Environmental Discrimination in America in 2022 is a Disgrace

By Roger Caldwell

In the wealthiest country on planet earth, there are places where people are sick and dying, because they live with raw sewage in their back and front yard. NBC reporter  Yamiche Alcindor has traveled to Lowndes County, Alabama and talked to residents that live in these conditions. Many would think that these kinds of conditions would not exist in America, but they are real.

“County officials responsible for part of the sewer system couldn’t be reached for comment. Sherry Bradley, the director of the Bureau of Environmental Services of the state Public Health Department, showed up at a Justice Department hearing to defend the agency. She is adamant that the Justice Department won’t find any wrongdoing. She argues that when it comes to installing sewer lines from a home to the county’s system, it’s on the homeowner,” writes reporter Yamiche Alcindor.

In Lowndes County where 40% of the community are poor, and they struggle everyday to eat, and it would appear absurd for people to find money to fix their sewage problems. The majority of people in this rural community are Black, and the failing waste systems has existed for decades, and sewage water pools have backed up into homes and playgrounds.

It is obvious that a public health crisis exists, but Sherry Bradley, the director of the Bureau of Environmental Services in the state, a Black woman is suggesting that outhouses could be a solution to some of the communities’ problems. This is a textbook in systemic racism, and it is taking the Black community back 100 years.

Robert D. Bullard, a native of Alabama, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University and a man some call the “father of environmental justice,” says this about the environmental crisis in Alabama: “Race has been the most significant determinant of who gets infrastructure and who gets left behind. It’s like racism has kept this county underdeveloped. And it’s kept them underdeveloped, which has spillover effects in terms of life expectancy.”

This sewage crisis in Alabama is a public health crisis, which is also a racist and discrimination crisis. This is destroying the quality of life in the community, and many of the residents are sick.

Catherine Coleman Flowers, an environmental activist and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient who grew up in Lowndes County, has been working on the waste problem in the county for years “I call it America’s dirty secret,” she said. “Because it exists in rural communities and poor communities, and most people, when they find out about it, they’re shocked. They don’t believe that it’s a reality in this country.”

When America spends $13.6 billion in Ukraine, and continues to spend more money, the question must be asked, “What happens to the people sick and dying in America?

These conditions are not just happening in rural parts of the state, but travel to poor sections of any state, and there is an environmental public health crisis. It is easy to look in a different direction, but people are sick and dying.

Racism is a public health crisis, and April is minority health month. When a Black woman offers outhouses as a way of improving a raw sewage problem, which has existed for years, there are fundamental problems in the leadership. Instead of spending millions to correct a problem, they tell the community it is their responsibility to fix.

It is so easy to not care in American, because that is done every day. When small environmental problems are not corrected, they continue to grow until they are a crisis, and people begin to die.  Poor people deserve to live a quality life; we just need our leaders to tell the truth and care.