Environmental inequality is a situation where there is a higher incidence of pollution and other hazardous wastes being dumped where the poor and minorities live. In comparison, there are few or no such hazards in wealthier places. This has been going on for a long time already. However, these findings were revealed only recently, in the 1980s.
Many towns in the US are like the town in the movie. They suffer a higher incidence of environmental hazards. Many of these towns are populated by minorities, people who are not Americans lie. These people include Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and European immigrants. They suffer because government or powerful organizations move the hazardous or polluting activities to these towns. They do this because the government or the powerful companies want to protect the general population—mainly white Americans. In the process however, they make people of other races suffer.
The big companies say that they are not discriminating people. They just put the factories in those places because land there is cheap and labor available. They need to lower cost and maximize profit. They cannot easily move the facilities because it is very expensive to do so.
Some sociologists explain that this problem is part of development. As companies grow and have more wealth, they also create a lot of waste. Unfortunately, the pollution is dumped in places where there live many poor people, unskilled laborers and blue collar workers.
The injustice of environmental inequality does not happen only with the location of the factories. It also happens in the justice system. People in the affected places do not have easy access to government. They have difficulty in filing complaints and getting action on their problems.
Some scholars explain that all these happen because people have a biased view of certain places. Some locations are considered already polluted because the poor and minorities live there. So people there are ignored and left to themselves. This is still a form of racial discrimination.
As a society, how we can we understand this from a sociological perspective? What can people do about it? Unfortunately, people seem to see things only from a very narrow perspective. Anything outside their family, clan or race would not concern them. They would not care. They may not even think that other people feel and think the way they do. They simply ignore them. That is perhaps a reason why all these factories have been placed where poor people and minorities live. The poor are not noticed because even government seems to ignore them. Nobody seems to want to bother with them.
Ever since the research studies came, some actions or investigations are being done. This seems to be more of a response to the mass actions and protests being taken by the affected people. Even individuals can take action as Erin Brockovich had done. Such actions may not result in concrete or quick action from the government or big corporations. At least, they would call the attention of many other people including media and then action might be taken.
What other actions can society take? Happily, measures are being taken all over the world. The problem is not happening only in the US. It is happening everywhere else. Laws are being passed to penalize offenders. So, even if some people are discriminated or suffer from environmental inequality, they may find justice in the law.
Works Cited
Brehm, Hollie Nyseth and David Pellow. "Environmental Inequalities." Sep 2013. The Society Pages. The Society Pages. Web. 20 Oct 2014. <http://thesocietypages.org/papers/environmental-inequalities/>.
