The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How the Government Response to Disaster Endangers African American Communities

Introduction: Anatomy of Vulnerability

| 1 Introduction Anatomy of Vulnerability Much attention has been devoted to natural and man-made disasters since the terrorist attack on the United States in September 2001, the anthrax attack in Washington, D.C., that same year, and the government response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, in 2005. Before these incidents grabbed headlines and shone the national spotlight on government ineptness and incompetence and on severe gaps in disaster preparedness, African Americans for decades had complained about differential treatment, about being left behind, and about outright racial discrimination. Most of these complaints routinely fell on deaf ears long before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Katrina raised “a new class of problems that demand rigorous analysis, prudent planning, and courageous political leadership.”1 This book examines government responses to a range of environmental and health threats to African Americans, including weather-related disasters like hurricanes and droughts, which conventionally have been considered “natural,” and disasters that are normally considered human induced, such as industrial accidents, railcar explosions, chemical contamination, and bioterrorist attacks. Our analysis uses an environmental justice and racial equity frame to understand mitigation and adaptation to human-induced threats and to show how best society should both think about, prepare for, and respond to weather-related disasters and prevent public health threats, environmental catastrophes, toxic contamination, industrial accidents, and related human-induced disasters. We examine the unequal protection and unequal treatment afforded African Americans over eight decades and factors that have made them vulnerable , including their physical location, socioeconomic status, race, and the lingering institutional constraints created and perpetuated by racialized place. We also explore how environmental hazards develop into public health 2 | The Wrong Complexion for Protection threats and how design factors either mitigate or amplify their effects. The case studies detail special challenges and barriers faced by African Americans in everyday society and how these obstacles are compounded by government ’s ineptitude, inaction, and slow response to environmental health threats. Environmental and public health threats from natural and human-made disasters are not randomly distributed. Healthy places and healthy people are highly correlated. It should be no surprise that the poorest of the poor within the United States and around the world have the worst health and live in the most degraded and at-risk environments. While access to insurance and to health care is important, social conditions are also major determinants of health. Social forces acting at a collective level help shape an individual’s risk, environmental exposure, and access to resources that promote health.2 One of the most important indicators of one’s health is one’s street address or neighborhood. Where you live affects your health and your chances of leading a flourishing life. It also affects your risk from natural and unnatural disasters. Today, numerous researchers are looking at individual health outcomes through an ecological lens, recognizing that “place matters.” They are using geographic information system (GIS) analysis to map relationships between racial and income composition and vulnerability. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognizes this connection in its “Healthy People in Healthy Places” initiative. The initiative operates from the idea that the places where people live, work, learn, and play can protect and promote their health and safety, especially those people at increased risk of health disparities. Among the social determinants of health are factors in the social environment that contribute to or detract from the health of individuals and communities. These factors include the socioeconomic status of community residents, availability of transportation, quality of housing, access to services, existence of discrimination based on social grouping (e.g., race, gender, or class), and social or environmental stressors. Inequitable distribution of these conditions across various populations is a significant contributor to persistent and pervasive health disparities in the United States. The CDC’s 2008 Promoting Health Equity: A Resource to Help Communities Address Social Determinants of Health report is a workbook for community -based organizations that seek to affect the social determinants of health through community-based participatory approaches and nontraditional partnerships.3 The social determinants of health are the circumstances in which individuals are born, grow up, live, work, play, learn, and age and the Introduction | 3 systems that are created to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of societal forces such as economics, social policies, and politics, as well as psychosocial factors such as...