Environmental Racism in Los Angeles and Moving Towards Environmental Justice
Benjamin Chavis, African American civil rights leader, came up with the term “environmental racism” in 1982. He described it as
“racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of color from the leadership of the ecology movements”.
When we talk about environmental racism in Los Angeles, we specifically mean the disproportionate exposure of poor communities and people of color to pollution. It is organized discrimination in which the system is equally the culprit to perpetuate these inequalities. The environmental resources are considered to be the prerogative of the upper class, whereas environmental problems are mostly shared by the lower strata of society. Poor communities and people of color have borne more harm from pollution due to unjust segregation of resources.
In this piece, I will try to elaborate if environmental inequalities exist among the communities of LA, the reasons for such disparities, and recommendations to overcome them. Air pollution in East Los Angeles will be taken as a case study to shed light on the issue under discussion. As the urban landscape is shaped by white privilege and contemporary patterns of environmental racism. Industrial zones and residential suburbs represent a racist formation in Los Angeles. White privilege has allowed the rich and elite to move to suburbs away from the centers of industrial activity and freeways with heavy transportation. Both industrial zones and freeways are a source of land and air pollution. The urban plan of the city speaks itself of the demographic injustice when the Black and the Latinos are found struggling in ghettos and unclean areas near dumpsites. The communities of color are exposed directly to environmental problems like pollution. I will discuss how they are more susceptible to air pollution and land pollution owing to the proximity of their facilities to dump sites, power plants, and oil refineries.
The communities of color are found near city centers because, in the 1930s, the federal housing agencies ensured containing the black community to those specific areas. Meanwhile, the white community fled to suburbs and formed posh residential areas away from commercial and industrial zones. The importance of local planning, decision-making and its subsequent influence can be understood from the book ‘A Twenty-First Century U.S Water Policy’. The authors maintain in the book that it is the local level planning which impacts the concentration of poor communities of color into marginal urban geographies. (Christian-Smith, et al., 2012, p. 65)
Poor black communities have few resources and little to no political clout to safeguard their interests. Their facilities are near dump areas labeled as noxious polluters. Latino, Black, and low-income communities of Los Angeles are likely to live near landfills, oil refineries, and power plants. Their skin color determines the probability of them living near polluted areas. Latino families are living near a toxic site where remnants of the Exide battery recycling plant are present. Poisonous lead contamination has reached their homes, and they have to bear the disastrous repercussions it brings to their health. (ROTH, S. 2020, June 4, Los Angeles Times).
Race is the most significant factor in determining a person living near a hazardous waste site. The communities that live in proximity of these sites have thrice the American minorities among them as communities. People of color are exposed directly to nitrogen oxide at shocking levels. The industrial zones and transport on freeways cause the air to pollute drastically. Communities of color are subjected to respiratory issues at an average rate of 38 percent higher than other people.
Since racial minorities are subjected to unclean living conditions hence, they are more susceptible to contract COVID-19. Continuous exposure to polluted air reduces the efficiency of lungs to clear pathogens, therefore aggravating cardiopulmonary diseases. As a result, more morbidity causes more mortality. Profusely populated areas are more vulnerable to a faster spread of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to sparsely populated ones.
The reason why the people of color have borne more burden of the pandemic deaths lies in the systemic racial disparity infested in the roots of American society. Their living conditions, their health services, and public life is not facilitated enough. They are likely to live in more polluted areas, thus being more susceptible to cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. Future researches in this field suggest that the factors involved in assisting the virulence and spread of COVID-19 are an abundance of the urban population, socioeconomic status of residents, racial segregation, and exposure to highly polluted air.
Schools and neighborhoods being near the LA freeway are directly subjected to severe air pollution. New studies have revealed that air pollution can be one of the triggering causes of susceptibility to COVID-19.
A Stanford researcher Mary Prunicki has been observing the apparent link between the pandemic spread and air pollution. She maintains that people living in areas exposed to high pollution for more extended periods have a more number of deaths caused due to COVID-19. Air pollution causes inflammation of the lungs and severe damage to them in the long run. Such exposure also beckons a dysregulated immune system, making a person vulnerable to many other pulmonary and cardiac diseases.
To summarize, East Los Angeles has communities of color as their main residents. They are the first and foremost recipients of environmental racism as practiced in the city owing to its urban design.
The low-income communities of color have no hearing at the administration level. They live in proximity of landfills and industries outpouring toxic substances and pollutants to the environment around them.
The government looks at the construction of the freeway as a sign of modernity and development for an underdeveloped area. East LA has settlements of many immigrant communities that are affected by demolition and reconstruction in the neighbourhood. Whereas, building through the ghettos has created displacement issues and physical changes in the area.
Moreover, a freeway means heavy traffic passing by which ultimately adds abundantly to the air pollution of that place. The government seems to fail these communities by not considering their concerns which include the construction of freeways as the destruction of their living conditions. The resistance showed by the East LA communities are not heard upon, and authorities further their plans come what may.
To curb environmental racism in Los Angeles, especially in East LA, I would like to suggest the following recommendations.
- A clean living environment is a basic human right that the state must provide to all and sundry irrespective of their ethnicity or color of skin.
- The residents of East LA must be made stakeholders in the process of policy-making for their respective neighbourhood. Through polls, referendums, and quick surveys, their complaints and suggestions can be collected and entertained thereafter.
- When they will feel heard, there will be more compliance with the government, and ultimately a decline in crime rate will also be observed.
- Environmental justice is a crucial factor in enabling the smooth running of democratic practices in a country. Proper health facilities and a vigilant but fair legal system can ensure the neglected strata of society to be a productive part of it.
- Systemic racism is a tumor infesting the country for ages. It is about time to handle it with a practical approach and result-oriented policies.
