Environmental racism in “The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology” refers to sociology as “any environmental policy or practice that negatively affects individuals, groups, or communities because of their race or ethnicity. This term is shown in many different ways such as people living at a poor income status are not able to afford a home surrounded and in a nice overall area. This term is even related to people living in polluted air, drinking contaminated water, or living near a toxic waste site. Environmental racism can also be reinforced by such things as government, legal, political, and military institutions. Living in these types of areas are commonly by colored people and people with low income. From living in such ways, it is detrimental to their health and their ability to live in a way that’ll benefit them. The environmental movement has been emerging over the years due simply a response to environmental inequalities, threats to public health, and the differential enforcement and treatment of certain communities with regard to ecological concerns. People are living in areas that are threatened by the ecological hazards. Some living in such areas are suffering not only from the air around them or the water their drinking but suffering greatly from poverty.
In a video done by SociologyLive, states that racism is a lot more than just discrimination against people of color and the jobs their able to get, the places they’re able to live, etc. It deals with a lot with where they end up having to live and what exactly they are surrounded by. Factors of such ways of living are quick to cause physical, mental, and emotional pain. From this video, they explain that environmental racism is one of the subtlest types of racism. They gave such examples of people drinking contaminated water, kids playing on a playground next to factories. This affects the way they grow up and people’s over health as humans. This is causing people to get asthma, lead poisoning, and lung cancer. Statistics of environmental racism affects are shocking and “show that that it pervades all aspects of African Americans’ lives: environmentally unsound housing, schools with asbestos problems, facilities and playgrounds with lead paint” (SocilogLive). Statistics also prove that African American children are five times more likely to have lead poisoning than their Caucasian counterparts. Sociologists are finding and examining how exactly environmental racism is addressed in the long-term clean up.
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