Environmental Racism
On this page you will find a sampling of resources related to Systemic Racism and the Environment, broken down into the following sections:
Issues in Environmental Justice: Air Quality, Air Particulate Matter, Black Geographies, Climate Apartheid, Climate Migration, Climate Refugee, Colonized Territories, Communities of Color, Community Design, Contamination, Denial of Green Space, Displacement, Eco-Ableism, Environmental Racism, Environmental Policy, Extractivism, Food Deserts, Food Gentrification, Gentrification, Geographies of Race and Ethnicity, Geospatial Policing, Green Racism, Hazardous Conditions, Industrial Dumping Inequity, Lead Contamination, Low-Income Communities, Land Theft, LULU (locally undesirable land uses), Maternity Deserts, NIMBY, Public Safety, Racialized Space, Racist Monuments, Redlining, Residential Segregation, Sacrifice Zones, Slow Violence, Surveilled Communities, Toxic Burden, Treaty Rights, Tribal Sovereignty, Urban Development, White Flight
Keywords for Social Justice/Anti-Oppression Searches: Anti-Black, Association Between, Bias, Discrimination, Disparity, Disproportionate, Effect, Gap, High Rate, Impact, Inequity, Inequality, Institutionalized Racism, Oppression, Racial Inequity, Racist, Racism, Unconscious Bias, Violence, White Supremacy
Video Clips
Source: AJ+ (2016, January 29). What Is Environmental Racism? YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrbeuJRPM0o
Source: Vice. (2022, September 30). The U.S. Military Contracted Burn Pits No One Is Talking About. YouTube. https://youtu.be/cYZkvmEjvuI
Source: PBS News Hour. (2022, Sept. 12). How Jackson, Mississippi's water crisis is a sign of larger racial inequalities.YouTube. https://youtu.be/b-ngjHkoLT4
Source: ABC News. (2018, October 17). Being black in America: When performing everyday activities triggers 911 calls. YouTube. https://youtu.be/yTYGgl4MTk4
Source: CNBC. (2020, August 22). Why Grocery Stores Are Avoiding Black Neighborhoods. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Rd8J-9uUnfc
Source: PBS. (2020, April 13). ‘Irresponsible and Wrong’: Smokestack Demolition Fallout. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/video/irresponsible-and-wrong-smokestack-demolition-fallout-fa8btk/
Source: AJ+ (2020, October 9). Why It’s Time To Give Native Americans Their Land Back. YouTube. https://youtu.be/8fX3jh8tRxA
Source: NowThis News. (2020, January 19). Why All Americans Should Care About 'Environmental Racism.' YouTube. https://youtu.be/CeNqlqFLW8A
Source: AJ+ (2018, August 25). Why This Town is Dying From Cancer. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB8CbDG7gpk
Books
Podcasts
99% Invisible
Episode: The Arsenal of Exclusion
At Liberty
Episode: Climate Change is a Racial Justice Issue
Still Processing
Episode: When Your Neighbor’s the Highway
Black History Year
Episode:Environmental Racism: A Hidden Threat
Race and Regulation
Episode: Redlined Forever?
We Live Here
Episode: Environmental Racism in St. Louis Report
Interstitial
Episode: Black in Place
Living Downtstream
Episode: Health, Wealth and Race in Today's Louisiana
Red Nation
Episode: Public Land is Stolen Land
There Goes the Neighborhood
A podcast about how and why gentrification happens.
The Reveal
Episode: The Toxic Burden
Young Farmers
Episode: Farming While Black
Intercepted
Episode: Corporate Counterinsurgency Against Line 3 Pipeline Resistance
Tamarindo
Episode: Environmental Racism is Real
Canarsie Studios
Episode: Climate Change and Environmental Racism
Intercepted
Episode: Stealing the Children to Steal the Land
You First: The Disability Rights Florida Podcast
. Episode: Eco-Ableism
Articles
Did you know you have free access to the New York Times? Register for your free account with your ISU email!
- (2022) Even many decades later, redlined areas see higher levels of air pollution| NPR
- (2020) Many U.S. neighborhoods with the worst air 40 years ago remain the most polluted | Science News
- (2020) In U.S. Cities, The Health Effects Of Past Housing Discrimination Are Plain To See | NPR
- (2020) Climate Apartheid Is the Coming Police Violence Crisis | Dissent
- (2019) Study Finds Racial Gap Between Who Causes Air Pollution And Who Breathes It | NPR
- (2020) When Maternity Wards in Black Neighborhoods Disappear | New York Times
- (2019) They chose us because we were rural and poor': when environmental racism and climate change collide | Gaurdian
- (2021) How Racist Urban Planning Left Some Neighborhoods to Swelter| New York Times
- (2022) Why Latinos are on the front lines of climate change | NPR
- (2020) Environmental Justice Activist Breaks Down Deep Ties Between Racism and Climate Change | PBS News Hour
- (2023) Residents looking for justice 9 years after Flint water crisis| ABC
- (2022) Feds to conduct further testing for radioactive contamination in Missouri school| PBS NewsHour
- (2022) Jackson Water System Failing | CNN
- (2021) Thousands of U.S. Public Housing Residents Live in the Country’s Most Polluted Places | The Intercept
- (2021) People of Color Breathe More Hazardous Air. The Sources Are Everywhere. | New York Times
- (2021) The Smoke Comes Every Year. Sugar Companies Say the Air Is Safe | ProPublica
- (2022) When There’s Arsenic in the Water, but ‘We Have Nowhere to Go’ | New York Times
- (2020) Climate Change Tied to Pregnancy Risks, Affecting Black Mothers Most | New York TimesE
- (2021) Poisoned. Part 1: The Factory | PBS Frontline
- (2022) Burning Tires Left Louisiana Prisoners With Migraines, Breathing Problems, and Minimal Medical Care | Intercept
- (2022) A U.S. uranium mill is near this tribe. A study may reveal if it poses a health risk | NPR
- (2023) You're on your own, East Palestine: Residents are told they're 'ineligible' for FEMA help because their homes weren't destroyed by toxic train derailment | Daily Mail
- (2022) The first step to preparing for surging climate migration? Defining it | NPR
- (2022) As Climate Change Worsens, Native Tribes Compete for Relocation Grants| New York Times
- (2022) The spending bill will cut emissions, but marginalized groups feel they were sold out | NPR
- (2020) Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration | ProPublica
- (2021) Thousands of U.S. Public Housing Residents Live in the Country’s Most Polluted Places | The Intercept
- (2021) How Racist Urban Planning Left Some Neighborhoods to Swelter| New York Times
- (2020) Parks In Nonwhite Areas Are Half The Size Of Ones In Majority-White Areas, Study Says | NPR
- (2021) Conservationists See Rare Nature Sanctuaries. Black Farmers See a Legacy Bought Out From Under Them. | ProPublica
- (2018) Police Are Being Used To Exclude Black People From Public Places | NPR
- (2014) Want to Predict the Future of Surveillance? Ask Poor Communities| American Prospect
- (2020) How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror | New York Times
- (2020) Living While Black: How Black People Are Policed Just for Being in Public Spaces | Teen Vogue
- (2021) A Push to Move the Golf Course Atop a Native American ‘Stonehenge’ | New York Times
- (2018) Public Spaces Can Be A Minefield For Black And Brown People | WBEZ
- (2018) Being Black in Public| Slate
- (2020) What Black America Knows About Quarantine | New York Times
Scholarship
- (2021) Environmental racism: A causal and historical account. | Journal of Social Philosophy
- (2021) Environmental Racism and the Contamination of Black Lives: A Literature Review | Sheree Henderson
- (2021) Choosing Life Over Liberty and Property: Environmental Justice in a World Ravaged by Climate Change| by Christopher Afgani
- (2022) Pesticides and environmental injustice in the USA: root causes, current regulatory reinforcement and a path forward| by Nathan Donley
- (2018) Disparities in Distribution of Particulate Matter Emission Sources by Race and Poverty Status | by Ihab Mikati
- (2018) Geographic and social disparities in exposure to air neurotoxicants at U.S. public schools | Sara Grineski
- (2019) Inequity in Consumption of Goods and Services Adds to Racial-ethnic Disparities in Air Pollution Exposure | by Christopher Tessum
- (2020) Just Green Enough: Urban Development and Environmental Gentrification | by Tyler McCreary
- (2021) Pervasive structural racism in environmental epidemiology. | Melissa Perry
- (2018) Why Neighborhoods Matter in Deaths by Legal Intervention: Examining Fatal Interactions between Police and Men of Color | Odis Johnson, Jr
- (2018) As Above, So Below: Anti‐Black Violence as Environmental Racism | Willie Jamaal Wright
- (2019) Fear and Loathing (of others): Race, Class and Contestation of Space in Washington, DC. | Brandi T. Summers
- (2019) Black matters are spatial matters: Black geographies for the twenty‐first century. | Camilla Hawthorne
- (2015) Geographies of Race and Ethnicity 1: White Supremacy vs White Privilege in Environmental Racism Research| by Laura Pulido
- (2020) Just Green Enough: Urban Development and Environmental Gentrification | by Tyler McCreary
- (2017) Food Deserts and Real‐Estate‐Led Social Policy | Laura Wolf‐Powers
- (2019) Residential Segregation and Racial/ethnic Disparities in Ambient Air Pollution. | by Bongki Woo
- (2015) Healthy Food Stores, Greenlining and Food Gentrification: Contesting New Forms of Privilege, Displacement and Locally Unwanted Land Uses in Racially Mixed Neighborhoods | by Isabelle Anguelovski
- (2021) Uranium Exposure in American Indian Communities: Health, Policy, and the Way Forward | by Nicole Redvers
- (2020) Urban Heat Management and the Legacy of Redlining | by Bev Wilson
- (2019) Toxic Cities: Neoliberalism and Environmental Racism in Flint and Detroit Michigan. | Terressa Benz
- (2018) Policing, data, and power-geometry: intersections of crime analytics and race during urban restructuring | Brian Jordan Jefferson
- (2020) Environmental Justice: Grassroots Activism and Its Impact on Public Policy Decision Making. | Robert Bullard
- (2022) Housing Discrimination and the Toxics Exposure Gap in the United States: Evidence from the Rental Market| by Peter Christensen
- (2022) Critical Infrastructure, Environmental Racism, and Protest: A Case Study in Cancer Alley, Louisiana | Ruhan Nagra
- (2016) The Slow Poisoning of Black Bodies: A Lesson in Environmental Racism and Hidden Violence| by Rita Turner
- (2014) Spatial Cluster Detection of Air Pollution Exposure Inequities Across the United States | by Bin Zou
- (2009) Rethinking the Scope of Environmental Injustice: Perceptions of Health Hazards in a Rural Native American Community Exposed to Carbon Black. | Thomas E. Shriver
- (2021) Responsibility for chemical exposures: perspectives from small beauty salons and auto shops in southern metropolitan Tucson | Amanda A. Lee
- (2018) Geographic and social disparities in exposure to air neurotoxicants at U.S. public schools | Sara Grineski
- (2019) Environmental Risk Perceptions and Community Health: Arsenic, Air Pollution, and Threats to Traditional Values of the Hopi Tribe. | Brian Mayer
- (2020) Environmentally Marginalized Populations: The "Perfect Storm" for Infectious Disease Pandemics, Including COVID-19 | Gabriella Y. Meltzer
- (2014) Environmental Conditions in Low-Income Urban Housing: Clustering and Associations With Self-Reported Health. | Gary Adamkiewicz
Documentaries
Ask a Milner Librarian
Recommended Databases
- Academic Search UltimateA scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database of sources including peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers, books, ebooks, reports, and conference proceedings.
- Agricultural & Environmental Science Database
Citation database focused on ecology, ergonomics, noise, occupational safety and health, pollution, risk assessment, toxicology, waste management, wastewater treatment, and water resources and includes journals, conference proceedings, monographs, and government publications.
- APA PsycInfoPremier full text psychology database includes journal articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations.
- Criminal Justice Abstracts with full textFull text database for criminology and related disciplines and includes journals, books, and reports from government and nongovernmental agencies.
- EconLitFull text database of economics including journals, books, dissertations, and working papers.
- Education Full TextFull text database includes journals and educational tests covering special education, adult education, multicultural/ethnic education, and teaching methods.
- GreenFILEFull text database of journals, magazines, government documents, and reports focusing on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology from different disciplinary perspectives like agriculture, education, law, health, and technology.
- Health Source Consumer EditionFull text database of consumer health information from magazines covering topics such as the medical sciences, food sciences, nutrition, childcare, sports medicine, and general health.
- HeinOnline AcademicFull text database focused on legal information from journals, federal laws, regulations, case law, reports and opinions of the U.S. Attorney General, and the U.S. State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Help documentation available here.
- PAIS IndexCitation database focused on public affairs, public and social policies, and international relations and includes journals, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, and conference papers. Some full text available.
- Social Work Abstracts
Citation social work database covering topics such as homelessness, AIDS, child and family welfare, aging, substance abuse, legislation, and community organization. Limited to eight simultaneous users.
- SocINDEXFull text database for sociology and all sub-disciplines and includes journal articles, books, conference papers, and author profiles cover topics like abortion, crime, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, social problems, substance abuse and violence.
- Sociological Abstracts (SocAbs)Citation database covering all aspects of sociology and related disciplines and includes journals, books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.