Environmental Racism: A Total Violation of Human Rights

In more recent years, the notion of environmental justice has become a public topic that currently has an ambiguous status in the realm of human rights. Environmental justice has yet to be determined as an actual human rights issue. However, specific subsets of environmental justice, such as environmental racism, are clearly a violation of human rights. Environmental racism is indeed a human rights issue because it inhibits certain ethic groups from living happy, healthy lives, unlike their white counterparts. It is evident in the strategic placing of landfills in minority neighborhoods around the country, and having these landfills in close proximity to these people has had an indefinite effect on their health and well-being.
The region of the United States that tends to have reoccurring problems with environmental racism is the south. Large metropolitan areas in states such as Texas and Louisiana are divided into communities that vary in ethnic residential ratios. Author Robert Bullard notes in his book The Quest for Environmental Justice that the majority of waste disposal sites in these cities are conveniently placed in sections with larger minority populations. For example, in Houston, Texas, many primarily black neighborhoods are targeted by the government as sites for landfills, and have become “the ‘dumping grounds’ for a host of other unwanted facilities, including salvage yards, recycling operations, and automobile chop shops” (Bullard 45). More specifically, “all five of Houston’s large garbage incinerators were sited in minority neighborhoods–four black and one Hispanic” (Bullard 47). The zoning of these waste sites is clearly influenced by race, which demonstrates that the government is violating the human rights of the residents of these neighborhoods.
As a result of the zoning of landfills and even chemical facilities in minority communities, the residents have to cope with “the likelihood of exposure to environmental and health risks” (Bullard 34). Almost anyone who lives within close proximity of a chemical disposal site can easily develop health problems if he or she comes in contact with the waste. A group of people who frequently suffer from the health consequences of chemical industries is that which consists of residents of the Mississippi River chemical corridor in Louisiana, which is also known as Cancer Alley. Many of the chemical plants in this area dispose of toxic waste inappropriately, and the pollution of toxic waste increases the chances of the residents’ contraction of disease. For example, in Convent, Louisiana, which is inhabited by mostly African-Americans, six operating chemical plants surrounded the community, and a seventh was added in 1996. Many of the residents developed health problems due to the extreme amount of pollution in the area (Bullard 100). The dumping of toxic waste in minority neighborhoods is a complete abuse of human rights, as it endangers the health and well-being of the residents.
Thus, “Environmental racism is real–as real as the racism found in the housing industry, educational institutions, employment arena, and judicial system” (Bullard 32). It deeply affects minorities in major cities whose neighborhoods are conveniently targeted as “ideal” locations for landfills, which in turn creates unnecessary health issues for these people. If environmental racism is conquered, then perhaps the vagueness within environmental justice can be solved to prevent any further violations of human rights.