Environmental Racism: How Minority Communities Are Exposed to "Toxic Soup"

Damu Smith, founder of Black Voices for Peace and executive director of the National Black Environmental Justice Network. For more than three decades, Damu has worked tirelessly on the frontlines of the anti-war and environmental justice movements.

LISTEN ONLINE
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/30/1354251

In related news:

Environmental Pollution Along the Mississippi: From the Headwater to the Delta
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/30/1354246

and

Dozens Dead as Hurricane Katrina Slams into Gulf Coast: A Look at Extreme Weather, Oil Development and Who Gets Hit the Hardest
...
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. As you look at the area you lived in for a decade, your thoughts about who is being hardest hit right now and the significance of this devastating hurricane?

DAMU SMITH: Well, Amy, we have to remember the demographics, the economic demographics of the states hardest hit: Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. These three states are among the poorest states in the United States, ranking at the bottom in terms of poverty and people who are economically disadvantaged. And among those who are most economically disadvantaged are people of color, specifically African Americans. And in the case of New Orleans and Louisiana and those Southern cities along the coast of Mississippi, you're talking about people who, prior to this disaster, were already economically marginalized on the fringes of society.

And so if you look at the images that we see on television, those who were lined up at the Superdome, going to the place of last resort, I've been watching the news all into the evening. It's mostly black people and poor people who are concentrated in the areas hardest hit. So those who will pay the most in the long term are those who, prior to this disaster, were already hardest hit by the economic injustices that they are already experiencing. New Orleans is a city of many, many, many poor people. And many of those people, along with everybody else, have lost their homes. Amy, I don't know how many of our listeners have been watching the news, but this is an absolutely devastating catastrophic disaster that has taken place in New Orleans, in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. And it's going to take weeks, months, if not years for the people in these communities to recover from what has occurred.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/30/1354242