“Environmental racism is racial discrimination in environmental policy-making. It is racial discrimination in the enforcement of regulation and laws, in the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and the siting of polluting industries. It is racial discrimination in the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in communities of color; and, it is racial discrimination in the history of excluding people of color from mainstream environmental groups, decision-making boards, commission, and regulatory bodies.”
Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.,
— Founder of the United Church Commission on Racial Justice
Poison Parks
SPECIAL REPORT BY THE BLACK INSTITUTE
In the past decade, America has seen an increase in environmental awareness beginning with many attributing this sudden awareness to the Flint water crisis. While a new wave of environmental justice emerges, many Americans fail to see is that the majority of people affected by these problems are people of color. Unfortunately, people of color that live in low-income neighborhoods bear the brunt of poor environmental policy and suffer from environmental racism. This is not isolated to Flint alone, here in NYC, Black and Brown neighborhoods are being disproportionately sprayed with glyphosate, the cancer-causing, active ingredient in Roundup.