On Sept. 22, 2000, a Houston Chronicle headline read “Racism remains a problem for US.”

The article lists several reasons why racism persists, including:

1. persistent attitudes of individual Americans that are steeped in a legacy of segregation, ignorance, stereotyping, and discrimination toward minorities, and
2. poor enforcement of anti-discrimination laws because of a lack of resources.

President Clinton’s Race Relation Initiative issued a statement in September of 1999 that said we need to educate people about our history and how people of color have been assigned an inferior status through time. “It is essential to recall the facts of racial domination,” reads the statement.

This history can be seen today in the disproportionate number of toxic waste sites and industries located in people-of-color neighborhoods, especially throughout the South. African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans are heavily burdened with living conditions that threaten health. Environmental racism is alive and well in our own backyard - take a drive through Southeast Houston.

This fall, on the news in Houston, a group of African Americans cheered when a wrecking crew completed its final destruction of a toxic waste incinerator in their neighborhood. This project was long in coming. This show of happiness, in a non-verbal way, stated loudly that justice was won for the little people. We can, and should, expect this kind of justice for our homes.

There is a stereotype that people of color don’t care about the environment and that they won’t get involved in environmental organizations. Predominantly white environmental groups commiserate about how difficult it is to get people of color out to their events and/or to become members. Are these groups as welcoming as they think they are? What issues do they address? In what print media do they advertise? In what languages? Where are meetings held? Are they accessible by public transportation? Are people of color made to feel included when they do choose to participate? There are many issues that need to be talked about more within Houston’s environmental community.

In educating people today, we have to understand how history affects all areas of our collective lives. That history made it possible for people of color to be seen as, and treated as, inferior and “less than” by every institution in our society.

1. Unaware Racism
2. Internalized Racism
3. Cultural Racism
4. Stereotypes
5. Institutional Racism

The Center can help the environmental community understand long-standing patterns of racism. And, the environmental community can help the Center learn ways to incorporate environmental issues into our Dialogue:Racism program.

It is up to agencies like the CEC to educate themselves first, and then the general public, about the still lingering effects of this country’s history. This could result in a mighty cry of, ”not in the neighborhoods of people with little or no voice.”

The Center for the Healing of Racism, located in Houston, Texas, is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 that has served over half the states in the country. For more information, visit their website at http://www.centerhealingracism.org/. The author of this article, Cherry Steinwender, is a founding member and serves as co-director of the Center.