The legacy of discriminatory urban renewal initiatives and policies throughout the 20th century has damaging effects on the lives of Americans who had no choice but to relocate to or remain in neighborhoods middle class whites had the opportunities to move out of. Redlining prevented any real revenue generating sources from entering these communities, national policies especially the GI Bill and highway expansion acts provided not only opportunities for folks outside of the urban centers to establish businesses in suburban communities, but served as a catalyst for white flight and urban blight. The South Bronx is one example of how once thriving communities have turned into wastelands abandoned by elected officials and a community who has no idea how to approach its many problems.
Majora Carter has been on a mission to change the unique yet unfortunate fate of the South Bronx which has become a dumping ground for industrial and material waste. As a result, the SB is characterized by disproportionate incidences of public health concerns, astronomical poverty rates far above the national average, high unemployment, high rates of truancy and, consequently, incarceration.
We never get the opportunity to speak about environmentalism and its relationship to inequality and the continued disenfranchisement of poor people of color. Even when she presented to Al Gore what organizations like Sustainable South Bronx and Green for All plan to do in communities like the South Bronx across America, she was offered money as a solution and not any real encouragement for large-scale support by public officials.
Majora wants to dramatically change the face of the South Bronx, a place where she grew up. She wants to open up green spaces, combat noise pollution, and create a public works project focused on bringing Green Collar jobs to the South Bronx, to name a very few. She uses various approaches to meet a variety of needs, such as purchasing 50 shares of stock in a waste manufacturing company which gave her the opportunity to sit at shareholder meetings, raise propositions, concerns, and solutions. She rallies the South Bronx community to take to the streets demanding the end of environmental racism. She has even collaborated with policy analysts, city and private community development organizations to draft blueprints, policy proposals, and budgets to leverage support in the local and state government.
I became interested in environmentalism because I realized that the voices of low income people of color was absent from this cause. My white, liberal, middle class, college educated friends are the face of the Green movement, but poor black and Latino folks are the ones who are impacted the most. It's still worth having a conversation about how the legacy of urban renewal and suburbanization had such damaging effects on poor communities of color. This video is worth the watch.
