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Session Objective: to determine how environmental harms are unequally experienced by groups, often with systemic intent
“Revealing Divisions” is about pinpointing instances of environmental racism around the world and identifying how specific inequalities are created by wider systems of injustice. During class, we will investigate pollution, natural disasters, and climate change impacts through the lens of NIMBY, “Not In My Backyard”. After setting the scene with the history and present reality of environmental racism, the session’s Learning Log invites you to research a case study to share with classmates.
Read: the sections on “Anti-Toxics Movement and Early Studies” and “Environmental Racism: Injustice That Drives a Movement Forward” (pages 29-33) in Rickie Cleere’s senior thesis on Environmental Racism and the Movement for Black Lives: Grassroots Power in the 21st Century.
Rickie Cleere is a young ecologist committed to addressing climate change, advancing social justice, and restoring natural landscapes. Cleere grew up in Southern California, where he pursued undergraduate studies in environmental biology while attending Pomona College. His thesis explored how the environmental justice and Black Lives Matter movements are part of the same struggle: a struggle against environmental racism, police brutality, and – above all – the violence of economic oppression.
Understand: that environmental racism is so systemically entrenched it is evident even when politics try to interfere with demographic science – check out this review from Vann Newkirk for The Atlantic.
Note: You can watch the video at the end of the article if you prefer watching and listening to reading!
Vann R Newkirk II is a journalist, editor, and data-centred policy analyst. He is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and health. He has covered the battles for voting rights since the 2013 Shelby County Supreme Court decision, the fate of communities on the front lines of climate change and disasters, and the Black vote in the 2018 and 2020 elections. He hosts the Floodlines podcast, a narrative series about Hurricane Katrina. His forthcoming book, Children of the Flood, chronicles Black America’s fight against climate crises.
Visualise: extreme environmental inequalities around the world through the Unequal Scenes project.
Choose: one of the Unequal Scenes locations that is compelling for you, and read more about it. Prepare a summary of the situation to share with the class.
Witness: the desecration of Indigenous lands and bodies through environmental racism, captured in John Feodorov’s work below.
Desecration 1 (Acrylic, graphite & conté on commissioned Navajo rug woven by Tyra Preston)
Of mixed Navajo (Diné) and Euro-American heritage, John Feodorov grew up in the suburbs of Southern California in the city of Whittier, just east of Los Angeles. During his early life, he and his family made annual visits to his grandparent’s land on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. The time he spent there continues to influence his work.
Feodorov’s art both engages and confronts the viewer through questioning assumptions about Identity, Spirituality and Place within the context of our consumer-driven culture. Lately, he has been responding to ongoing environmental exploitation and degradation by both government and corporate sources, as well as their potential effects on how we relate to and understand our sense of Place.
“Desecrations is a series of four paintings on Navajo rugs. The series responds to ongoing environmental threats to traditional Diné lands and communities (including toxic pollution caused from uranium mining, coal burning, and fracking), as well as the exploitation and pollution of indigenous land around the world. For me, these rugs act as metaphors for both land and culture. By painting upon them, perhaps I have also desecrated them?”
Complete: your Learning Log for this session via the form below.
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