FYI.
Stefanie Rixecker
ECOFEM Coordinator
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Date sent: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 15:10:31 -0600
From: Dennis Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Washington on Westra and Lawson, eds., _Faces on Environmental
Racism_
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to: H-NET List for Environmental History
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (August 2002)
Laura Westra and Bill E. Lawson, eds. _Faces of Environmental Racism:
Confronting Issues of Global Justice_. Second Edition. Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers, 2001. ix + 266. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-7425-1248-7;
$21.95 (paper), ISBN 0-7425-1249-5.
Reviewed for H-Environment by Sylvia Washington, Visiting Scholar, History,
Northwestern University
Human ecology recognizes that humans are part of the ecosystem and any
negative impacts on this system will assuredly impact them as well as its
nonhuman members. What happens (and what should be done), then, when only
certain members of the human population bear the brunt of these negative
environmental impacts? This question is the thrust behind ethical issues
pertaining to environmental racism. The concerns of environmental racism
were brought to the national forefront in the United States in the 1980s by
intellectual and civil rights activists after a number of African American
communities decried egregious and inequitable environmental assaults to
their communities from industrial polluters and waste disposal operations
that were producing horrific public health costs in the forms of cancers,
miscarriages, asthma and other environmental illnesses. The concerns of
African Americans and other communities of color, along with their
political, social and intellectual supporters, culminated in the first
Environmental Justice summit in 1987. The African American civil activist
Benjamin Chavis, president of the United Church of Christ, coined the term
"environmental racism" to describe this phenomenon. This phrase was used to
describe the now well-documented fact that people of color within the
global ecosystem were being disproportionately impacted by negative
assaults to the environment.
Environmental racism continues worldwide and the central thesis of Laura
Westra and Bill Lawson's edited collection centers on the legal, political,
economic, social and health issues surrounding its impact. Westra and
Lawson state that this edited collection has been brought about to fill a
void in the literature of environmental ethics. They have accomplished
their goals by producing a collection that is an excellent intellectual
wellspring on the subject for both environmental ethicists and
environmental historians (since very little literatures exists on this
topic in the field of environmental history). Critical of the environmental
ethics field the editors state that the literature that has often excluded
the human dimension in the environmental discourse. This they assert is
directly tied to the fact that the field of environmental ethics has a
tendency to reflect the concerns and issues identified by environmentalism
which is "focused rather narrowly on the protection of natural systems and
species--on the nonhuman world." (ix) The same critique however can be made
of traditional environmental histories with the exception of those urban or
radical environmental histories written by historians such as Carolyn
Merchant, Martin Melosi, Andrew Hurley and Chris Sellers.
Westra and Lawson's collection consists of three sections: "Foundations"
(Part One); "Racism in North America" (Part Two); and, "Racism in Africa"
(Part Three). All of the essays in the collection are original with the
exception of sociologist Robert Bullard's "Decisions Making". What is
satisfying about the collection is that the essays are intellectually
diverse but complimentary in achieving the section's objective. For
instance, the first part of the collection dealing with the "theoretical
perspectives" around environmental racism contains essays from a
sociologist, Robert Bullard (who is considered by m any to be the father of
the environmental justice movement); a government policy analyst, Clarice
Gaylord; and at least two philosophers, Bill Lawson and Charles W.
Mills. The first section of the collection provides an excellent
foundation for readers who are familiar with the issue of environmental
racism or for those who are new to the discussion. From the historical to
contemporary legal problems to the economic and philosophical problems that
make it difficult for ethicists, policy analysts and philosophers to
effectively discuss and address the phenomena, this section provides
excellent background material on the broad spectrum of problems associated
with environmental racism.
Although part two of the collection is titled "Racism in North America",
this section consists primarily of well written historical case studies of
environmental racism occurring in African North America; yet, environmental
racism is just as insidious in Hispanic communities communities. Many may
consider this slant a bit unbalanced, but given the dearth of environmental
historical monographs concerning African Americans this collection is a
temporary quencher for this intellectual absence and is like water in the
academic desert of African environmental history. The essays include a
historical case study of the devastating public heath impact of "human
waste disposal pits" on Afro-Canadians living in Africville, Nova Scotia,
Canada (1840-1950) written by Howard McCurdy. Westra's article, "The Faces
of Environmental Racism: Titusville, Alabama, and BFI," concerns the
well-documented case of racial discrimination in the environmental planning
process for a Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) waste reduction facility in
the predominantly African American community of Titusville, Alabama. Daniel
C. Wigley and Kristen Shrader-Frechette's article ("Consent, Equity and
Environmental Justice: A Louisiana Case Study") is a case study of the
PIBBY (Put in Black Folks Backyard) phenomena where the Louisiana Energy
Services decided to build and operate a uranium enrichment facility in
predominantly African American communities, anticipating the rejection of
the proposed facilities by white communities. A final essay about Latino
involvement in the environmental justice movement by Robert Melchior
Figueroa elucidates the cultural and political similarities of this
community's environmental issues to those of white and black
communities. Although this is a well-written section, the last essay
begged for a similar environmental justice case study for Latino Americans
living in the North America.
Section three of the collection, "Racism in Africa," is an ideological
extension based upon the argument presented in the first section with
documented case studies to support the argument of why and how
environmental racism emerges in minority communities across the world, but
especially in African communities. From devastating environmental health
impacts (stemming from unregulated industrial outputs from petrochemical
operations by multinational corporations in Somalia) to "toxic waste
dumping in the Niger this section offers only the tip of the iceberg of the
"toxic terrorism" (p. xxiv) that plagues Africa today. To understand the
collection's orientation and understand why this phenomena is occurring in
black communities, especially those described in section three, readers
should closely reexamine the collection's essay, "Black Trash, " by
philosopher Charles W. Mills in section one. In this essay Mills argues,
"Conservation cannot have the same resonance for the racially
disadvantaged, since they are at the ass end of the body politic and want
their space upgraded. For blacks the 'environment' is the (in part)
white-created environment, where the waste products of white space are
dumped and the costs of white industry externalized" (p. 89).
Laura Westra and Bill Lawson has compiled a compelling set of essays for
this collection which could only be improved if the collection consisted of
two volumes. The latter of which would focus on other communities of color
that also suffer from the phenomena of environmental racism.
Copyright 2002 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the
redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational
purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location,
date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social
Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Dr. Stefanie S. Rixecker, Director
Environment, Society and Design Division
Lincoln University, Canterbury
PO Box 84
Aotearoa New Zealand
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ph: 03-325-2811, x8643
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