Planting more trees is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce the effects of urban heat islands.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that planting trees is most useful when planted in strategic locations around buildings or to shade pavement in parking lots and streets. In addition, planting deciduous trees (one’s that shed their leaves yearly) or vines to the west is typically most effective for cooling a building, especially if they shade windows and part of the building's roof.
The benefits of more trees in these areas include reduced energy use, improved air quality, lower greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced stormwater management and water quality, reduced pavement management, and improved quality of life.
Removal of highways in Black neighborhoods.
Political activists are calling for removing highways that cut through Black and brown neighborhoods. This can right the wrongs of the past and promote a better future for many people.
As a small part of the infrastructure plan, the Biden Administration has recommended the allocation of 1 billion dollars to address structural racism.
As highways approach the end of their lifespan, many U.S. cities have begun or are planning to partly or wholly remove deteriorating roads that have isolated Black neighborhoods. This is one step towards restorative justice.
Community gardens to combat food insecurity and food deserts
Across the country, people are increasingly planting community gardens. Urban farming can help mitigate the effects of food deserts by providing an accessible place to obtain quality foods.
These efforts also increase food sovereignty, or the self-determination right to have a say in food production, distribution, consumption, and recycling. Food sovereignty is about a transference of power from the corporations that dominate food systems to the consumers of the food system, who are generally most affected by food inequities.
By bringing accessible, low-cost food to the people, residents can expand their palates and potentially improve eating habits, reducing the food desert's health effects and decreasing food insecurity.
How to combat over-policing health inequities
Now more than ever, Black people need to rest. Rest is an act of defiance against an exploitative system. Everyone must do their part in the fight for equity in this country, but non-Black people can help lighten the load that Black people have been carrying in the United States since its inception.
Change can come by continuing protests, signing petitions, and holding law enforcement and other institutions accountable for their actions. Although more policing is not the answer to many racial inequalities, deliberate education and preventative measures can create a change in the system that lives on for the next generation.
