Environmental Engineering Reference
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(Foster 2000). These rifts are linked to and reinforce social dislocations
and inequalities that siphon wealth upward and restrict the economic
and political capacities of the working classes and communities of color.
Thus environmental harm is necessarily intertwined with the institutional
violence that constitutes race, gender, and class hierarchies.
Building on these ideas from within environmental sociology, I now
turn to theoretical developments from within the fi eld of ethnic studies.
For well over a century, a number of scholars and public intellectuals
have used words like
poison
and
toxic
in speech and writings about
racism. This is a powerful way to capture the harm racism does to both
its victims and perpetrators or benefi ciaries. Many authors have described
racism as a
poison
that reveals deep contradictions and tensions in
this nation, which have periodically erupted in violence, revolts, and
wars over the years. Critical race theorists Lani Guinier and Gerald
Torres make use of this terminology in their topic
The Miner's Canary
.
They write:
The canary's distress signaled that it was time to get out of the mine because the
air was becoming too
poisonous
to breathe. Those who are racially marginalized
are like the miner's canary: their distress is the fi rst sign of a danger that
threatens
us all
. It is easy enough to think that when we sacrifi ce this canary, the only harm
is to communities of color. Yet others ignore problems that converge around
racial minorities at their own peril, for these problems are symptoms warning
us that we are all at risk. (Guinier and Torres 2002, 11; emphasis added)
Guinier and Torres also introduce a concept they term “political
race,” which “encompasses the view that race . . . matters because racial-
ized communities provide the early warning signs of
poison
in the social
atmosphere” (Guinier and Torres 2002, 12; emphasis added). In other
words, political race forces us to think beyond specifi c instances of cul-
pability and discrimination to produce a broader vision of justice for
society as a whole. These concepts push us to rethink and challenge
racism because it “threatens us all,” not just the people of color who
may be its primary targets. The concept of political race begins with an
emphasis on race and moves to class, gender, and other inequalities, so
while the principal emphasis is on race, this model is also inclusive of
other categories of social difference.
The toxic metaphor for racism—and class and gender domination,
for that matter—parallels Beck's “risk society” model in many ways. For
example, racism, class and gender domination, and pollution are ubiqui-
tous and deeply embedded in our institutions, our culture, and our bodies.
Moreover, while the production of race, gender, and class hierarchies and
