Populations More Vulnerable To Environmental Changes

Populations More Vulnerable to Environmental Changes
All humans depend on the environment in which we live in, so environmental crises will increasingly devastate humans’ lives. The usual victims of these crises are often poor minorities with little resources and less opportunities. The effects of these crises are bad enough on the global population, but in addition to these, certain groups are being targeted and discriminated. The example of Native American and African American history in this country will provide an example of populations development is limited by Environmental Racism
Environmental racism is where minorities and low income people live surrounded by hazardous or ruined environments. These hazards come in many different forms and are all threats to the environment and its peoples’ …show more content…
Deep-seated connections exist between the historic enslavement of these people and the environmental racism they face today. While colonizers were to “civilize” Native Americans, Africans were used for trade and enslavement. Both groups were degraded and subject to harsh discrimination, but the groups were constructed differently. Blackness was the opposite of Whiteness and they were treated accordingly. Slaves lived on the land of slaveholders but they were forced to live in conditions undesirable and even similar to livestock. Then with emancipation after the civil war, they were expected to pay for land away from Whites with wages that most of them could not earn as slaves and in a highly racist economy and environment. Their housing was segregated and became toxic dumps for developing White urban areas similarly to the Native Americans experience. However, African Americans were never given the right to their own governments and continued to live in a disadvantaged