Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Racism Still Poisons Decisions on Toxic Sites

As a follow-up to my piece on the beef I had with the MSNBC article that mentioned high cancer rates in minorities, but not a peep about environmental racism, here is something that I just found on the web.

Today there is an article on Bloomberg.com, implicating government of environmental racism. In the article, Racism Still Poisons Decisions on Toxic Sites, columnist Cindy Skrzycki discusses a recent report by the United Church of Christ in Cleveland. The report, Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, according to Skrzycki, suggests "that decisions made by federal, state and local governments, as well as by companies, have penalized minority groups."

Skrzycki cites several examples of how racism influences the formation and interpretation of governmental policies on the environment. Her piece leaves the reader with a lot of questions, but at least it raises important points about institutional racism that are often omitted in mainstream news.

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