Environmental Justice

Introduction

Figure 1 Drawing by Matthew, “Development,” Spring, 2023, Nixon’s AP Language and Composition class.

Windows and Mirrors are terms that I will refer to though out this introduction; initially introduced by Emily Style for the National SEED Project, educators and scholars further the concept to explain how children see themselves in texts. This introduction also covers a great deal of research, so that I as the educator would have a critical race lens when selecting texts for this unit. That said, it is not necessary to share all of the research with students (Ss). However, I believe this research is invaluable as I, as instructor, consider racist and oppressive systems and policies; thus, I titled the unit “Colored” because I have the awareness to call out racism in various contexts/texts. Further, the term places what I learned into context of windows. “Colored” is a metaphorical window into the past, and how it shapes current circumstances. As I share with my Ss, knowing the context of texts is extremely important. Colored was a term used during the Jim Crow era, roughly 1870s-1960s: states sanctioned segregation; posted signs on water fountains, at swimming pools, outside schools, and on restaurant doors, and in theatres. These laws were meant to separate people into defined spaces.

“The wider society is still replete with overwhelmingly white neighborhoods, restaurants, schools, universities, workplaces, churches, and other associations, courthouses, and cemeteries, a situation that reinforces a normative sensibility in settings in which black people are typically absent, not expected, or marginalized when present. In turn, blacks often refer to such settings colloquially as ‘white space’- a perceptual category -and they typically approach that space with care.”¹

In contrast, colored spaces are presented differently, as I share in this unit, which gives a perception of insignificance; thus, justifying why there is very little care when it is polluted and poisoned (see figure 1)².  Matthew, a Ss in my AP Language class, drew figure 1 in response to an article that he read when I piloted a draft of this unit, Spring 2023. He read, Lee Sherman and the Toxic Louisiana Bayou, by sociologist, Dr. Arlie Hochschild, 2016. This text can be found online; it is a free Commonlit resource. The central idea: corporate interests and actions have an outsized negative impact on the environment and community health; typically, communities most affected are Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).

Segregated communities and schools, a conundrum, as laws were passed that desegregated schools, but many of my Ss still live and learn in segregated spaces, some deemed to be in deplorable disrepair, such as Mosby, Creighton, and Gilpin Courts, three of the six projects in my school’s district; projects, slang for government own housing for low-income residents in Richmond VA (RVA); not all of my Ss are able to pick up and move. Gilpin Court impacted by highway development and crime is currently considered for demolition and redevelopment; my Ss aren’t newspaper readers, or news watchers; thus, some of them are unaware that they could be displaced; however, ripping down projects has been a long-standing issue. In 2006, journalist, Edwin Slipek wrote:

“The statistics are grim. Incomes in 80 percent of the neighborhood's households fall below the poverty line of $15,000; 65 percent of its adult population didn't finish high school; and 99 percent of its residents either rent or live in Gilpin Court, the city's oldest and largest public housing project. Gilpin was completed in 1943 to provide decent housing in the area. A 1941 article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch described the neighborhood: ‘Children play in the poorly-paved or unpaved streets. The backyards beggar description. While there is an occasional, fairly respectable looking dwelling the great majority are unfit for human habitation.’ Sadly, some 75 years after Maggie Walker's social and economic efforts and 63 years after Gilpin Court was built, this description is still apt for much of North Jackson Ward. But there's a difference now: The place is deadlier.”³

Demolition of Creighton Court began July 2016. Drawings, from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA), online show that these new spaces for Creighton Court will be green with parks, tennis courts, and playgrounds. This sounds similar to the green dot proposal in New Orleans, that I will reference later, and similar to redlining, when federal governments drew maps then colored them, i.e., red for risky financial investments (alerting appraisers not to approve loans) because residents were Black; yellow markers on maps identified where Black people walked, as these neighborhoods marked potential danger. Black folk, in the past and currently, who desire to move to homes where there is less crime and cleaner streets can’t receive loans due to racist tactics. Just recently, Wells Fargo, 2022, using old discrimination tactics, rejected refinance applications of Black homeowners, while approving mostly white loans.

“Government housing policies such as redlining, have had lasting effects, from concentrating poverty, to stifling African American homeownership, and has contributed to the widening racial wealth gap. Even Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic has called out things like the impact of long-outlawed policies including how ‘redlining’ Blacks out of white neighborhoods continues to influence the ability of minority families to amass wealth. Simply put, redlining and other housing policies continue to undermine the accumulation of Black wealth.”⁴

Green areas on redlined maps denoted desirability, which sort of makes sense, as green symbolizes wealth and health, and most of the redlined neighborhoods, where my Ss live, lack green spaces: parks and trees, and shade that bring coolness and fresh air.

“‘Trees aren’t equitably distributed across all communities.’ As an urban reforestation advocate, Tanner Haid has seen lush, green trees line streets, providing shade in predominately-white, upper-class areas. Meanwhile, in neighboring ethnic and lower-income communities, the canopy of maples, oaks, and poplar trees is nearly absent.”⁵

I want my Ss to know that redlining are lines somebody else drew to exclude, but they do not define them. Reverend TD Jakes, preaches, while discussing his new book, Disruptive Thinking, and explains it this way:

“The lines that somebody else drew is auspices to which we have colonialism…is affecting our voting bloc in our contemporary society…has rearranged the continent of Africa…has given us colored fountains…redlining…determined how far you can go…say it’s inappropriate for you to be in this room and you feel out of place because you are not like them.”⁶

In this unit, I share the viewpoints of Reverend Jakes, and the voices of other BIPOC because these are voices that are rarely found in the literature books shared with me; I incorporate these voices to provide historical, authentic perspectives, or “windows” into the lived experiences of BIPOC. Environmental injustices impact not only the disenfranchised in Richmond, VA., it also impacts BIPOC in numerous states, and globally. For instance, in New Orleans, when Hurricane Katrina struck, thousands of human beings died and numerous others were displaced. The extreme-poverty neighborhoods in New Orleans were predominantly Black; thus, these racially and economically segregated areas bore the brunt of Katrina’s disaster. Leadership did not consider the lives of the people impacted; instead, “In January 2006, four and a half months after Katrina…the mayor appointed Bring New Orleans Back Commission…the committee presented a map that would become infamous, the ‘green dot’ map.”⁷ Solid green circles on the maps were areas, reserved for green spaces, that would displace numerous people in New Orleans. Greenspacing, gained interests from environmentally conscious people, and offered solutions for buffering lands from future flooding, but it ignored communities of color, and transparency about who would be allowed to return to the city. Mirrors, in texts, allow Ss to glimpse history, ancestry, and systemic practices that potentially could impact them.

That said, the importance of “mirrors” in texts, consider diverse voices and faces of people like Stacey Ryan, in Mossville, Louisiana, himself sick, trying to hold onto to his parents’ property, both of whom died of cancer. Stacey, the last buyout, in a town founded by free slaves: Mossville was impacted by decades of emissions spewed from petrochemical companies. The South African firm, Sasol, represents the “majority” and its racially discriminatory buyout, as they plowed over dead bodies, and ignored the living. In Flint, Michigan, two-year-old, Sincere Smith who was pictured on the cover of Times Magazine, February 2017, is covered in rashes that darken his skin; the rashes covering his body, resulted from bathing in poisoned water from the Flint River. Mostly, the poor and Black people in Flint were impacted by the “majority,” who decided to change the water source in Flint, and ignore the consequences of their decision. These stories and others like them are “windows” into knowledge that my Ss and I can build together. They make connections to prior knowledge and world knowledge that my Ss have of current and past contexts that ignore the rights and safety of BIPOC. I also know that the unit is one that will be interesting to my Ss and that will peak their curiosity about this topic, as I piloted it in several classes prior to writing this document.

Not all people, in positions of power, turned their backs. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician, reported elevated lead levels in her Flint patients. The water in Flint, “colored” with iron and lead impacted hundreds of Black residents’ lives. The “majority,” i.e., Michael Prysby of the Michigan DEQ Office of Drinking Water, Mayor [Dayne] Walling, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Gov. Snyder' and his chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, and others in numerous cities and countries line their own pockets and profit while ignoring the health and safety of others. The “majority” also includes scientists and policymakers who have known for decades about environmental issues and have done nothing.

Texts in this unit refers to both print and nonprint. I try to alleviate the trauma that some of these stories might trigger by mixing essays with documentaries, poetry, music, videos, art, and project-based learning. I want to summon courage and solutions through conversations and creativity, prompting my Ss to impact change to how we treat people and the planet. Environmental justice is also linked to climate change. Spring 2023, Ss read and listened to Greta Thunberg’s passionate speech that she presented to the United Nations; they participated in Socratic discussions; they listened to actor’s personify the voices of nature, i.e., Julia Robert’s speaking as Mother Nature, Penelope Cruz and Jason Momoa as Water, Joan Chen as the sky, Harrison Ford as the Ocean, Shailene Woodley, as the Forest, Edward Norton as the soil, and so forth in videos online from Conservation International. Ss used these videos as motivation to create their own videos, which I plan to continue 2023-2024. While climate change is an important topic, it is one that often ignores the lives of people impacted by the fallout of what happens to nature, as racism is a more difficult topic to address.