“Environmental racism poses serious and disproportionate threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African American residents (of "Cancer Alley" in Louisiana), including the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, right to an adequate standard of living and cultural rights.” -United Nations
September is National Disability Emergency Preparedness Month which, at the Lois Curtis Center, is an opportunity to shine a light on the cracks that disabled people of color are vulnerable to falling through when they have been impacted by disaster. And, as the disability services and advocacy sector is part and parcel of the overall system that is invoked during discussions regarding systemic racism, it is rife with the aforementioned cracks. Cracks that decisionmakers within the #DisCo refuse to even look at, let alone examine and address, which leads to myriad negative outcomes for Black and Brown people with disabilities. Outcomes that include, but are not limited to:
-a lack of adequate representation when initiatives, such as legislation, are being devised/drafted with the intent of protecting people with disabilities impacted by disaster.
-the creation of emergency preparedness/disaster response protocols that are not inclusive of the needs of Black and Brown disabled people.
-the perception of being completely abandoned by the disability community when disaster strikes (particularly disasters that are the result of environmental racism- which are typically framed as “municipal failures”- such as the Flint water crisis) in areas that are predominately populated by racially marginalized people, disabled or otherwise, which leaves Black and Brown people with disabilities especially vulnerable to experiencing institutionalization post-disasters.
This particular blog focuses on the latter, least addressed negative outcome.
“Racism is in the Water”
“No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
The passage above is a portion of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, the first investigation of environmental racism did not occur in the US until nearly sixty years later in 2021, when the US Department of Justice (DoJ) conducted a probe to determine whether the state of Alabama and the Lowndes County Health Department provide adequate wastewater disposal to Black residents. Two years later, the DoJ found that, in fact, there was a failure at the state and county level to provide Black residents with safe water, which has led to an elevated presence of pathogens in the county’s Black children. Exposure to such pathogens as led to children experiencing diarrhea, as well as the acquisition of disabilities, including those that impact cognition and growth.
Water crises as a manifestation of disaster that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown communities in the US are, sadly, not unusual. In addition to Flint, MI and Lowndes County, AL, the following communities have also been impacted by the toxification of drinking water (this is not an exhaustive list):
Jackson, MS Baltimore, MD Honolulu, HI Benton Harbor, MI Las Vegas, NM Dickson, TN
Although water crises such as those experienced in the aforementioned areas could be avoidable, lack of access to and/or “mismanagement” (Brett Favre still owes the state of MS $700,000 that was intended for welfare recipients) of federal funding at the state/municipal level (both of which are, of course, rooted in systemic racism) further compounds the issue. News outlet Al Jazeera, in its article “In America, racism is in the water”, notes that “statistics from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show not only that communities of color are more likely to have unsafe drinking water, but also that these communities are less likely to be granted federal funds to improve water safety”.
And, ten years later the onset of its water crisis, Flint still doesn’t have water that its residents trust.
Racism is in the Air and Land, Too
“We’re dying from inhaling the industries’ pollution. I feel like it’s a death sentence. Like we are getting cremated, but not getting burnt.” -Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James
Originally dubbed “Plantation Country”, Cancer Alley, which is located in the southern state of Louisiana along the lower Mississippi River, serves as an industrial hub, with nearly 150 oil refineries, plastics plants and chemical facilities. It is also home to over 1.5 million people. The ever-widening corridor of petrochemical plants has not only polluted the surrounding water and air, but also subjects the mostly Black residents in the area to cancer, respiratory diseases and other health problems. Residents of Cancer Alley experience the highest cancer risk as the result of exposure to air pollution in the US. It’s not unusual for people who live in Cancer Alley to lose dozens of their family to cancer deaths.
Unfortunately, acquired disabilities like cancer are not the only concern of Cancer Alley residents: developmental disabilities such as asthma, as well as disabilities that are the result of being a low birth weight and/or premature baby, are prevalent in the area. Such disabilities are typically non-apparent, and, thanks to systemic racism, which creates lags in disability detection and intervention, not necessarily diagnosed and/or supported, which further exacerbates the pathologization that Black children with disabilities experience and, particularly in a state like Louisiana, where 64% of the imprisoned population is Black, almost guarantees such children passage onto the preschool to prison pipeline.
In 2022, the UN identified Cancer Alley as one of the most polluted places on the planet.
Yet, despite the prevalence of myriad disabilities caused by environmental racism in Cancer Alley, what aren’t prevalent in Cancer Area, however, are disability service providers. There is no network of disability advocates at the state or national level that is attempting to shine a light on the disability and disease-causing conditions of the area. This is par for the course for the #DisCo, which has, historically, centered the needs and desires of white people and has been reticent- to the point of hostile- to engage in conversations pertaining to racism.
For people whose disability experience is the direct result of systemic racism, including environmental racism, there is no disability solidarity.
There is no validation to be found within the #DisCo regarding environmental racism being a disability experience and, unless racially marginalized communities demand it, there never will be.
This National Disability Emergency Preparedness Month, Remember That
The #DisCo is both a driving force in perpetuating the systemic racism that Black and Brown disabled folks experience and the key decisionmaker with regards to which experiences should be deemed valid disability experiences- and which experiences should not.. The #DisCo is so effective in this effort that a strong plurality of racially marginalized people who have disabilities do not use the word “disability” in the context of their experiences because they have been conditioned to both not associate the word with their experience and to not recognize that systemic racism has the capacity to disable racially marginalized people.
That said, a disproportionate number of Black and Brown people acquire disabilities that are recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as the result of being redlined into disaster areas. Municipal/state/federal governments are sluggish to intervene when its systems cause trauma to racially marginalized people, yet swift to penalize those traumatized when they react to systemic oppression in ways that have been deemed unlawful.
Including when melanated people “loot” after disaster strikes.
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