What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental justice “refers to those cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions to support sustainability, where all people can hold with confidence that their community and natural environment is safe and productive… A community of Environmental Justice is one in which both cultural and biological diversity are respected, and where there is equal access to institutions and ample resources to grow and prosper.”
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice
Environmental justice aims to create safer communities for all people worldwide by integrating perspectives from environmental, economic, and social justice domains. The environmental justice movement recognizes that our environment intersects with many aspects of our lives, including but not limited to our individual and community health, cultural practices, social well-being, and access to food, housing, employment, and education.
What is Environmental Racism?
Environmental racism is the “racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of colour for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of colour from leadership of the ecology movements.”
Coined by Dr. Benjamin Franklin Chavis Jr., an African-American civil rights leader, in 1982
Environmental racism is a form of systemic racism, meaning that it exists at the level of institutions and their policies and practices. These policies and practices disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, and other racial minority groups by exposing them to environmental hazards. Everyday examples of environmental racism can include underserved communities being unjustly harmed by having to work in unsafe conditions, being situated close to industrial plants, having to go to school in buildings with lead pipes and asbestos, and so much more.
Examples of environmental racism perpetrated against Indigenous communities include: