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22 Legal Stud. F. 501 (1998)
Race, Poverty, and Environment

handle is hein.journals/lstf22 and id is 511 raw text is: RACE, POVERTY, AND ENVIRONMENT MICHAEL K. DORSEY* I. INTRODUCTION The movement for environmental justice in the United States represents a multi-racial, multi-issue response to the failure of the mainstream, predominantly white environmental movement to adequately address issues of social and economic justice. As early as 1972 Herbert Marcuse warned that divorcing equity and social justice concerns from the environmental agenda would leave environmentalists vulnerable to effective, if unprincipled attack.1 The quest for environ- mental justice has emerged as a consequence of environmental racism. Environmental racism has been described as: Racial discrimination in environmental policy making and the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of people of color communities for toxic and hazardous waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of color from the leadership of the environmental movement.2 Environmental racism also concerns the simultaneous and deliberate targeting of white communities for beneficial goods-parks, pools and recreation areas; and the promotion of white members through the ranks of the environmental movement. In response to environmental racism, minorities and people of color have created an environmental justice movement to provoke, not just something new or additional, but something broader and more ideologi- cally complex than traditional, white-dominated environmentalism. Advocates of environmental justice argue that social, political, economic and environmental issues are inextricably bound together and must be analyzed and understood as a complex whole. These advocates argue that the strong social and economic justice orientation of the environ- * Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University. 1 Peter Marcuse, Conservation for Whom, in James Noel Smith (ed.), ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN URBAN AMERICA 17-36 (Washington, DC: Conservation Foundation, 1972). 2 Benjamin Chavis, The Historical Significance and Challenges of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, in PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST NATIONAL PEOPLE OF COLOR ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT (Washington, DC: United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1991).

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