“There is always some study, and they’ll study it to death, then 30 years later you’ll find out it’s bad for you… We know it’s bad for us right now!” exclaimed Johnnie Cochran (pg. 12). The prolific lawyer who represented OJ Simpson was helping Anniston, Alabama residents take on a class-action lawsuit against known environmental polluters like the Monsanto Company, the Olin Company, and the U.S. Army. The lawyer and civil activist were hired by the Community Against Pollution in Anniston, Alabama to prosecute the corporations that had been knowingly polluting the town and causing brain damage and physical illness to residents.
Harriet A. Washington’s A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind speaks truth to power about the frustration Cochran expresses in his court case. The plaintiffs won the trial and received $50 million to open a health clinic in Anniston to address the health issues caused by industrial pollution. But the money from the settlement eventually ran out from demand for much-needed healthcare resources, and the clinic was forced to shut down. This is just one of many stories that show the lived realities of communities forced to live in poisoned environments due to racist housing policies. Through narratives that intertwine hard science about toxins and chemicals with the stories of real human lives that and challenge stereotypes of intelligence and IQ, the book reads as a powerful call to action. Harriet Washington is a necessary and poignant voice speaking for communities harmed by environmental racism.
Why she asks, do we only care about toxic chemicals once they have affected people in the United States? Washington points out there is a long history of negligence with the production of industrial chemicals in communities of color. The health clinic in Anniston was a notable win for communities affected by environmental racism, but it is the exception.
Harriet A. Washington has been studying public health and medical ethics her entire career. She’s published books on mental illness, and healthcare monopolies, and the historical medical experimentation on Black Americans among other topics. Her books all cover large-scale issues from the lens of scientific research and social consciousness. In A Terrible Thing to Waste, she delves into what has happened in America over decades of industrialization leading to the current state of environmental and social disrepair.
Though many people are cautious about the foods and medicines that we knowingly put in our bodies, we are also constantly interacting with materials we do not see in the atmosphere. The government has put in safeguards to protect the American public from the many invisible toxic chemicals that pervade the areas surrounding industrial activity, but for some populations, these laws and regulations have not been enough. Although The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TCSA) aims to restrict the use of chemical substances, Washington shows the ways that implementation of such safeguards have failed in vulnerable communities. She demonstrates how the toxic chemicals are causing permanent brain damage in residents of communities of color who disproportionately live in close proximity to the source of the chemicals. A Terrible Thing to Waste sheds light on the effects toxic pollution can have on the brain, which differs from the bulk of public health research on physical manifestations of toxic pollution like cancers of the heart and lungs. Washington’s book builds on the foundation of decades-long concern for the much more invisible but all the more important effects that chemicals have on brain function and intelligence.
Washington challenges the common belief that IQs are innate, and instead argues that the air people breathe has a direct correlation with how their brains function. Communities of color are more likely to live in toxic environments, which helps explain the 15-point gap between the average IQs of U.S. African Americans and whites (pg. 6). Average IQs are not lower in African American communities because African Americans are not as inherently smart as their white counterparts, but because they are living in proximity to more than 60,000 industrial chemicals that have never been tested for their effects on humans (pg. 13). The U.S. housing system has long placed African Americans together in polluted toxic environments, exposing them to the chemicals affecting the brain functioning. Washington’s book makes a strong argument for a shift in the collective consciousness about the harm done by racist housing policies. In short, Washington’s view is that IQ is not a measure of intelligence, but of environmental conditions.
One thing is increasingly clear about exposure to toxic chemicals–– no amount of exposure is insignificant. One small lead chip can be enough to significantly affect the health and wellbeing of a person, and the development of prenatal cognitive function can be severely impaired by exposure to toxins. For families raising children in these environments, there is often no option to move elsewhere. Surprisingly, the most polluted places in a child’s life could be their school. Over half a million poor and minority-group students attend schools in close proximity to contaminated sites. The Moton School in New Orleans, Louisiana, is one of many schools built on top of a landfill (pg. 15).
On the one hand, Washington’s book reads as an exposure of the truth and a warning of the harm that toxic chemicals will continue to impose on human lives–– especially those of racial minority groups— if unchecked. On the other hand, the book serves as a resource for affected families, listing all known toxins to be aware of and outlining steps to take to keep schools, homes, and water and food supplies as free of heavy metals as possible. Since chemicals in the air can’t easily be seen, it can be hard to understand the harm that can be done by the smallest amount of chemical poisoning. This book serves to remind us all that the industries that are fueling our world have consequences, especially for our most vulnerable populations.
Washington leaves the reader with a sense of hope for the fight against environmental racism. As the title reminds us, the mind is a wonderful thing to save. We’ve closed IQ gaps in the past with as little effort as adding iodine to municipal water supplies. Since this issue especially affects communities of color, the root of the issue lies in racist housing laws that have long barred minority groups from the freedom to choose where to live and poorly enforced environmental laws that allowed industrial activity in close proximity to those very same communities.