Class 2: Racialised natures
Christos Zografos, PhD
christos.zografos@upf.edu
Masters in Environmental Studies, 2020-21
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

This class
•Explain environmental racism
•Explain environmental justice
–What it is
–Its main dimensions
–
•Look at racism and injustice as ideology
1

Activity 1.
Racism and environmental degradation
•
•“…the uncontrolled growth of weeds and their emerging dominance in the landscape do appear to
symbolize disorder, decay, and the absence of control that accompany years of political and fiscal
neglect. Socially speaking, the significance of weeds is not what they do but, rather, what they
represent; the same can be said for the abandoned autos, heaps of garbage, discarded needles,
condoms, and drug paraphernalia, and broken glass that are pervasive throughout the park”
•
•Why, according to Brownlow, have disorder and decay fallen upon Cobbs Creek?
•
•How is racism relevant for understanding the environmental degradation of the Cobbs Creek urban
park?
•
•
•
•Answer in class:
•
2

Disorder and decay in Cobbs Creek
•Why?
–A key factor/ key change that brought about disorder and decay
–
•Loss of social (community) control mechanisms that ensured park security for everyone
•
•What reasons produced this phenomenon?
1.Racist decisions of a man in power (Rizzo): Public Administration neglect of park, community, and
its services
2.Change in gang culture
3
3

Decisions of a man in a seat of power
•
•Frank (“The Big Bambino”) Rizzo: Police Commissioner turned Mayor
–Cuts park budget by 50%
–Reduces mounted Park Guard
–Removes park benches
•
•Copyright: Bill Achatz/AP
4

•Police Commissioner & then Mayor Rizzo:
–his actions led to a loss of surveillance (local community social control) mechanisms
•Actions: Rizzo policies
–1974: Mayor Rizzo cuts park budget by 50% (compared to previous admin)
–reduce importance of mounted Park Guard (personal vendetta) through its reduction: from 500 guards
to 24 and its integration with the Philadelphia Police Department,
–removal of park benches upon which members of the community would sit and observe “the world
passing by”. This also led to elimination of an important element of community self-surveillance
(benches)

Park neglect and racial discrimination
•Budget cuts started with Mayor Rizzo but continued: since early 80s (i.e. 3 decades = no increase)
•
•budget cuts followed almost exact pattern as exodus of whites from the area
5
brownlow charts.pdf brownlow charts.pdf

Changes in gang culture and US racial politics
•
•
•The 50s: the “organic” gangs
–“Homegrown” gangs’ informal agreement over park's neutrality
•Late 60s – early 70s: Black Power
–Cobbs Creek’s early gangs (and informal security) quietly disappear
•Late 70s: the power vacuum
–Decline of black identity movement
–Outmigration
•The 80s: end of the agreement
–Violent gangs: no agreements, unwritten or otherwise
–
•
•
•John: “The park was sort of that neutral ground because everybody came to the park, and you had
picnics out there and all kinds of things in that community – cook outs”
•Tom: “It was an unwritten agreement that the park would be neutral”
•
•
6

The 50s:  Gangs' informal agreement over park's neutrality
Late60s +early70s:
•growing pressure of black power movement to cease black-on-black violence and focus energy and
anger on greater social and political wrongs
•Cobbs Creek’s early gangs quietly disappear: informal park security they ensured also disappears
late 1970s:
•decline of black identity movement
•and outmigration of middle-class blacks leaves power vacuum
1980s: re-emergence of gangs
•structure and membership not like “organic, homegrown gangs of the 1950s and 1960s”
•more violent forms and structures mimicked gang activity in cities like L.A., Chicago, and New
York, where there were no agreements, unwritten or otherwise
•End of agreement: emergence of violence

Racism and the park: the bigger picture
•Must analyse loss of social control mechanisms from wider perspective of evolution of power
relations within city’s history
–civil rights movement, racial struggles, economic decay, etc.
–racist and racially explosive period: significant – but disproportionate – roles
•Rizzo’s decisions to dismantle local social control mechanisms in Cobbs Creek: social control
–means to control social organization and activity of politically active
–removing primary public arena (the Park) of intercourse and exchange
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7

•Loss of social control mechanisms must be analysed from a wider perspective of power relations'
evolution within Philadelphia's recent history
–civil rights movement, racial struggles, economic decay, etc.
–the legacy of an overtly racist and racially explosive period in Philadelphia’s political history;
one in which both the city’s governing, white elite and local black activists play significant, if
disproportionate, roles.
•Rizzo’s decisions to dismantle local social control mechanisms in Cobbs Creek can be seen as a
form of social control
–as a means of controlling social organization and activity among politically active black
community during a period of racial upheaval
–by removing/ controlling their primary public arena (the Park) of social intercourse and political
exchange

Argument 1
•Racism produces environmental degradation
•Because: it offloads environmental ‘bads’ to non-white communities, by both
(i)depriving them of resources (park budgets)
(ii)reducing their existing capacities to maintain a healthy environment (social control
mechanisms)
•Evidence:
–The racist-motivated actions of Mayor Rizzo
–The changes in gang culture
8

EVIDENCE:
•The racist-motivated actions of Mayor Rizzo in Philadelphia (60s-80s) that reduced city resources
dedicated to maintaining the park and African American community’s social control mechanisms (park
security)
•The changes in gang culture, which were related to (result of) race struggles and which
transformed the park (without social control mechanisms) into a space of illegality and violence

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM
•From racism and degradation to environmental racism
9

Environmental racism: The Term
•
•The term
•Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
•Toxic Waste and Race in the US (1987) report
•
•First national study to document the strong correlation between race and hazardous landfill
locations at a national level (USA)
•
•
•Precedents
•1982: popular protest and mobilization against a planned large hazardous waste dump in Warren
County, a predominantly African-American community in North Carolina
•Source: http://blackkudos.tumblr.com
10
Copyright: Jenny Labalme
Source:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Environmental-justice-protests-against-dumping-PCB-contaminated
-soil-in-an_fig1_260245549

THE TERM
•Civil rights leader Reverend Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. first articulated the term environmental
racism for a US audience during the presentation of the 1987 report Toxic Waste and Race in the
United States (at the National Press Club in Washington D. C.)
•THE REPORT done  by the United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice (UCCCRJ) was the
first national study to document the strong correlation between race and hazardous landfill
locations at a national level.
•In 1982, popular protest and mobilization against the planned hazardous waste dump for 40 thousand
cubic yards of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)-contaminated soil in Warren County, a predominantly
African-American community in North Carolina, is widely viewed the transformative event in the
environmental justice movement.
•During the Warren County struggle over the planned waste dump, church activists and Chavis, drew
widespread attention to the unequal burden of African Americans to hazardous waste storage sites
and the community’s marginalization in environmental decision making
ENDEMIC TO US HISTORY: Parallel story deeply rooted in ideological constructions of race, nature,
and society
•Colonial dispossession of Native American homelands to their expulsion from national parks and
wilderness areas for the benefit of 19th century white, middle-class tourists and
environmentalists, such as John Muir.
•For the African-American community, slavery’s expropriation of environmental knowledge,
reconstruction-era land loss, and consequent rural exodus to segregated urban centers, forcibly
reconfiguring the community’s relationship to the natural world.
•In the 20th century, racial and ethnic minorities [e.g. Hispanos] have faced increasing
environmental hazards as they represent large percentages of the urban working class exposed to the
toxic threats of industrial society in the workplace to neighborhoods yet excluded from the
mainstream environmental movement.

Environmental racism: example
•Robert Bullard:
•“even middle income African Americans are more likely to live in polluted neighbourghoods”
–Study: “African Americans making $50-60k income are more likely to live in polluted neighborhoods
than White Americans who make just $10k/y
•“minority neighborhoods (regardless of class) carrying a greater burden of localized costs than
either affluent or poor white neighborhoods”
•CC by 2.0
•Copyright: Dave Brenner
•Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/snre/8057541429/
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Environmental racism: definitions
•Jepson, 2007: “intentional or unintentional…
o…racial discrimination in environmental decision-making, …
o…systematic exclusion of people of color from the mainstream environmental movement, …
o…negligent enforcement of environmental protections, laws and regulations along racial lines, …
o…and disproportionate distribution of environmental burdens on racial and ethnic minorities where
they live, work, and play”
–
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DEFINITION (from encyclopeadia of Environment & Society): intentional or unintentional racial
discrimination in environmental decision-making, systematic exclusion of people of color from the
mainstream environmental movement negligent enforcement of environmental protections, laws and
regulations along racial lines, and disproportionate distribution of environmental burdens on
racial and ethnic minorities where they live, work, and play.

Environmental justice
•
•Normative reaction to environmental racism
•
•What should we do to ensure avoiding environmental racism
•
•Activity 2. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dREtXUij6_c
•
•
•
•Explain “What is environmental justice?” in your own words.
•
•Imagine your mom, dad, sister, brother, etc. call you today and ask you “What did you learn at
school today child?” Explain it to them on the phone!
13

First, not only race
•Expanding scope
–Initially: race
–Bullard: “Racism trumps class”
–
•Expand to cover other groups and minorities
–Socio-economic status (the poor) and class
–Ethnic groups (Latinos in US)
–Other vulnerable groups: women, children and poor
•
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Expand to cover other groups and minorities that can be disproportionally burdened

Gender: women and climate change
(https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/womenin-shadow-climate-change)
•Women: more vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change
–because they represent the majority of the world's poor and are proportionally more dependent on
threatened natural resources
•
•Difference between men and women can also be seen in their differential roles, responsibilities,
decision making, access to land and natural resources, opportunities and needs, which are held by
both sexes
–Worldwide, women have less access than men to resources such as land, credit, agricultural inputs,
decision-making structures, technology, training and extension services that would enhance their
capacity to adapt to climate change
15

Why women are more vulnerable
Women's vulnerability to climate change stems from a number of factors -- social, economic and
cultural.
Seventy per cent of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty are women. In urban
areas, 40 per cent of the poorest households are headed by women. Women predominate in the world's
food production (50-80 per cent), but they own less than 10 per cent of the land.
Women represent a high percentage of poor communities that are highly dependent on local natural
resources for their livelihood, particularly in rural areas where they shoulder the major
responsibility for household water supply and energy for cooking and heating, as well as for food
security.
Women have limited access to and control of environmental goods and services; they have negligible
participation in decision-making, and are not involved in the distribution of environment
management benefits. Consequently, women are less able to confront climate change.
During extreme weather such as droughts and floods, women tend to work more to secure household
livelihoods. This will leave less time for women to access training and education, develop skills
or earn income. In Africa, female illiteracy rates were over 55 per cent in 2000, compared to 41
per cent for men.^4 When coupled with inaccessibility to resources and decision-making processes,
limited mobility places women where they are disproportionately affected by climate change.
From UN(?) report:
Women in Africa that have to travel longer distances to pick up water because of drought
Gendered division of work implies that they bear the costs of climate change to a larger extend
than men

EJ: distributive dimension
•Distributive EJ: [right to] equal distribution of environmental risks and benefits
•Such as in classic environmental racism cases (see before), when toxic environments are
disproportionally experienced by African Americans, or for poor, or ethnic minorities, women,
children, etc. (e.g. within the US)
•US EPA definition:
–Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of
race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and
enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities
and persons across this Nation
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Distributive EJ at national level
•National aspect: “not only within cities, but also urban-rural divide”
•
•Terra Alta wind farms:
–Protests at macro-concentration
–Inequities: energy generation vs. energy consumption
•A neo-colonial relation between a centre and “extractive” periphery
–Procedural aspects: behind closed-doors agreements
17

See: Zografos, C. and Martínez-Alier, J., 2009. The politics of landscape value: a case study of
wind farm conflict in rural Catalonia. Environment and Planning A, 41(7), pp.1726-1744.

International dimension of EJ (distributive)
•In a study published by the American journal PNAS in May 2019, climatologist Noah Diffenbaugh
claimed that "most of the poor countries on Earth are considerably poorer than they would have been
without global warming. At the same time, most of the rich countries are richer than they would
have been.”
•https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/colonialism-the-hidden-cause-of-our-environmental-crisis
•
18

https://germanwatch.org/download/klak/fb-tuv-e.pdf
Posed as posssibly the first country (nation) to disappear
NZ’s new Labor-Green Party coalition “Creates First Climate Change Refugee Visa Program” (2018)

Distributive EJ: international dimension
•“And even see that injustice on a global level”: small island nations forced to directly confront
consequences to rising sea-levels but haven’t played any significant role in the industries that
are causing climate change”
–Tuvalu:
•Possibly first country (nation) to disappear because of climate change effects
oSLR – lies only 2m above SL
•GDP: 135/175 (World Bank)
•Per capita CO2 emissions (in metric tn, 2014) (knoema.com) = “0”
•Tuvalu = 0.06
•Spain = 5.31
•China = 7.82
•USA = 16.63
•Pacific Islands region = 0.03% of global CO2 emissions (germanwatch.org)
•
19
Source: KYODO/ www.japantimes.co

https://germanwatch.org/download/klak/fb-tuv-e.pdf
Posed as posssibly the first country (nation) to disappear
CONSIDER: JUSTICE AS TREATMENT ACCORDING TO ONE’S ACTIONS
“And even see that injustice on a global level”: small island nations forced to directly confront
consequences to rising sea-levels but haven’t played any significant role in the indurstries that
are causing climate change”

Distributive EJ: uneven goods
•Uneven bads but also uneven goods
–“poor urban planning policies…but those trees get planted in the neighbourhoods that are already
green”
–“benefits of programmes enjoyed by communities that are doing just fine”
•Unequal distribution of environmental goods
–
•Heynen et al., 2006:
–“inequitable distribution of urban canopy cover within Milwaukee”
–“those … with higher median household income, non-Hispanic White residents, and low housing-
vacancy rates are more likely to have greater total canopy cover”
•
•
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Heynen, N., Perkins, H.A. and Roy, P., 2006. The political ecology of uneven urban green space: the
impact of political economy on race and ethnicity in producing environmental inequality in
Milwaukee. Urban Affairs Review, 42(1), pp.3-25.

EJ: participation dimension
•Procedural EJ : [right to] fair and meaningful participation
•US EPA definition:
–…the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national
origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental
laws, regulations, and policies
–It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and
health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in
which to live, learn, and work.
•
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EJ: Recognition
•Mabo Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiQ8YHDfySA
•European settlement of Australia and Terra Nullius
–No claim to the land of their ancestors
–1992: Recognition of continuing culture
–“We belong to this land, and this land belongs to us”
•Recognition EJ: recognition of community ways of life, local knowledge, and cultural difference
–E.g. recognise rights to land (e.g. access to forest products) based on custom in the absence of
“formal” (e.g. written) proof – e.g. also cases in other parts of the world (e.g. Latin America and
Africa)
•Recognition (Schlosberg, 2007):
–Look at cultural and racial barriers to individuals and communities getting a just distribution
•
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Environmental justice and racism
•Integrating recognition dimension of EJ helps address
•Critique of environmental racism research
–Strong quantitative and geospatial approaches to “prove” statistically racial discrimination
–Assuming that racism and discrimination are discrete, overt acts that can be measured
–Instead: Study racism as an ideology
•
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Jepson, W. 2007 Environmental Racism. In: Robbins, P. Encyclopedia of Environment and Society.
Sage:
Seminal publication of Robert Bullard’s Dumping in Dixie (1990).
•Drawing from strong quantitative and geospatial approaches, social scientists have attempted to
“prove” statistically racial discrimination.
•However, critics have strongly underscored the “racial pitfalls” of highly empiricist approaches
that assume racism and discrimination are discrete, overt acts or social artifacts that can be
measured through quantitative analysis
•Critics argue that this position belies any attempt to examine racism as an ideology operating in
a particular political economic system.
[* belie: to show something to be false, or to hide something such as an emotion]
Racism as ideology: two key elements
1.“othering”
2.Coloniality of power

Activity 5: Watch those two videos
•Context: aftermath of hurricanes in US (South)
•Is hurricane looting inevitable? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPmDITU9fqQ
•Katrina's Hidden Race War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1X_G7cWak
•
•Question:
•What’s the problem with looting during Katrina?
•
•
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6.39 min = Is hurricane looting inevitable? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPmDITU9fqQ
8.26 min = Katrina's Hidden Race War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1X_G7cWak

Naomi Klein
•Environmental crises do discriminate […], leaving poor people of color the most vulnerable, while
simultaneously promoting a culture based on othering.
•This is evidenced by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2006, when African Americans were
labeled as looters rather than refugees.
•
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Source: http://conference.otheringandbelonging.org/keynote-address-naomi-klein

Activity
•1. Read:
–The Other and Othering - A short introduction:
http://www.yiannisgabriel.com/2012/09/the-other-and-othering-short.html
•
•2. Get into groups
–Try to explain to each other: What is othering? Is it relevant to the Katrina case, and if yes,
how?
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Othering (Oxford English Dictionary)
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Image by @imogenfoxell)

Othering (Gabriel, 2012)
•Othering is a key element/ ideology at basis of racism: dominant ideology of colonial culture
•Othering: based on binary relation: Self vs. (different, less valuable) Other
–Process: establish own identity through opposition to and vilification of Other
•In othering, you deny Other those characteristics that define the Self
–E.g. reason, dignity, love, pride, heroism, nobility, human rights
–Deny their essential humanity-> Other: ready for exploitation, oppression, etc.
•Othering: dominant ideology of colonial culture (Rieder, 2008) and rule
–Consistent dehumanisation/ devaluation of ‘Other’
–E.g. primitives, uncivilized, orientals, blacks, non-believers, women(like)
•Also othering is about removing agency of Other
–Denying Other her own voice, i.e. opportunity to speak for herself
–Instead: attributing qualities, opinions of own culture and identity
28
Image result for othering
Source: mimiandeunice.com/2010/07/29/othering/

Source: http://www.yiannisgabriel.com/2012/09/the-other-and-othering-short.html
Othering is a key element/ Ideology at basis of racism: dominant ideology of colonialist culture
•Explains Eastern world to the Western world, using the binary relationship of the European Self
confronting the non–European Other from overseas (Rieder, 2008)
•For example: medieval representations of Muslims as “men of blood and violence” – probably partly
due to experiencing contact with them as conquerors (Fletcher, 2003)
OTHERING = The process of casting a group, an individual or an object into the role of the ‘other’
and establishing one’s own identity through opposition to and, frequently, vilification of this
Other. The Greeks’ use of the word ‘barbarian’ to describe non-Greeks is a typical example of
othering and an instance of nationalism avant la lèttre. The ease with which the adjective ‘other’
generated the verb ‘to other’ … is indicative of the usefulness, power and currency of a term that
now occupies an important position in feminist, postcolonial, civil rights and sexual minority
discourses.
Othering is a process that goes beyond ‘mere’ scapegoating and denigration – it denies the Other
those defining characteristics of the ‘Same’, reason, dignity, love, pride, heroism, nobility, and
ultimately any entitlement to human rights. Whether the Other is a racial or a religious group, a
gender group, a sexual minority or a nation, it is made rife for exploitation, oppression and
indeed genocide by denying its essential humanity, because, as the philosopher Richard Rorty put
it, “everything turns on who counts as a fellow human being, as a rational agent in the only
relevant sense – the sense in which rational agency is synonymous with membership of our moral
community” (Rorty, 1993, p. 124).
Some authors (notably Said, 1985, 1994) have argued that Western identity and culture are
fundamentally forged by an othering logic, one that dehumanizes or devalues other people, such as
primitives, uncivilized, orientals, blacks, non-believers, women and so forth. An essential feature
of othering is denying the Other his/her own voice, denying him/her the opportunity to speak for
him/herself and instead attributing qualities, opinions and views that refer to one’s own identity
and culture.

Othering and environmental justice
•In the hurricane response case, othering (black American = looter) deepens the experiencing of
unequal effects by certain populations (black American) along racial lines
–Their vulnerability is made more intense: they are even more exposed to hurricane effects
•Made more difficult (risking their lives) to reach relief efforts
–Face additional barriers and problems, not faced by white population
•Mobility barriers
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Argument 2
•Othering produces environmental injustice (and transformation)
•Because: it allows mobilising or withholding resources that facilitate distributive/ procedural/
recognition injustice
–(Related to the use of/ access to nature and natural resources)
•
•Racism as ideology: premised on practice of othering
–Othering serves to justify (“explain”) “reasonableness” of racism
•
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Othering produces environmental injustice
•Because it allows to mobilise resources that facilitate distributive (unequal distribution of
environmental goods and bads, e.g. toxic environments for the benefit of colonisers), and/or
procedural and representational (e.g. no participation in decisions taken for the environment)
injustice
EVIDENCE/ CASE/ EXAMPLE (Ashcroft, 2009, pp. 79-82, Terra Nullius): De-humanising indigenous
populations (don’t belong to community of “men”) to facilitate (e.g. mobilise military resources
for) land (and other NR) dispossession
Captain Cook names Australia ‘Terra Nullius’ (land belonging to nobody), i.e. empty land, meaning
land not inhabited by humans
This means that white colonisers have the right (given by the Kind/ Queen of England) to occupy its
lands by any means (incl. the use of force)
Why ‘Nullius’?
Because aborigines are not human
•Aborigines are “part of nature”: European observers categorised them like that based on “noble
savage” idea
•Britannica: uncivilized man, who symbolizes the innate goodness of one not exposed to the
corrupting influences of civilization” (i.e. part of nature/ not civilisation that is a human
artifact – and corrupts)
•There are no human communities: there is no established political system or existing code of law
•(Claiming sovereignty = bringing aborigines under ‘civilizing’ protection of British Crown)
•There is no recognisable tenure in the land
•But what = tenure? Land claims and conflicts for two centuries
As inhabitants = animals, place is unpopulated (i.e. land can be occupied)
•Of course this was a very humanised world; el.g. Aborigines manipulated landscapes/ ecosystems for
hunting with fire
•Rather than children of Nature, they made nature part of culture (via Dreaming, etc.): nature not
polarised from its human inhabitants
What justifies invasion and take over of lands?
•Othering nomadic life
•Absence of agriculture = European mind = unable to comprehend owner’s relationship with land
•Rights of occupation established by Bible. According to John Locke:
•“God gave the World to Men to make use of it … [and] the Earth…for the support and comfort of
their being”
•Where there has been no improvement of nature, men had not acted according to Genesis (to create
property)
•Where there was no evidence of “use” such as agriculture, buildings, monuments, and temples, it
was assumed that people did not have a concept of landed property, hence could not been seen as
possessors
•Example of this: Establishment of settler colonies in Australia, which impose the domination of
agrarian culture, stealing the land belonging to hunter-gatherers
•Also: grazing lands of African savannah (“lost Edens in need of protection and preservation” from
indigenous human occupants)

Take-away points
•Environmental racism – environmental justice
»Not only race
»Also: ethnicity, socio-economics/ class, gender
–Distributive EJ
•Uneven bads; but also uneven goods
•At both nat’l and int’l level
–Distributive, but also procedural, and recognition EJ
•
•
•
•
•
•
•Othering
–Denies basic humanity of Other
–Naturalises discrimination
–Intensifies and facilitates environmental injustice
•
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Source: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/EJ/EJ_ricardolevinsmorales.jpg

Debate!
Is it equally ok to be any of those two?