Environmental Justice By Robert D. Bullard And Glenn S. Johnson

The essay Environmental Justice by Robert D. Bullard and Glenn S. Johnson explored many different aspects of environmental justice issue in the United States. They specifically looked at how communities of color have been specifically targeted for sites toxic waste dumps and other environmental hazards. A phenomenon known as environmental racism. Additionally, how grassroots organizations have had success fighting for the rights for the people in lower-class communities, as well for people of color. Corporations in their quest to provide products to the American people, and their bigger desire to make as much money as possible. Have targeted poor communities as areas they can dump their waste products. They particularly targeted areas that people of color live in, 3 out of 4 hazardous landfills are located in black communities according to a number of different studies. Both federal and state governments are complicit in these environmental atrocities. They offer tax break and corporate welfare to these companies that take
advantage of the poor and minority groups. Additionally they seem to encourage with transporting of hazardous waste from affluent areas to the poor areas. Both the government and the corporations knew that they would receive little to no resistance from the affected communities. Most of the people who lived in these areas were excluded or marginalized from leadership roles within local government. These people are usually the poorest of the poor and have the more immediate problems of feeding their families and working hard jobs for very little pay. Hiring an attorney to protect their communities’ interests from these corporations’ immoral activities was out of the question. Until, the rise of grassroots organizations who began taking up the fight for environmental justice. In the late 1970’s the first of what would become a wave of lawsuits for the protection of the effected areas.
It also produced many different studies regarding the racism that was involved in the selection of these sites. The Commission for Racial Justice found that race to be the most potent variable in predicting where these facilities were located. The grassroots organizations adopted 17 “principles of environmental justice” in September 1991. They defined environmental justice as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income. They forced the EPA to enforce the nation’s environmental laws and hold elected officials accountable for their actions. President Clinton signed an executive order 12898, “Federal Action to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. Which prohibits discriminatory practices in program receiving federal
funding. This article shows a fatal flaw in the free market economy, a system that the people of the United States hail as the best in the world. That flaw is the idea of making money at all costs, regardless of the collateral damage to people, communities, and the society as a whole is the best route to take. The health and welfare of the people should always outweigh the rights of the corporations. The burden of proof of what they are producing is or isn’t harmful needs to be on the companies, not on the people. More people need to stand up and say that what they are doing is wrong and just plain immoral. Additionally the globalization of the economy has created the exportation and blackmail of third world countries–you can have jobs and pollution, or no jobs at all. This is just as reprehensible as targeting the black communities in this country and they need to be held accountable for their actions. Martin Luther King once said “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”