Robert Bullard

From Daily Planet Staff Reports

Throughout much of its history, the United States as an entity has given minorities short shrift when it comes to environmental concerns and healthy living in general, Dr. Robert Bullard said Jan. 20 in UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium.

Bullard shared that assessment during his address on “Growing Smarter: Achieving Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice for All.”

Bullard’s address was the keynote of Martin Luther King Jr. Week at UNCA. About 400 people attended.

Bullard is the Edmund Asa Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and director of the Environmental Justic Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. He has written 15 books on issues ranging from environmental racism to sustainable development.

He was featured in CNN’s “People You Should Know.” In 2008, Bullard was named one of the 13 “Environmental Leaders of the Century” by Newsweek.

Bullard was introduced by UNCA junior Tiffany Yates, who said she had read some of his works and that they had inspired her.

Bullard began his 40-minute talk by noting that “I’m an enviornmental sociologist.” He said he was born in Alabama, but lived for many years in California before deciding to return to the South. However, he quipped, “Atlanta is becoming L.A.!”

He rapidly reviewed the 15 books he had written, while stating that, actually, “it’s just one book.”

In essence, Bullard said, “My job is connecting the dots,” noting that “it’s all about” health and the environment.

He defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.”

He defined the environment as where one lives, works, plays and learns and as the physical and natural world.

He discussed what he termed “the environmental justice principal,” which states that “all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of the environment, health, employment, education, housing, transportation and civil rights laws.

Bullard briefly noted that he had marched with King in 1968, when the civil rights leader tried to help the garbage collection workers in Memphis, Tenn. King was assassinated in Memphis.

“Place matters,” Bullard said, pointing out that in many cases the Supreme Court ruling of Plessy vs. Fegurson (1896), which led the way to “separate but unequal,” which too often has held sway in the treatment of African-American communities.

With pride, Bullard noted that his current home city of Atlanta, which he described as a “majority African-American” community, ranks 19th among the top 20 “greenest” cities in the U.S.

He joked that Atlanta would be “dark green” in the poll, prompting much laughter from the crowd.

More seriously, he noted that among the “unhealthiest states,” Mississipi has earned the dubious distinction as the worst. Bullard added that seven of the 10 unhealthiest states are located in the South, where there is a large black population.

He addressed what he termed the “endangered health safety net,” noting that many African-American areas are affected because they also tend to be poor and, therefore, lacking in influence.

He said cleaner air tends to expand lifespans. In one study, it showed an average of five months’ extension. “At (age) 63, I want my five months!” he declared, triggering laughter from the audience.

He spoke of “crossing the food desert,” wherein many urban areas tend to have few large grocery stores. While many of the residents have to rely on public transportation because of poverty, Bullard noted, “It’s hard to shop for food using a bus.” In a few cases, he has seen poor urban residents using taxis to shop for groceries, a practice that they ultimately found to be cost prohibitive.

The lack of grocery stores in urban areas is the result of “supermarket red-lining,” wherein they choose to abandon lower-income neighborhoods.

As a result, the urban residents often don’t have access to healthy foods. What’s more, Bullard said, “It costs money to eat healthy ... It’s easier to get a greasy hamburger in Chicago then an apple or grape,” in some areas.

He said the situation pits green access against outdoor apartheid.

Next, he addressed “toxic public housing threats.” Bullard pointed out, “What’s coming out of that smokestack is not health-enhancing.”

“A lot of the dirtiest power plants are in the South” and in or near African-American areas, he said.

While mountaintop removal mining often does not afflict black people, he asserted that it does affect the poor.

Bullard noted that his talk was “dealing with the whole idea of the right to pollute.”

He said coal ash is often transported from production areas and dumped in Dixie in areas that often are black-dominated. “The propaganda machines is pumping out lies.”

“Where will all the nuclear waste go?” he asked.

In addressing uranium mining on Indian land, Bullard said, “Its healthy to clean up the environment and moving to renewable energy.”

At that point, he addressed transportation and energy use, noting that “I drove a 1994 Toyota Corolla and had 200,000 miles on it.” When that vehicle broke down recently, Bullard said he reluctantly bought a Toyota Prius. He now saves significant money from the fuel savings.

However, the poor often are “stranded by the side of the road. The vulnerable people are left behind.

“We need to ensure that we clean up the air ... The right to breathe is a basic human right.

“We have to strive for a healthier and more sustainable framework.

“We have to address equity across the board. Allow a democratic process to achieve this in one generation ... Students have so much energy and, of course, they know everything.”

He said “the climate change issue is the biggest” and that Americans needs to address the resulting problems.

In a 35-minute question-and-answer period that followed his speech, a young African-American woman asked, “How exactly do we rise above skeptics of global warming and that we need to do something about it?”

“There’s still a debate, but the evidence is overwhelming” in support of climate change, Bullard asserted. “Even if it were not the case, having a greener, cleaner” environment, with people using alternative fuels and cleaner energy, would be a good thing.

Another young woman said, “I’m someone who likes to leave with action steps,” as she requested specific actions those attending his talk could take when they leave.

“It’s important that we connect,” Bullard replied. “If you’re a student, connect with a student organization. Use the university as an incubator to work” in conjunction with other groups to make the campus greener.

“There’s no substituting for organizing,” he said. “Having a plan, strategy, timeframe — and you need a victory” — are requisites for a group to be effective.

Regarding a young woman’s question about his general thoughts on the role of individuals and organizations in environmental racism and capitalism, Bullard said, “The fact is, the people who have the most create the most destruction” to the environment.
“The most affluent part of our society will have to shift, in terms of their footprint.”

He added, “They look at nature as something to be exploted. Instead, the question is: How do we live in harmony with nature? There needs to be some change in the way” affluent people use resources.

“People who are poor are less wasteful. There’s a correlation between per capita income and trash.

“We’re moving toward a social welfare state ... We’ve become a throw-away society — and one that is non-sustainable,” Bullard said.