Читать книгу Lessons in Environmental Justice - Группа авторов - Страница 17

Blacks lives matter less than white lives because of systemic racism that is baked into every institution in America—whether in voting, education, employment, health, the environment, or the criminal justice system. The environmental racism you will read about in this text, such as the Flint water crisis, is no fluke. In the United States, some people and communities have the “wrong complexion for protection” (Bullard & Wright, 2012). The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement emerged in response to the 2012 death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin and the 2013 acquittal of his vigilante killer, George Zimmerman. The unpopular verdict sparked outrage, protests, and the Black Lives Matter hashtag posting on social media by three black women—Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. BLM co-founder Alicia Garza gave a succinct overview of what the Black Lives Matter movement stands for: “Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression” (Garza, 2014).

The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag used social media to effectively shine the national spotlight on racialized state-sanctioned killings of unarmed black men. Black Lives Matter activists exploited social media through videos and testimony where African Americans were recorded being shot, beaten, choked, and/or killed by police or vigilantes (Pellow, 2016). The movement gained national attention for its street demonstrations and mass protests following the 2014 police killing of two African American males: Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City (Day, 2015; Luibrand, 2015). BLM protests expanded into dozens of chapters in the United States with a primary focus on addressing racial profiling, racial inequality, and racism in the U.S. criminal justice system (Cullors-Brignac, 2016). The BLM network developed 13 core principles to guide their work; among them are diversity, empathy, restorative justice, being unapologetically black, and intergenerationality (Barre, 2016, p. 2).

Systemic policies of police violence and killing, racial profiling, overpolicing, overticketing, arresting, and jailing in the criminal justice system all emanate from the same systemic forces that target, overpollute, and poison black people where they live, work, play, and attend school. Just as black people are special targets of state-sanctioned police violence, black communities and their inhabitants are also targets of state-sponsored permits to pollute and of pollution violence (poisoning men, women, children, and unborn babies is a form of violence) by industries that cause premature illnesses and deaths in the black community.

Social media and videos taken on smartphones have allowed Americans to see in living color how racialized policing kills blacks with impunity. Racism in the criminal justice system kills and denies black people equal justice and equal protection under the laws guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Environmental racism kills more slowly (without the vantage point of videos) and harms a disparate share of black people. Racism denies them the same rights of equal protection and equal justice by targeting black communities for environmentally risky and polluting facilities—resulting in elevated rates of cancer and respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses such as heart disease and stroke. Racism is making Black America sick.

Dismantling systemic racism is a core guiding principle of both the environmental justice movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. In the final analysis, there is only one movement—the movement that fights for an American society that values black lives the same way it values white lives. Erasing American racism from our society will make us a much healthier, safer, and more just nation.