Friday, February 24, 2012

Environmental Racism by Tracey

Here are some interesting studies I read about environmental racism. This topic is one of the top reasons I became an Environmental major. I worked in the mortgage industry for 8 years and watched Realtors redline minorities into "undesirable" neighborhoods near Portland's old industrial sites on the Willamette River. Most of the homebuyers were unaware of any health problems possibly related to living in these polluted areas, and were happy to find a cheap home they could afford. I tried to start an educational program for first time minority buyers to educate them about "poor neighborhoods" and the risk of living there. But, the program was never approved due to the hand in hand nature of a mortgage brokers job with realtors... So, I decided to get out of that industry and go back to school!

San Francisco Bay Area has a lot of issues with air quality in minority areas. http://cjtc.ucsc.edu/docs/bay_final.pdf

This one is kind of old but still interesting to read, it's a greenpeace report about threats to Indian land. http://www.ejnet.org/ej/toxicthreattoindianlands.pdf

There's really so many great sites and stories I could post. So, if you are interested in more just let me know!

Tracey Adams

No comments:

Post a Comment