Environmental Racism Analysis

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Environmental racism is a concept that segregates low-income or minority communities from the wealthy or richer communities because their community is chosen to place hazardous, toxic waste in proximity of their environment, which creates pollution and an unhealthy physical and mental state over higher income communities. Environmental justice, in turn, is the movement that sprouted due to the unjust concept of environmental racism. Environmental racism is apparent in regions where Indigenous peoples reside and even though an environmental justice movement have addressed the issues concerning the affects of environmental racism, further steps must be taken to diminish such acts. Environmental racism is ultimately a form of racial and environmental …show more content…
. . connected with other individuals and groups” (Oura, 2015). Oura states this due to the unjust treatment of the United States towards indigenous peoples because of the the United State’s power and upper hand against other nations. Oura suggest that gaining power and dominance over another country through exploitation of native communities causes an increase in environmental damage and resource drains. Similarly, in The Nuclear History of Micronesia and the Pacific, author Richard Salvador illustrates the consequences that more than 2000 Micronesian islands had to endure due to nuclear testing conducted by the United States after these islands were chosen as a place for military activities. Some of these activities included atomic and hydrogen bomb testings, which if not vaporized, the islands and it’s inhabitants were exposed to high levels of harmful radiations. Salvador presents a few declarations that have been created and addressed by the inhabitants of these islands with the intent to “. . .control [their] destinies and protect [their] environment in [their] own ways” so that “no form of administration should ever seek to destroy that balance for the sake of brief commercial gain. . .” (Salvador, 1999, p. 8). These unjust decisions made by the United States have critical consequences that still linger and haunt the native peoples that reside on the islands. The communities they harmed and some cases pulverized is a vivid form of environmental racism and the written grants that the natives of these communities have declared is a form of environmental justice because they are seeking for a Nuclear-Free

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