There were two standing ovations for the man who spoke about the nation’s environmental injustices against the poor and minorities on the day the nation honored the man who fought for civil rights for all Americans.
Texas Southern University professor and environmental sociologist Robert D. Bullard shared some of his work revealing that landfills, garbage dumps, incinerators and oil refineries clustered around black poor and minority neighborhoods in Houston and other population centers in the U.S. at Washington University School of Medicine’s 2017 Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. Lecture on January 16.
Bullard, former dean and now distinguished professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy in the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at TSU in Houston, delivered a talk titled “Environmental Justice: A Path to Ensuring Healthier Communities for All.”
“Black lives matter,” Bullard said. “Black communities matter. They have always mattered. It’s not a political statement; it doesn’t mean that other communities don’t matter… it doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter. But it is something insidious about racism in this country that devalues communities and says that your community is compatible with garbage.”
He said the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice conducted the first national study documenting the racial dynamics of pollution and toxic waste siting.
“They found that race was the most important factor determining where these facilities are located – not income, not property values,” or how many are rented, Bullard said. “It was race that was the most potent variable.”
His book, “Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality” (1990), was the first to document the injustice, and has been used as a textbook.
Bullard was one of the leaders who planned the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, held in Washington, D.C. in 1991. It adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice.
A 1999 Institute of Medicine study backed with science what environmental justice advocates had said was happening in poor communities all along.
“It found that people of color in low-income communities were exposed to higher levels of pollution than the rest of the nation,” Bullard said. Moreover, persons living in those communities contract certain diseases more than people in poor white communities.
Bullard said, “And it goes parallel to people saying, ‘I’m sick, and I think I know what’s making me sick. I just can’t prove it.’” Bullard added that a study 20 years later showed that things are getting worse.
“Fifty six percent of the residents who live in a two-mile radius of a hazardous waste facility are people of color. When you add two or more facilities, that number jumps to 69 percent,” Bullard said. “We make up only 37 percent of the population. We are getting more than our fair share of pollution.”
He said there is a correlation between exploitation of land and exploitation of people. He and other researchers went back and traced the slow response of government to disasters in poor and black communities for decades before Hurricane Katrina.
“We looked at all kinds of hazards and emergencies and found that some communities just happened to have the wrong complexion for protection,” Bullard said.
Bullard pointed out there is inequality in the air you breathe.
“A study done at the University of Minnesota found that people of color breathe 38 percent more pollution than whites,” Bullard said. “Blacks are 79 percent more likely than whites to live where industrial pollution poses the greatest risks.”
He pointed out several locations in the U.S. where communities of color and schools serving their children are sandwiched near refineries.
“Studies are showing that pollution impacts learning and student IQ and achievement,” Bullard said. “When you clean up the cities, there are benefits. And the cities who have done the best have five more months of lifespan.”
During a question and answer session, Bullard talked about how young people can become involved in the environmental justice movement.
“It’s important that we mentor young people and that they have opportunities in our universities, our non-governmental organizations and in our faith-based organizations to work on these issues,” Bullard said. “It’s great to go to all the way to the rainforest in Brazil to work on these issues, but it’s also very important to understand there are probably issues in North St. Louis that we could work on in terms of environmental and health.”
When asked about what he would like to see from the new administration, Bullard said maintaining a strong Environmental Protection Agency is critical to the nation’s health. “Turning back on protections is a fast track to the hospital and to the graveyard,” Bullard said. “We are going to be fighting to maintain regulations in terms of clean air, clean water, and protection in terms of land.”
