Numbers Don’t Lie- The Census and Environmental Justice
Thursday, March 18th, 2010Crossposted from www.environmentaladvocate.wordpress.com
Written by Kirin Kennedy
Hey all,
So its been a while right since I’ve posted!!! Well lets remix my usual post!!! Today I got in the mail my U.S. Census Form!! Yes, I said it the United States Census Form!!! Now for me as a geographer, this is like crazy cool stuff, you can use Census data to make really cool maps that determine population, based off of racial identity, and addresses just to name a few!!! Why is this important, well population numbers decide how many congressional representatives we get!! Secondly, this form helps us learn about what services are needed, like bilingual services, increased schools and hospitals and so on!! When you think about it, if we get more moneys for schools, hospitals and other services we have also increased jobs in our local area indirectly!!! Now there is one other thing to really think about!! In the Environmental Justice debate there is always a question of racial intentionality, meaning did a company or entity, choose to dump in a site, because of racist ideals??? Many people/communities have loss legitimate cases because although the population is largely African-American and or severely underserved the Census numbers did not show a significant presence of that particular community. Many that they could not prove that the company meant to dumb or build harmful sources or substances in a community just because it was a community of color. See If we don’t fill out the form then we don’t COUNT or EXIST!!! In fact, we can’t really expect to complain about poor air and water quality, lack of transportation infrastructure, and other very important services that will lead to a greener economy if we do not fill out the form!!! So Lets help Define Our Decade and create a cleaner greener society by filling out the census form. I got mine in the mail today and made A video about it, so please watch and enjoy!!!!