Environmental Racism and Unequal Access to Food by Olivia Whatley

Environmental Racism and Unequal Access to Food 

Olivia Whatley- Environmental Justice Consultant

Here at BCAGlobal, environmental justice is a part of our objective with the Mindful Eating for the Beloved Community Program. Mindful Eating for the Beloved Community works closely with the environmental justice movement to empower communities through food and mindfulness. Equal access to food is at the heart of BCAGlobal. The Environmental Justice Movement picks up the pieces that the mainstream environmental movement leaves behind. The Environmental Justice movement started at the end of the 1970s when the citizens of Warren County, North Carolina, protested against the designation of a landfill in their county that accepted toxic chemicals. Warren County was 62% black and had the highest percentage of black residents in the state. The people of Warren County did not win the fight against the chemical companies, but they did start a movement that inspired other communities of color to rise against environmental racism. The Environmental Justice movement is an anti-racist movement. It has been heavily documented that people of color disproportionately experience industrial pollution, hazardous waste, little access to environmental goods such as fresh produce or greenspaces, and other poor environmental conditions. 

The same racist zoning decisions that lead to more environmental ills being placed in communities of color have also created unequal access to food. Racially discriminatory policies have led to less industry in low-income communities that are majoritively communities of color. These areas that face high food insecurity either have little access to fresh produce or only have access to unhealthy options. This causes disproportionate health issues that are compounded by proximity to environmental ills or lack of access to trees and other green spaces. Environmental Justice tackles the intersection of these issues by supporting the people of color, from the ground up, that feel the intersection of environmental racism, poor climate change policy, racist zoning decisions, unequal access to food, and much more. 

Find our UN Sustainable Development Goals here: https://bcaglobal.org/ 

Literature Cited: 

NRDC. The Environmental Justice Movement. (2016, March 17). https://www.nrdc.org/stories/environmental-justice-movement

NRDC. Food Apartheid: Racialized Access to Healthy Affordable Food. (2021, April 2). https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nina-sevilla/food-apartheid-racialized-access-healthy-affordable-food

Kaufman, J. D., & Hajat, A. (2021). Confronting Environmental Racism. Environmental health perspectives, 129(5), 51001. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9511

Aaronson, D., Faber, J., Hartley, D., Mazumder, B., & Sharkey, P. (2021). The long-run effects of the 1930s HOLC “redlining” maps on place-based measures of economic opportunity and socioeconomic success. Regional Science & Urban Economics, 86, N.PAG. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103622 

Grove, M., Ogden, L., Pickett, S., Boone, C., Buckley, G., Locke, D. H., Lord, C., & Hall, B. (2018). The Legacy Effect: Understanding How Segregation and Environmental Injustice Unfold over Time in Baltimore. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(2), 524–537. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1365585