Activists Veronica Eady and Heetan Kalan presented their perspectives on the environmental justice movement during the panel "Environmental Racism: A Discussion on Race and Class" on Thursday night. The two told a full Cabot Auditorium that pollution affects a disproportionate amount of minority and low-income communities.
Eady, an environmental lawyer and director of the Environmental Justice and Brownfield Program in Massachusetts, said there is institutionalized racism in the system of environmental law enforcement. According to Eady, the traditional exclusion of blacks from election polls has led to low voter turnout in the African-American community, which has in turn led to the passage of environmental protection laws that do not protect people of color.
Even today, environmental laws are more strongly enforced and carry more severe punishments in wealthier communities than in low-income areas. People with more education, money, and influence are able to hire lawyers and keep their neighborhoods clean. As a result, Eady said, the privileged become more privileged.
Exposure to pollutants produced by factories occurs more often in urban, low-income areas than in wealthy communities or suburbs populated mostly by whites, the speakers said. Poor people and people of color often live in the urban areas where the factories are built, and many are hired by the factories and plants to perform hazardous tasks.
Environmental racism has become a civil rights issue, Eady said, making reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts to fight on behalf of sanitation workers in Memphis, TN before his assassination.
"His death was really a death in the name of environmental justice, because his work around worker's rights was pivotal in expanding the notion of environment from the wilderness to include where we live, where we go to school, and where we play," she said. "I like to think of the environmental justice movement as a marriage between the civil rights movement and the environmental movement."
Kalan, the founder and director of the South African Exchange Program on Environmental Justice (SAEPEJ), spoke about the fundamental changes that environmentalism has undergone. Kalan said he at first rejected the environmental justice movement because he thought environmentalists cared more about animals and trees than about people. A human rights activist who had fought against apartheid, he soon discovered that environmental justice had a decidedly human focus.
SAEPEJ is a Boston-based non-profit organization that provides resources to South African developmental and environmental groups with the goal of rebuilding neglected environments in which black South Africans live. It also works to strengthen local environmental justice movements.
Kalan recognized the relevance of the environmental justice movement to human rights violations during the apartheid period in South Africa. To demonstrate, he showed the audience slides of certain areas in South Africa: pictures of children in a playground overlooking factories emitting smoke, and people fishing in water poisoned by toxic waste from a nearby chemical plant.
Young people have played a major role in bringing about social change, Kalan said, urging the audience to get involved in the environmental justice movement.
The lecture was part of Inquiry 2001, a subset of Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC). Each year, Inquiry engages high school students from across the country in a simulation of an international issue that relates to EPIIC's theme. Students from New York, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and the greater Boston area participated this year, and some of them were able to attend the panel.
The panel continued a dialogue on the topic of environmental racism that began during the EPIIC symposium in March, when Eady, Kalan, and several other speakers participated in the panel "Environmental Racism: A Global Perspective."
"The reason that we chose the topic environmental racism was because it was something that really tied together both issues of race and class that we've been working with the high school students with all year, so I think this was perfect for that," said Heather Barry, assistant director of EPIIC.
The high school students who participated in Inquiry called the event an eye-opening experience. "While we are living in a thriving community, we do not realize that there are serious problems in other environments," said Natacha Meyer a high school student. "Addressing these issues is the only way to solve them."
Tufts students involved said they appreciated the exposure to international issues that Inquiry provided the high school visitors. "I'm glad that the environmental justice movement is giving a name and a voice to problems that people have been living with for a long time," senior Jess Tonn said.
"Many people may not realize that the conditions they are living in are far from safe. It's great that these high school students were exposed to these issues and can now bring them back to their homes across the country to start informing people in their communities."
