Pulido's View Of Environmental Racism

According to Pulido, environmental racism is the idea, and proved reality, that nonwhites are disproportionately exposed to pollutive living conditions. Pulido argues that environmental racism is both its own classification but more so is helpful in better understanding the far reaching and unintentional underlying nature of racism. He goes on to illustrate both points of persuasion for the reality of environmental racism as well the hindrances of past and current scholars who choose not to utilize the lense of racism when observing environmental and housing issues. He makes mention how even the lack of using this framework to further research is an act in and of itself perpetuating racism on the grounds that to do anything less than acknowledge …show more content…
In the construct of what defines an act as “racist”, both researchers and those who benefit from white privilege eschew the claim due to a lack of intention. While the reality that people of color are disadvantaged when it comes to current housing situations; it is the historical implication of racism and its supposed need for malicious intent that is debated. The horror of being a racist as well as the lack of acknowledgement of white people of said privilege are so pervasive as to need malevolent intent for an act to be deemed “racist”. Racism is a system that can be carried out as individuals, groups, and as a system. The issue with intent here is that it erases the reality of systemic racism that is so easily allowed for only in the past yet can never be a reality today. Due to the blindness of both whiteness and its power, seeing environmental racism as a reality is impossible; for it is systemic. While individuals are granted the possibility to have malign intentions, with this blindfold on, these localized and single occurrences can not account for the national reality that is this …show more content…
The article gives a brief history into the mobilization of factories and other entities that cause pollution and harmful waste into urban centers. Namely the ease of access to transportation as well as to their markets and the cheap housing resulting from urbanization; thus creating the scenery of factory and low cost living being side by side. Fast forward and we have the workers relocating and leaving this cheap housing open. For further situations resulting from systematic racism, these inner city, low income housing is then filled with typically two groups that often overlap - the poor and people of color. This new situation further muddling the argument of “who came first?” This discussion is further exemplifying the lack of real research on environmental racism. Scholars thus far have viewed the market, both past and present, as something entirely outside the reaches and perversion of racism. Debating the the question and intentionality of “who came first” completely erases the the larger scale history of racism in the US via poverty as well as access to better land, schools, and education. Because the market can not expand or focus in on another scale, we are left in the dark as to the markings left by racism on housing and illogically come to the conclusion that race is not present in this