Environmental racism and Katrina...

Hurricane Katrina brought unthinkable disaster to the southern United States, particularly to Louisiana and Mississippi. Thousands of people were displaced, homes were destroyed, and people were without food or water for days. It was one of the worst natural disasters that the U.S. has experienced.

But is this environmental racism? In order to broach this question effectively, we must examine what environmental racism really is. In the early 1980s, many sociologists were conducting research on the placement of hazardous waste sites, landfills, and highly pollutant factories. There was speculation that many of these sites were intentionally and strategically placed in or around locations with high ethnic populations. These researchers were looking for examples of environmental racism--the idea that a disproportionate number of dangerous and pollutant sites were in ethnic communities. It seemed that it was cheaper and easier to effectively dump these sites in these communities, where the population put up less of a fight or was unaware of the consequences.

Environmental racism can be applied to any intentional placing of any unwanted or dangerous thing into an area with a high ethnic population. But can it be applied to a high frequency of natural disasters in a place where there is a high ethnic population? I think the answer is no. It seems that the crucial element of environmental racism is intentional placing of ethnic minorities in an environmentally dangerous situation. Nature didn't choose to place Katrina in New Orleans because the African American population would put up less of a fight. There are hundreds of reasons why ethnic minorities would choose to live in the southern U.S. despite the dangers--culture, history, family ties. Although one could argue that people of ethnic minorities are somehow forced to live in these dangerous states because they are financially unable to leave, it is still not an example of environmental racism because the government and industry are not intentionally placing these individuals in dangerous situations (and intentionally not placing white people in them). There is a large white population living in Louisiana and Mississippi. Katrina didn't just dump on the ethnic populations and skip over the places where white people live.

Natural disasters do not care.

Although environmental racism isn't what happened with Hurricane Katrina, it does seem that something unfair and race related happened here. It is true that the population in Mississippi and Louisiana has a greater proportion of African American individuals than the national average. Obviously, this means that a greater percentage of African Americans were affected by this disaster than would have been if the disaster was nationwide. As of 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that New Orleans is 28.1% white and 63.9% black. Obviously, there were a greater number of African American individuals in New Orleans affected by the hurricane than whites. This is the cold reality of the population distribution. In an excellent article in The Economist ("When government fails" September 8, 2005), many of the difficult racial complications brought to light by Katrina are explored and discussed. The article points out that some 35% of black families in New Orleans do not own a car and as such were unable to flee (compared to some 15% of white families). Most of the stranded individuals were black, partly because New Orleans is 2/3 black and partly because they were unable to flee. This tragedy has taught us that we must better prepare for these situations and, in particular, prepare to help people who are living in poverty. The article points out that there are suspicions that the Bush Administration did not act quickly due to the fact that the majority of people in need of assistance were black. This is possible and, if true, would certainly be racism. But environmental racism? Not unless we want to greatly redefine environmental racism to include traditional racism.

There are also numerous discussions regarding racist media coverage. For example, NPR cited an example of a black man carrying groceries he took from a grocery store. In the caption, he was said to be "looting." However, in a similar photo, a white couple was captioned as "finding necessities." Again, this is racism, but not environmental racism. The reality is that people of many races live in the south, despite the danger of hurricanes. Some of the wealthiest people in the United States live in California, where there is a huge danger of earthquakes. To be environmental racism, ethnic minorities would have to be strategically placed or moved to dangerous or unfavorable land. The movement of Native Americans in the 1800s could possibly be described as environmental racism. But Hurricane Katrina affected all backgrounds and ethnicities. It is posisble that racism was involved here. But I choose to believe that mother nature is not racist.