The Riskscape and the Colorline: Engaging California Communities in Science-based Advocacy

Raquel Morello-Frosch
Center for Environmental Studies & Department of Community Health
School of Medicine
Brown University

-and-

Manuel Pastor
Latin American & Latino Studies
Co-Director, Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community
University of California at Santa Cruz

Monday, December 11, 2006  |  4 - 6 pm

242 Asmundson Hall
University of California, Davis

Manuel Pastor and Rachel Morello-Frosch produce data that activists and justice organizations can use as evidence to resist environmental risks. Pastor and Morello-Frosch presented data showing that the distribution of cancer risk from airborne toxins, primarily diesel particulates, is significantly lower for white communities at most income levels. Communities of predominately low income Asians, African Americans and Latinos have a 25 percent higher cancer risk than white populations at equivalent income levels. As annual income increases beyond $100,000, the gap narrows but is still five to ten percent higher for these groups than in white communities. Race was indicated in their studies, not as a genetic marker, but as an indicator of social and political power. Racial data provides activists with a basis for resistance because discrimination on the basis of race is illegal while discrimination based on class or poverty is not. Pastor and Morello’s analysis discovered that race had important effects on the placement and concentration of waste facilities and other aspects of land use related to toxic exposures.