January 29, 2020
Page 9
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O PINION
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Rollbacks are Textbook Institutional Racism
Environmental
law attacks sow
division
l eslie d. g regory
t om h. h astings
Did Trump say out loud, “I’m
going to gut the original environ-
mental law of the US and it will
affect everyone’s health nega-
tively but the health of black and
brown people the most?”
Of course not. But that is ex-
actly what is afoot with his inten-
tion to roll back major portions
of the 1969 germinal environ-
mental law—the National Envi-
ronmental Protection Act—the
original law upon which all such
important protections are built.
The Clean Water Act, Clean Air
Act, Endangered Species Act,
Resource Conservation and Re-
covery Act—all these protec-
tions, and more, of our public
health will be weakened and, in
some cases, rendered virtually
moot, when Trump finishes.
Big oil will profit. Huge cor-
porations will skip previously
required steps to pass assess-
by
and
ments and protection measures,
increasing profits for all manner
of developers and increasing in-
cidence of lung disease, heart
disease and cancers associated
with reckless release of toxic and
hazardous material that speeds
extraction, quickens construc-
tion and jacks up mortalities. In-
dustry benefits, people lose.
It’s not like environmental
laws are perfect, but they need
improvement, not evisceration.
According to a report in The
Hill, the EPA found black Amer-
icans are subjected to higher lev-
els of air pollution than whites.
Another study found that com-
munities of color and low-in-
come populations are dispropor-
tionately exposed to chemical
releases. Others have found that
minority and low income com-
munities were more likely to be
near hazardous waste sites. Ad-
vocates often collectively refer
to these towns as environmental
justice communities.
So there is already a lethal bias
against poor people and people
of color in many respects—as
if that means that middle-class
white people are immune from
these public health threats. It
does not.
But it does mean that insti-
tutional racism will be claiming
even more victims—little chil-
dren, innocent of anything other
than being African American or
Latinx or Native American/Pa-
cific Islander, will be statistical-
ly more likely to suffer asthma,
nascent heart damage and a wide
range of chemically/toxically re-
lated cancers.
When a little girl whose par-
ents can only afford housing
near some project or facility
that is releasing unhealthy atmo-
spheric elements or polluting the
local drinking water, when that
child gets sick, that isn’t a sta-
tistic, that is a little girl. Donald
Trump should not be allowed to
hurt her.
From caging children to poi-
soning them, this impeached
guardian of corporate profits
should not be permitted to get
away with this and other crimes
against humanity.
Racism is not primarily, or
even much, about an ignorant
white person calling a black per-
son the n-word, nor about Trump
calling refugees “animals.” It
is far more common, far more
deadly, when it’s baked in the
cake of our laws, our gover-
nance, our education, our health-
care system, and our economy.
The hypocrisy of Trump la-
beling other countries, even
some of those with universal
healthcare and decent environ-
mental law enforcement, as “sh-
-hole” while we descend to new
lows ourselves, is truly abysmal.
Our leadership in the world is
being dragged down by one unfit
to lead in any worthy sense.
The diseases associated with
proximity to toxicity are insid-
ious, atypical in many cases,
and deceptively chronic, all
highly associated with resultant
compromised self-concept, and
other mental health risks. It is
often hard to pinpoint a proven
origin, but common sense epi-
demiology shows it clearly. Of
course, access to the health care
required is negatively associ-
ated with the populations most
directly affected, thus exacer-
bating all these causal and cor-
relative factors.
Our work, if we are serious
about making America great, is
to repair racial disparities, not
worsen them. Please sign the
MoveOn petition to fight institu-
tional racism as a threat to public
health and let your federal rep-
resentative know that you care,
that you oppose this attack on
our basic environmental laws.
Leslie Gregory is a certified
physician assistant focusing
on preventive cardiology and
is executive director of Right
to Health. Tom H. Hastings is
PeaceVoice Director and on oc-
casion an expert witness for the
defense in court.
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