Embedded Files
Session Objective: to determine how environmental harms are unequally experienced by groups, often with systemic intent
Last week, we examined demographic and statistical methods for the evidence-based study of environmental racism. This week, we zoom in on environmental risks, hazards, and harms as a specific concern.
“Exposing Hazards” is about pinpointing communities’ unfair proximity to dangerous toxins, natural disasters, and ecological violence. This Learning Log invites you to study the history of environmental racism as an academic concept – and then consider how various artists are bringing light to its contemporary impacts. As you review the materials, bear in mind the unit’s assignment so you can do some brainstorming for your Statistical Story.
Complete at least one of the introductions below to environmental racism (you can read or watch/listen, whichever medium you engage with more!). While you watch and/or read, identify at least 3 different arenas where environmental racism is playing out.
Read: the sections on “Anti-Toxics Movement and Early Studies” and “Environmental Racism: Injustice That Drives a Movement Forward” (pages 29-33) in Rickie Cleere’s senior thesis on Environmental Racism and the Movement for Black Lives: Grassroots Power in the 21st Century.
Listen: to this interview with the “father of environmental justice” about his discovery of environmental racism trends. (You can also read the transcript on YouTube, if you prefer.)
segments from Cleere thesis.pdf
Rickie Cleere is a young ecologist committed to addressing climate change, advancing social justice, and restoring natural landscapes. Cleere grew up in Southern California, where he pursued undergraduate studies in environmental biology while attending Pomona College. His thesis explored how the environmental justice and Black Lives Matter movements are part of the same struggle: a struggle against environmental racism, police brutality, and – above all – the violence of economic oppression.
Dr Robert D Bullard is currently Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University, where he previously served as the Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs. Before his time at TSU, Dr Bullard founded the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. A proud US Marine Corps veteran, Dr Bullard received his PhD from Iowa State University. In 2020, the United Nations Environment Program presented Dr Bullard with its Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award, the UN’s highest environmental honour.
optional, but helpful:
Skim: chapter 7 on “Environmental Racism: Inequality in a Toxic World” by David Naguib Pellow in The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities (pages 147-164). As you read, pay special attention to how Pellow describes the study of environmental racism, and how academic research can help redress the inequalities unveiled.
Professor David N. Pellow is the Department Chair of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he teaches courses on environmental and social justice; race, class, gender, and environmental conflict; human-animal conflicts; sustainability; and social change movements that confront our socio-environmental crises and social inequality. He volunteers and researches with organisations that are dedicated to improving the living and working environments for people of color, immigrants, Indigenous peoples, and working class communities.
Witness: the desecration of Indigenous lands and bodies through environmental racism, captured in John Feodorov’s work below.
Desecration 1 (Acrylic, graphite & conté on commissioned Navajo rug woven by Tyra Preston)
Of mixed Navajo (Diné) and Euro-American heritage, John Feodorov grew up in the suburbs of Southern California in the city of Whittier, just east of Los Angeles. During his early life, he and his family made annual visits to his grandparent’s land on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. The time he spent there continues to influence his work.
Feodorov’s art both engages and confronts the viewer through questioning assumptions about Identity, Spirituality and Place within the context of our consumer-driven culture. Lately, he has been responding to ongoing environmental exploitation and degradation by both government and corporate sources, as well as their potential effects on how we relate to and understand our sense of Place.
“Desecrations is a series of four paintings on Navajo rugs. The series responds to ongoing environmental threats to traditional Diné lands and communities (including toxic pollution caused from uranium mining, coal burning, and fracking), as well as the exploitation and pollution of indigenous land around the world. For me, these rugs act as metaphors for both land and culture. By painting upon them, perhaps I have also desecrated them?”
Dance: as a call for nuclear and climate justice in the Marshall Islands.
Tony de Brum (the nuclear witness speaking in the video) served as Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands three times, including during the international climate negotiations that culminated in COP21 in 2015.
De Brum helped organize the Marshall Islands’ independence from the United States and was the Minister in Assistance to the President of Marshall Islands from 2012 to 2014. He was an activist for climate justice and a proponent of ocean thermal energy conversion technology.
During the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, de Brum built a new partnership between over 90 developed and developing countries. His High Ambition Coalition was credited with galvanising the conference around the goal of holding global temperatures to a 1.5°C increase, and continues its work today, several years after de Brum’s passing.
Billma Peter (the anti-nuclear dance activist) holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of Arizona. A passionate advocate for healthful living, education, and care, she has volunteered for several health-aligned charities and non-profits and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Health Administration.
In October 2019, Billma was crowned Miss Marshall Islands. Since then, she has served as a Cultural Ambassador for the Republic of the Marshall Islands, representing the country in formal ceremonies, advocating for volunteer and community work throughout the nation, and promoting local products, events, and history.
Rap: along with the music video of “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)”. The piece was inspired by an iconic moment from the musical Hamilton. New verses were created and performed by a collection of political activists critiquing injustice around the world. As you watch, take notice of lyrics and scenes about environmentally related risks that disproportionately impact refugee and immigrant communities.
J.Period is a DJ, mix-tape creator, and hip-hop producer based in Brooklyn. J.Period’s introduction to the piece broadcasts a news-style commentary:
You know, and it gets into this whole issue of border security, you know,
who’s gonna say that the borders are secure?
We’ve got the House and the Senate debating this issue and it’s...
it’s really astonishing that in a country founded by immigrants,
“immigrant” has somehow become a bad word.
So the debate rages on and we continue....
K’naan, born as Keinan Abdi Warsame, is a Somali immigrant who learned English via rap and hip hop. K’naan reflects on the mismatch between immigrants’ dreams of America and the reality they often face, saying:
I got 1 job, 2 jobs, 3 when I need them
I got 5 roommates in this one studio, but I never really see them
And we all came to America trying to get a lap dance from Lady Freedom
But now Lady Liberty is acting like Hilary Banks with a pre-nup
Man, I was brave, sailing on graves
Don’t think I didn’t notice those tombstones disguised as waves
I’m no dummy, here is something funny:
You can be an immigrant without risking your lives
Or crossing these borders with thrifty supplies
All you got to do is see the world with new eyes
Snow Tha Product (born Claudia Alexandra Madriz Meza) is a Mexican American rapper. Her verses call out unjust labour patterns:
It’s a hard line when you’re an import
Baby boy, it’s hard times when you ain’t sent for
Racists feed the belly of the beast
With they pitchforks, rich chores
Done by the people that get ignored
Ya se armó (And it started)
Ya se despertaron (And they awoke)
It’s a whole awakening
La alarma ya sonó hace rato (The alarm went off a while ago)
Los que quieren buscan pero nos apodan como vagos (Those who want, search, but they label us hoodlums)
We are the same ones hustling on every level, ten los datos (Here’s the details:)
Walk a mile in our shoes; abróchense los zapatos (better buckle your shoes)
I been scoping ya dudes, y’all ain’t been working like I do
I’ll outwork you, it hurts you; you claim I’m stealing jobs though
Peter Piper claimed he picked them? He just underpaid Pablo!
But there ain’t a paper trail when you living in the shadows
We’re America’s ghost writers, the credit’s only borrowed
It’s a matter of time before the checks all come
But…
Immigrants, we get the job done
Rizwan Ahmed, or Riz MC, is a British Pakistani Muslim actor, rapper, and activist who points out how it is Western colonialism and military action that drive so much forced migration:
Ay yo aye,
immigrants we don’t like that
Na they don’t play British Empire strikes back
They beating us like 808’s and high hats
At our own game of invasion,
but this ain’t Iraq
Who these fugees?
What did they do for me
But contribute new dreams
Taxes and tools, swagger and food to eat
Cool, they flee war zones, but the problem ain’t ours
Even if our bombs landed on them like the Mayflower
Buckingham Palace or Capitol Hill
Blood of my ancestors had that all built
It’s the ink you print on your dollar bill, oil you spill
Thin red lines on the flag you hoist when you kill
But still we just say “look how far I come”
Hindustan, Pakistan, to London
To a galaxy far from their ignorance
‘Cos immigrants, we get the job done
Resīdεntә (René Juan Pérez Joglar) is a Grammy-winning Puerto Rican rapper, writer, and filmmaker who advocates for Indigenous people’s rights and educational access. Resīdεntә speaks of the resilience of undocumented workers in the face of colonial violence:
Por tierra o por agua (By land or water)
Identidad falsa (False identity)
Brincamos muros o flotamos en balsas (We jump over walls or float on rafts)
La peleamos como Sandino en Nicaragua (We fight like Sandino in Nicaragua)
Somos como las plantas que crecen sin agua (We are like plants that grow without water)
Sin pasaporte americano (Without an American passport)
Porque la mitad de gringolandia es terreno mexicano (Because half of Gringolandia is really Mexican terrain)
Hay que ser bien hijo e puta (One has to be a real son-of-a-bitch)
Nosotros Les Sembramos el árbol y ellos se comen la fruta (We planted the tree, and they reap the fruit)
Somos los que cruzaron (We are the ones who cross)
Aquí vinimos a buscar el oro que nos robaron (Here we come to look for the gold that was stolen)
Tenemos mas trucos que la policía secreta (We have more tricks than the secret police)
Metimos la casa completa en una maleta (We packed our entire house in one suitcase)
Con un pico, una pala y un rastrillo (With a pick, a shovel, and a rake)
Te construimos un castillo (We built you a castle)
¿Cómo es que dice el coro cabrón? (How’s the chorus go again, asshole?)
Immigrants, we get the job done
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