Class of 2022
Environmental racism is the historical and ongoing deliberate control and abuse of space and bodies for the benefit of the few at the detriment of racial minorities.
Asia Brantley, Leandrea Clay, Bonnie Dana, Darian Dickerson, Allison Greathouse, Keiko Farah, Lucia Joseph, Mike Lu, Belise Nishimwe, Nash Overfield, Kai Radford, Hailey Russell, Will Slatin, Will Smith Jr., Tatyana Toliver-Hughes, RL Wheeler
Class of 2021
The bones on which the United States is built.
The connection of race and the environment that makes it possible for those in power to subjugate marginalized populations through the destruction of the land.
A direct result of the local, state, and federal governments’ prioritization of imperialism and capitalism over human life and Black ecology. This reinforces the spatial concentration of Black communities and forces them to bear the brunt of environmental hazards and their effects.
The systemic implementation of environmental hazards onto people of color.
When people of color disproportionately face health hazards in their communities.
Environmental racism includes increased health hazards and lack of access to necessities to live such as healthy food and clean water.
The process by which an individual, community, or group of people’s connection to the land, their environment, and the ecology that they exist within is damaged by decisions made by individuals, corporations, or governing bodies.
The use of “property” and “borders” to inflict violence and genocide upon Indigenous people on the land they were the stewards of for thousands of years.
Hinges on the idea that a white person could own both the land and the people needed to create extreme amounts of wealth.
Accumulated trauma as a result of the forced displacement of marginalized communities that weaponizes land against them.
Environmental racism is when oppressed peoples are not getting all of the resources that the environment provides for us.
When groups of people are pitted against the environment intentionally and do not have access to the elements that the environment provides.
Environment is the shared space on earth that all of us occupy. That means the air, the soil, the water, the land, etc.
Infrastructure that perpetuates an environment of danger, especially for Black communities.
Environmental racism is baked into the roots of American history.
The fundamental cause behind the deliberate discrimination, silencing, and exclusion of minority communities from complete access to environmental resources and leadership in the environmental justice movement.
Human manipulation of the natural world that has prioritized (and continues to prioritize) wealthy, white interests to the detriment of Black people and others who existing power systems exclude.
The systemic way in which communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the effects of environmental degradation, dating back to European colonization, when people sought to extract as much from the land as possible in pursuit of wealth.