American International Journal of Humanities and Social Science (AIJHSS)

This article explains the negative impact of environmental racism, which is occurring throughout the United States, by certain corporations, in terms of polluting minority communities. Indeed, these large, polluting industries profit from establishing power plants and waste treatment facilities in predominantly depressed neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the American people are extremely uninformed about the health risks and dire consequences and disastrous changes taking place within such minority communities. That said, this article is not a comprehensive examination of the Environmental Racism issue; however, it attempts to offer a short synthesis of the major controversial, environmental concerns. In no uncertain terms, the American people cannot ignore the damaging and appalling consequences for African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans – such as their ill-health and unnecessary deaths – living in polluted areas. This is to say that poor minorities are the ones who suffer, in such areas (polluted by modern-energy companies). Indeed, the Environmental Racism issue has metastasized, as polluting industries have held back measures needed to effectively clean up the nasty busy of their pollution. Unfortunately, some industries evade the topic and the serious alacrity of the Environmental Racism issue entirely, as polluted, minority lands drift toward environmental disaster. In so many words, shouldn’t such industries be responsible for their pollution, as it involves the various affected minority communities throughout the United States? Such a profound question adds fuel to the vexing Environmental Racism arguments from environmentalists and others. Nevertheless, polluting industries are unruffled because the Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) does not seriously fine or punish such unscrupulous businesses. So is the U.S. government’s loosening of regulatory standards a way of appeasing certain polluting industries? To be sure, shouldn’t the EPA rigorously enforce regulations that protect minority communities from industrial pollution? It is also perhaps ironic that the Environmental Racism issue is mostly ignored by members of Congress and other politicians who receive campaign contributions from certain polluting businesses, rendering them essentially ineffective, particularly when it comes to representing the interests of minority people and their respective neighborhoods.