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May 2, 2022
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Terry Mc Kenna's avatar

It may be but in the places I know, the polluting industries were were they were - and workers were moved nearby. And at the time they were white workers. I am thinking of rust belt towns whether in CLeveland OH or Donora PA or Newark and PAterson in NJ.

The real bottom line is that the poorest workers live closest to the mills/factories etc. The poorest will be white coal miners who live near a polluted stream of Hispanic immigrants who live in a part of town that was originally Little Dublin.

While i have no doubt current dirty businesses would be sited where minorities lived - for most of the stories I hear, the dirt came before the minorities. I live near NYC so our dirty industries killed white folks first.

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Midge's avatar

LULUs and homevoter politics!

Who loses in the local landowner politics wars is who has less clout. Race is part of that, though not the whole story.

https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/does-zoning-cause-racism-does-negative?s=r

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DJ's avatar

From an advocacy perspective, I think the word "racism" is so charged that it all but shuts down all discourse and very little gets down. I think we'd make more progress on things like this issue if we called it "environmental bias."

My reasoning is, as opposed to racism, *everyone* has some experience with bias - bias against short men, bias against unattractive people, bias against being overweight etc. Even rich people have felt some degree of bias in certain situations.

"Racism" has too strong a headwind. "Bias" has much more power to activate people in a positive direction.

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Ben Gruder's avatar

" I think we'd make more progress on things like this issue if we called it "environmental bias." Exactly THIS! Bias is easily understood as being possibly impersonal, a circumstance without a CURRENT intent. Whereas to the person on the street, "racism" means has a tinge of personal animus, no matter how much it's 'explained' and argued in nuanced terms. It's like white *privilege* which has a tinge of something unmerited. Or "defund the police" which nobody would be convinced wasn't about abolishing police departments.

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May 3, 2022
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Ben Gruder's avatar

Not all cancers are alike. And some growths are tumors but not cancers. So yes, I want specificity, otherwise all I have is panic and doom. Do you want to solve a problem, or do you want to have the satisfaction of giving all targets of your righteous ire the explosive epithet you think they so richly deserve? You can have one but not the other. Being opposed to affirmative action is not the same as saying a judge is biased because he has Mexican heritage. The racist murder of Amaud Arbery is not the same as voting for Trump. When everything not sufficiently racially sensitive falls under one umbrella, nothing means anything. And you lose the persuadables.

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May 3, 2022
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Ben Gruder's avatar

I'm not saying do nothing and hope the problem goes away. I'm saying find ways to specify the exact problem rather than using a term that just gets peoples backs up. It's a conversation stopper, not starter. The term totally 'others' the person it is directed to. It's seen as irredeemable. Solving problems by building alliances requires specificity, not generalized (and therefore meaningless) labeling. So yes, the murder of Amaud Arbery was absolutely racist. As is redlining, and some parts of anti-immigration rhetoric. But using that word for what is systemic bias that may not have specific current racist intent, dilutes the term and does NOT make people see the light. So, for example, is test-based admission to gifted student programs racist? How about a tax on groceries? Increased funding for the police? Outlawing menthol cigarettes (this is currently controversial within the CBC) ?

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Liberal Cynic's avatar

It's only charged because the racists are upset at being called racists.

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