A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind

by Harriet A. Washington

Because race is actually a component of the most pertinent definitions of socioeconomics, putting socioeconomics in rhetorical contrast to race is illogical. Instead, we must understand that race is an important component of SES. Moreover, scientific reports have consistently demonstrated that race poses a stronger risk factor for the placement of environmental poisons than poverty. Poverty is a driver of environmental exposures, but race is a greater driver. Reflecting this truth, the definition of SES in public health spheres explicitly includes race as a factor. As Professor David R. Williams of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health notes: “All indicators of SES are strongly patterned by race.”84 Accordingly, although initial media accounts didn’t mention race but referred to Flint’s poverty as the key risk factor, with time, accounts acknowledged that race was the salient vulnerability.