Annotated Bibliography
Anderson, Meg, “Racist Housing Practices from the 1930s Linked to Hotter Neighborhoods Today,” National Public Radio, Jan., 14, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/795961381/racist-housing-practices-from-the-1930s-linked-to hotter-neighborhoods-today.
Anderson is the assistant producer on NPR investigation team. This audio and print text, 3-minute listen, was shared on NPR’s All Things Considered. She shares a group of researchers’ data of 108 urban neighborhoods nation-wide, the racist housing practices from the 1930s linked to hotter neighborhoods.
Amnesty International, The Youth Rising, https://youtu.be/JgasHx0pJxM. This YouTube video is 4:39, told through the voices of youth impacted by the mercury found in water in western Ontario, Canada. Darwin and Afeni are from Grassy Narrows, Canada, a first nations reserve that has been devastated by mercury poisoning. In the 1960’s, the government allowed 10 tonnes of toxic waste to be dumped in the river system that sustains the community. The fish were contaminated with extremely high levels of mercury, causing decades of severe health problems and eroding their unique way of life.
“Anx B Filmed in House Kristiana Chan Bodies of Water Video Installation.” YouTube, April 28, 2021. https://www.kristiana-chan.com/bodies-of-water. Bodies of Water is a multimedia, colorful visual and sound installation that explores the ancestral and biological heritage of water posted on Chan’s webpage, but can be accessed via YouTube: 4:41.
Barakat, Matthew and Sarah Rankin, Youngkin looks to root out critical race theory in Virginia, Associated Press, 2022 Feb. 19. https://apnews.com/article/education-richmond-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-virginia-8ad5da65b9cb05265f2b8081c41827cd. Everyone made a big deal out of Youngkin signing this first Executive Order; it is written in numerous networks, and accompanied by a picture of him with pen in hand, and several folk hovering close by and smiling. Notably two African Americans flank him, one on his left and one on his right.
Baurlein, Mark, 2008. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. New York: Penguin, 234. This book is about the intellectual life of youth and how the impact of technology is dulling minds. I downloaded this pdf and plan to read it more closely, later. Basically, it is a report about the intellectual life, or lack thereof, of young people and a lengthy warning about the impact of their behavior on American culture.
Bullard, Robert and Glenn Johnson, Environmental Justice: Grassroot Activism and Its Impact on Public Policy Decision Making, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 56, No.3, 2000, 555-578. This is a lengthy essay. It was assigned reading; it defines environmental justice, p. 558; it shares that the EPA is mandated to enforce the nation’s environmental laws; it lists the general characteristics of the Environmental Justice Framework; it shares that environmental racism is one form of environmental injustice; it speaks to the impetus for change; hence the title, grassroots. It shares numerous court cases, such as Mothers of East Los Angeles, El Sereno Neighborhood Action Committee, El Sereno Organizing Committee, et al v. California Transportation Commission, et al. challenges the extension of a above ground freeway through a mostly Latino neighborhood while most of the freeway in El Sereno (white area) will be below ground; hence they would not have to deal with the noise, air and visual pollution that state agencies had said they’d address. Dumping in Dixie, a book that Bullard wrote is also summarized in this document. Three and ½ pages of references are provided.
Cobb, Jelani and David Remnick, Editors, The Matter of Black Lives: Writing from the New Yorker, HarperCollins, New York, 2021, 99-103. An essay about Donald’s Trump’s divisive rhetoric. 106-118, 247-263. This is an 828-page anthology of New Yorker’s writing: stories, essays, memoir, etc. on race in America. It includes essays originally published in the New Yorker, with date of publications; writers include: James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, Henry Louis Gates, Jelani Cobbs, Te-Nehisi Coates, and Elizabeth Alexander. It is edited by Jelani Cobb, a historian and professor of journalism at Columbia University, and David Remnick, editor at the New Yorker since 1993. He has written Pulitzer Prize winning books.
Cooper, Candy and Mark Aronson, Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint Michigan Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., 2020. Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigating reporting and Aronson has a PhD in history.
Chavis, Benjamin, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States, Commission for Racial Justice, 1987, 1-10. This pdf is printed by The Commission for Racial Justice: United Church of Christ. It is a national report on racial and socio-economic characteristics of communities with hazardous waste sites. Based on the map, exhibit 13 there are numerous. Based on my reading, they are sprinkled in mostly Black and Hispanic communities; the report urges the President of the United States write an executive order mandating the federal authorities to consider the impact of then current policies and regulations on racial and ethnic communities. They urged the creation of the formation of an Office of Hazardous Wastes and Racial and Ethic affairs regarding hazardous waste and cleanup of uncontrolled sites, as well as additional concerns. The report included demographics of communities with uncontrolled waste sites. They stated that Los Angeles California had more Hispanics living in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites than any other Metropolitan area in the United States.
Davis, Mariah and Queen Zakia Shabazz, “Opinion in Virginia, the Fight for environmental Justices Continues,” The Washington Post, July 2, 2021. Mariah Davis is the acting director of the Choose Cleaner Water Initiative and Queen Zakia Shabazz is the coordinator of the Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative. This article is about a proposed mega-landfill near VA school, Pine Grove Elementary in Cumberland County, more of whom 30% are Black.
Emelle Alabama, Home of the Nation’s Largest Hazardous Waste Landfill, http://websites.umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/emelle.htm. This website provides a clickable Table of Contents: Problem, Background, Key Actors, Demographics, Strategies, Solutions, and References. This is an Environmental Justice Atlas that illustrates this particular story.
“The Fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline, Explained.” YouTube, December 5, 2016. https://youtu.be/qJZ1-LAFOTo. This is a short video, 3:01; detailing the stop of the oil pipeline; alternate route. Construction had already disrupted of burial grounds and consultation (their legal right) was ignored. President Trump was president at the time... There is an additional YouTube video: The Untold Story of The Americas Before Columbus | 1491: Full Series | Timeline; that is a worthy watch, also; includes creation stories.
Gay, Kathlyn, Pollution and the Powerless: The environmental justice movement. Impact Books, New York, 1994. 16, 21. I found this book in my school’s library. It also describes the impact of situating dangerous toxins in poor, powerless, and often minority communities. This is a good book for Ss to begin their research.
Gilio-Whitaker, Dina, As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock, Boston, Beacon Press, 2019. The voices of Indigenous people beginning with Dina Gilio-Whitaker, indigenous researcher and activist who shares stories of a history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites. She highlights the important contributions of Indigenous women; of course, Standing Rock is addressed in this book.
Glustrom, Alexander, When Great Trees Fall, PBS, 05/25/20, https://www.pbs.org/video/mossville-when-great-trees-fall-se2q8k/ This documentary is about a centuries-old black community in Louisiana, contaminated and uprooted by petrochemical plants, comes to terms with the loss of its ancestral home, one man standing in the way of a plant’s expansion refuses to give up. Sasolburg (in Africa) dealing with a similar issue. This is a very sad documentary; throughout I was hoping for someone to come forth and support Stacey, last buyout, but it did not happen. He spent most of his buyout money on medical bills.
Hawken, Paul, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being, and Why No One Saw It Coming, Viking, New York, 2007. 23. This book is about the goodness of people which Hawken believes is at the core of people; however, it is also about a number od systemic problems that are global in scope and that are impacting the earth.
Hale, Kore, Wells Fargo Is Taking A Hard Pass On 53% Of Black Mortgage Applicants, Forbes, July 7, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2022/06/07/wells-fargo-is-taking-a-hard pass-on-53-of-black-mortgage-applicants/?sh5ac258243135. This is not surprising news. This Forbes article details how the nation’s third largest bank returned to redlining (illegal) tactics of the past. A Bloomsburg analysis stated that Wells Fargo 47% approval rate gave it the worst record among major lenders when considering refinancing for Black homeowners.
Jakes, Thomas, and Lenard McKelvey. “Disruptive Conversations with Charlamagne Tha God.” YouTube, July 18, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGwJNrqa4Fg. This talk is about Jake’s book, and reclaiming one’s power to change things.
Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth and Katharine K. Wilkinson, ed., All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, One World: New York, 2020, 158. This book consisting of essays and poems from women who write about climate change. 158, 189, 225
Kim, Juliana. “VP Harris Says Florida’s New Black History Curriculum Replaces “history with Lies.” NPR, July 21, 2023: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/1189214810/florida-black-history-curriculum-kamala-harris. This article is Vice president Harris’s speech in response to Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ Stop Woke Agenda, and the new high and middle schools’ social studies curriculum standards.
Korol, Todd, Davis Bruser, and Jayme Poisson. “Poisoned People: Steady Drip of Mercury Damaging Lives.” Edited by Kelsey Wilson. YouTube, July 19, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zq85u2aZvk&t=52s.
Lindstrom, Carole, and Michaela Goade. We are water protectors. Solon, OH: Findaway World, LLC, 2023. This is a children’s book. Lindstrom is the author, and Goade is the illustrator. The book was inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America; it is told through colorful pictures and issues a warning cry to safe guard the Earth’s Water. It is told from a child’s perspective. “Water is the first medicine,” it begins.
Paul Mahai and Robin Saha, Which Came First, People or Pollution? A Review of Theory and Evidence from Longitudinal Environmental Justice Studies, Environmental Research, 2015. Assigned reading. Longitudinal environmental justice studies. Searches for why disparities exist- disproportional environmental burdens on Black and Brown communities. Different methodological approaches: disparate siting and post siting. Sociopolitical explanation given for why industries dump on BIPOC – least resistant, residents perceived to lack resources and political clout. Numerous studies provided.
Murray, Pauli, Mr. Roosevelt Regrets (Detroit Riot, 1943), Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147917/mr-roosevelt-regrets. I discovered that I was eating in the Pauli Murray cafeteria, and had no idea the dorms were named after this woman. She was incredible, but not often seen in the history books. She wrote this poem about the 1943 Detroit Riots. It could easily be retitled and written today about any major city.
Nakate, Vanessa, A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring A New African Voice to the Climate Change, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2021. This is a memoir by the founder of the Rise Up Movement. She addressed a tweet to the Associated Press who cropped her out of a photo, which sparked a conversation about diversity in the environmental movement. Luisa Neubauer, Greta Thunberg, Isabelle Axelsson and Loukina Tille, all white remained in the photo. Nakate is Ugandan. Her book is about climate justice; it is her first book. She shares how he community bears disproportionate to the climate crisis. She believes that African nations and the global south; inspired by Thunberg, she became Uganda’s First Friday’s for Future protestor. She has a Business Administration degree from Makerere University Business School. She talks about the rules that are placed on women in Uganda, and how at the boarding school she attended, girls were taught to be demure. She is the eldest of five. She shared her frustration with holding a public demonstration in her country, the permits, her gender….
Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda, The Danger of a Single Story, TED, 2013. Ngozi-Adichie, shares her own prejudices as well confronts the prejudices that keep people from seeing each other, the single story. She I also featured in the book, The Matter of Black Lives.
Oliver, John, Environmental Racism: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 2021. I don’t watch this show on a regular, but I did find the episode that I watched, interesting. He shared the same information about disparities that impact BIPOC, and he used humor and lots of charts. He said racism is one of the few things in this country, more powerful than money then he shared Five Power Rankings. Check it out.
Page, Elliot and Ian Daniel, There's Something in the Water, 2019. This is a Canadian documentary film. It attempts to examine environmental racism, the disproportionate effect of environmental damage on Black Canadian and First Nations communities in Nova Scotia. The film takes its name from Ingrid Waldron's book on environmental racism, There's Something in the Water. This story is similar to the documentary that I watched, When Great Trees Fall. Again, a Black person is telling the story (Page, an actor, is white), the people in the community have died or are dying of cancer, everyone is powerless to help, someone is documenting slow deaths.
Public School Review, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Department ofEducation, https://www.publicschoolreview.com/huguenothighschoolprofile#:~:text=How%20any%20students%20attend%20Huguenot,1%25%20of%20students%20are%20Asia. This website provides additional information about HHS demographics.
Pratt-Tuke, Jacqueline, Moving Mountains, Pratt is a science and humanities teacher based in Washington, D.C. her informational text shares the hard work of five impactful young people.
Rostock, Suzanne, dir. “Don’t Let Them Get Away with Murder by Jasiri X (Ft. Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Deanda).” SANKOFA. Accessed July 27, 2023. https://sankofa.org/archive/v/p2tnbpdndpn3ke3swhfh5tkkenm3x6. This is a rallying cry through music, written and performed by new millennium artist/rapper Jasiri X. It’s an arresting, poignant call-to-action about the wave of police brutality that has taken the lives of a growing number of citizens, especially black and brown youth, across this country. I’d like to see how my Ss might connect it to the number of Black lives lost to environmental racism. They may not make the connection and I’ll just move on.
Roth, Charles E., Earthlore Associates and the Center for Environmental Education of Antioch New England Institute (2002). A questioning framework for shaping environmental literacy. http://www.antiochne.edu/anei/resources/questioning_framework.cfm Rothstein, Richard, The Color of Law, New York, Liveright Publishing, 2017. “USA: Environmental Racism in ‘Cancer Alley’ Must End – Experts.” OHCHR.org, March 2,2021. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/03/usa-environmental-racism-cancer-alley-must-end-experts. I keep reading the same stories over and over about Louisiana, it seems. Original called Plantation Country where slaves sweated and labored, now site of a petrochemical site along the lower Mississippi River. Another example of environmental racism. Largely an African American community’s water and air is polluted. Cancer, respiratory diseases, and other health concerns is prominent. Federal environmental regulations again fail to protect Black people. Formosa Plastics' petrochemical complexes take over. People continue to die. Ancestral burial grounds of enslave Africans, uprooted…
RVAgreen 2050 Climate Equity Index, https://cor.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=e4d732f225fe457d83df11fe9bf71daf. Self-explanatory.
Salahieh, Nouran and Lauren Mascarenhas, The2 killed in mass shooting after Virginia high school graduation ceremony were an 18-year-old graduate and his stepfather, CNN, June 7, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/07/us/richmond-shooting-virginia wednesday/index.html.
Segregated Chicago, Art Puts Environmental Racism on Display: If the General Iron plant too dirty for the city’s North Side, it’s also too dirty for the Southeast Side. NRDC.org Natural Resources Defense Council, Dec. 22, 2020.
Spencer, Alexa, “Why We Need More Trees in Black Neighborhoods,” The Observer, Words in Black, April 19, 2023, https://sacobserver.com/2023/04/why-we-need-more-trees-in-blackneighborhoods/. This is a short article about tree equity, and environmental issues facing Black Americans.
Slipek, Edwin, Jr., “The Lost Neighborhood: Within sight of downtown but invisible to most,” Style Magazine, Nov. 8, 2006. This is an article about Gilpin Court, 2006, a project in RVA that is currently slated for demolition. It tells some of the history of redlining, violence, and so forth.
Spencer, Alexa. “Why We Need More Trees in Black Neighborhoods,” Soul NOLA, Spring, 2023. https://wordinblack.com/2023/04/why-we-need-more-trees-in-black-neighborhoods/. This is about the disparities of where trees are planted.
Thomas, Leah, The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, New York, Little Brown and Company, 2022. This writer coined the term intersectional environmentalism. The idea is there is a link between privilege, environmentalism, racism, and the idea the planet cannot be saved until the voices of the unheard are uplifted.
Tabuchi, Hiroko and Michael Corkery, Countries Tried to Curb Trade in Plastic Waste. The U.S. Is Shipping more, New York Times, March 12, 2021. This article is here because it tells stories that take place overseas – still environmental racism.
Washington, Harriet, A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind, New York, Little Brown Spark, 2019. 152, 172, 174, 331-332, Again the story of the consequences of environmental racism are shared. Washington is a science journalist who shares the story of polluted water in Flint, Michigan, Puerto Rico's slow recovery from Hurricane Maria, ways that mostly poor people of color often suffer disproportionate harm from environmental crises. She believes that cognitive damage is the result of these crises. She writes about Anniston, Alabama where when industries polluted the area, they failed to warn the people that there was PCP in their water. Children were dying of heart and kidney diseases; which adults typically get. People were poisoned over decades. Several lawsuits followed the exit of the companies when they found people were dying. Johnny Cochran did get a settlement, which helped the resident establish a health center, but the money ran out, the center was closed. Black people couldn’t plant vegetables normally, so they planted them in huge drums; they couldn’t simply move out of the area because…
Villarosa, Linda, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toil of Racism on Health in America, New York, Anchor Books, 2022, 37. This book is about racial disparities in health care.
“7 Young Activists Working at the Intersection of Environmental and Racial Justice.” DoSomething.org. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.dosomething.org/us/articles/7-young-activists-working-at-the-intersection-of-environmental-and-racial. This activist believe you can’t separate the fight for racial equality from the fight against climate change. Each of the seven activists are listed, pictures and their activism shared.
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