Pandemics and Power: Ep2 Transcript
Episode 2: "COVID-19 and Environmental Justice"
[Intro music]
Afia:
Hey hey hey. Welcome to the second episode of Pandemics and Power.
We're a group of Harvard students from all backgrounds, working to shine a light on COVID-19 related social issues that deserve more attention. We hope that at the end of each episode you’ll find yourself armed with new questions to ask, people to consider, and institutions to question. I’m Afia, and I’m here to facilitate our conversations on COVID-19 and issues of social power and justice. In this episode, we’re exploring the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on black and brown communities through the lens of environmental justice.
COVID-19 has exposed systemic inequity in so many areas of our society that it’s hard to know where to even start. And what shocked no one who studies health disparities are the ways in which COVID disproportionately impacts minorities.
[Audio Clip from Kim Gaddy Interview]:
We deserve healthy neighborhoods. We deserve healthy schools for our children to attend. We deserve water that is free of lead and contaminants. You know, we deserve these things, and so the only way we’re going to get them, is if we fight, and the only way we’re going to win, is if we organize.
Afia:
That was Kim Gaddy, an Environmental Justice Organizer for Clean Water Action of New Jersey. We’re excited to talk to her later in the episode. But first, we’re going to set the stage about what environmental justice is.
[Transition music]
Afia:
Today, I’m chatting with Arambi, one of our producers who's been researching this topic, to join me to discuss this issue. Welcome Arambi.
Arambi:
Hey Afia, thanks for having me.
Afia:
Fun fact, Arambi was my first friend at Harvard. We met at Visitas, the freshmen visit weekend, and I wouldn’t say we’ve been inseparable since but somehow the universe kept bringing us back together, and here we are.
Arambi:
Absolutely, from baby-faced freshman to tired, but still baby-faced seniors, here we are four plus years later. We’re both off cycle seniors, and I just want to note, I’m part of this podcast because of you Afia, so listeners, if you hate the sound of my voice, blame Afia.
Afia:
Back to the topic at hand. Environmental justice. What can you tell us about the role of the environment on health and why it even matters when we’re discussing COVID-19.
Arambi:
So first off, I think that the impact of the environment on health isn’t often talked about, and this conversation is really necessary as we seek to understand the racial disparities of the pandemic. Just to clarify before we get into it - no racial or ethnic group is more inherently susceptible to contracting the virus, but we see much a higher incidence of infection and poorer outcomes in communities of color. The reasons for that aren’t biological, they’re social. The virus doesn’t discriminate but our society does.
Afia:
You and I actually both took a class our sophomore year that explored the social determinants of health. It was taught by Professor David Williams, and the main idea of the course was how disparities in health outcomes are closely tied to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. So can we get into how health outcomes are determined by more than healthcare? Because if healthcare and coverage were the only things impacting health then the DC would have the healthiest Black people in America. I think we’re at like 80% health insurance coverage among Black people.
Arambi:
Right! First, I loved that course, it taught me so much, and second, yes our ability to lead healthy lives is, like you said, greatly influenced by our socioeconomic status, which accounts for things like wealth, education, and occupation. Depending on your race and ethnicity, you’re more likely to have access to wealth, education, or higher paying jobs. In America, for example, for every dollar of wealth white Americans have, Black Americans have 6 cents and Hispanic Americans have 7 cents. Wealth is a significant determinant of health, meaning if you have decreased access to wealth, you are more likely to experience both earlier onset of disease and more severe disease.
Afia:
And I just wanted to throw one quick thing in, that wealth is very different from income. Wealth is a long-term measure of access to resources while income is a short-term measure. So you could have the same income and have very different measurements of wealth.
Arambi:
This is super important to note.
Afia:
So it makes sense that people who have decreased access to resources and wealth would have worse health outcomes. But what about Black Americans with access to resources? Do these disparities disappear with more money?
Arambi:
While a lot of racial disparities in health can be explained by disparities in socioeconomic status, research has shown that these disparities persist even when accounting for socioeconomic status. For example, Black Americans are more likely to die of heart disease than white Americans, even if we have the same level of income or education. There’s something about the lived experience of being Black or brown that causes people to experience both higher than average rates of disease and more severe disease outside of income, wealth, and education.
Afia:
And when you say lived experience, I think you’re referencing things like the internalized stressors associated with the Black or minority experience. In addition to this, are there other explanations for why race still matters for health even after economic factors are considered?
Arambi:
Yes there are many compelling explanations, including the stressors associated with having to constantly confront discrimination and white supremacy in daily life. One that is particularly relevant to this discussion that Dr. David Williams notes in one of his papers is, and I quote, “Institutional discrimination and socioeconomic disadvantages lead to the overrepresentation of minorities in toxic residential and occupational environments.” Basically, Black and brown people at all levels of income and education are overrepresented in toxic residential communities relative to white people, which makes us more likely to experience relatively poorer health outcomes. This is a reality that environmental justice advocates across the nation are fighting to change.
Afia:
So the very places we lay our heads down at night. Some of our only safe havens, particularly in the pandemic, may actually be what cause us to be more vulnerable to the disease.
[Transition music]
Afia:
So let’s talk more about the relationship between environmental justice and COVID. What do we know so far about how COVID-19 is compounded by environmental factors?
Arambi:
Well to start, the CDC has noted several underlying medical conditions that increase an individual's risk of experiencing severe COVID illness, and this is separate from the risk of contracting the disease in the first place. Some of these comorbidities include chronic conditions like cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, asthma, and hypertension.
Afia:
And Black Americans are more likely to have each of those conditions.
And on a personal note, I have pretty severe asthma. So when news broke that COVID was a respiratory virus I was the first one on the plane with an n95 mask on and gloves. Looking crazy I might add, but I was not about to be put down because my lungs already hate me.
Arambi:
Researchers have shown at this point that severe asthma is associated with poorer COVID outcomes, so you were absolutely right in taking those precautions, even if you looked a little crazy at the time.
Asthma is a really good condition to study in the context of environmental justice because it’s both highly overrepresented among Black Americans and it has an environmental component. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America reports that Black Americans are 1.5 times more likely to have asthma and 3 times more likely to die from an asthma attack.
Afia:
And it's not hard to draw the line between asthma prevalence and things like air pollution.
Arambi:
Definitely, several studies have actually linked the development of asthma to exposure to air pollution and fine particulate matter.
Afia:
Ok...for the peanut gang who don’t know what fine particulate matter is...is it little dirt? Smoke in the air? Help us out please.
Arambi:
Yeah particulate matter is basically a mixture of solid and liquid particles suspended in the air. Describing particulate matter as “fine” just means that they’re super small. Studies conducted over the past several decades show that Black people are exposed to more fine particulate matter than the general population, and this contributes to increased development of asthma and other cardiovascular diseases.
Afia:
Ok, and putting that together with the fact that people with asthma are at increased risk for severe COVID illness, you can start to see the links between environmental toxicity - such as pollution - and COVID morbidity and mortality.
Arambi:
Exactly, based on what we’ve discussed, we would reasonably expect to find that areas with more fine particulate matter pollution would have higher rates of COVID mortality. And this is exactly the case. Ongoing investigations by Harvard researchers confirm that COVID mortality rates are higher in counties that have higher fine particulate matter exposure.
Afia:
Ok, and so none of these things occur overnight. What causes certain communities to live in areas with more pollution than others.
Arambi:
In short, it's about residential factory proximity. Factories emit a ton of air pollutants, and Black people are more likely to reside near them.
There’s a database run by the Environmental Protection Agency that identifies industrial facilities that release chemicals into the air, water, and land. For decades, Black people have been 1.5 times more likely on average to live within one mile of a facility listed in this database. And as you might expect, residential proximity to industrial facilities that emit air pollutants is a key determinant of the degree of fine particulate matter one is exposed to.
Afia:
Yeah and when I hear you say things like Black people are 1.5 times more likely to live within one mile of these facilities, I can only think about things like housing discrimination and red lining as, like, the source of these things. What do you know about, like, the link between housing discrimination and these industrial facility prevalences?
Arambi:
Yeah I think that you hit the nail right on the head. When we have conversations about environmental justice, fundamentally these are conversations about housing discrimination, red lining, and institutions that concentrate these polluting facillities in communities of color. Individuals who live in these communities have known for a long time that industrial facilities are disproportionately concentrated in their communities, and that this is harming their health.
This summer, in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd, a coalition of environmental justice activists, groups, and allies released a statement calling for legislative action in light of both the pandemic and police violence. The common thread in the statement is that the racist policies and institutions of this country are killing black and brown bodies, whether it’s at the hand of a cop or the toxic chemicals in the air. I want to read a line from the statement pertaining to the role of systemic racism and disinvestment in the creation of environmental justice communities.
Here’s the quote “Housing discrimination and segregation have plagued environmental justice communities for generations, leading to systemic disinvestment in health infrastructure and resources, chronic poverty, and environmental racism - including drastic disproportionality in exposure to air and water pollution - and inequalities in job opportunities.”
Afia:
Before we dive into the organizing work of these communities, could you clarify, what environmental justice communities are?
Arambi:
So these are communities where the residents’ health has been sacrificed in the name of economic productivity. They lack clean air, water, and land. They face disproportionate rates of pollution. The people living in these communities are predominantly black and brown.
Afia:
There’s something powerful about describing these communities as “environmental justice communities.” It paints an image of residents organizing and speaking out against systems that rely on their silence.
So I know there are a ton of organizers working to bring change to this reality that minority communities are subject to severe environmental disparities that impact every aspect of their lives. What has organizing around environmental justice looked like in light of the pandemic?
Arambi:
I actually had the amazing opportunity to learn more about current activism around these issues from Kim Gaddy, an environmental organizer from Newark, New Jersey's South Ward. Each of Kim’s three children have asthma, as did her parents, and two of her brothers. Both her first cousin and brother in law, died of asthma as adults.
Afia:
I’m so excited to hear this, but before we dive into Kim’s story, can you tell me a bit about Newark’s COVID rates and their relationship with pollution? I can only imagine that they’re high given the close proximity to New York City.
Arambi:
Right, so Newark’s death rate from COVID-19 is 223 per 100,000 people compared to 177 state-wide. So as you move from the state of New Jersey down to the city of Newark the death rate increases. The state of New Jersey is 59% white, but Newark is only 8% white. The South Ward, where Kim lives, is just 3% white, and this is where most of the city’s industry and corresponding pollution are clustered.
[Transition music]
Arambi:
I’m here with Kim Gaddy, environmental justice activist with Clean Water Action of New Jersey. Kim, could you tell us a little bit more about how your involvement with environmental justice started?
Kim Gaddy:
My involvement was quite personal. Prior to becoming an environmental justice organizer twenty years ago, I actually worked in municipal government. My daughter was diagnosed with asthma at the age of one, so I was actually out on maternity leave, and during that time, I was, like, really deciding - should I go back into municipal government, I have another child that’s diagnosed with asthma... it just seemed like it was definitely connected to the environment, and I became an environmentalist because of the health of my daughter, so it was very personal, and it was very intentional.
Arambi:
What has been your experience of the intersection of race and environmental justice?
Kim Gaddy:
As I started in this field, I was the only Black person in the room. I mean that reality just struck me real hard because I’m fighting for the lives of my children and the disproportionate amount of pollution that people of color have suffered from, and when we look around, there wasn’t a lot of people of color, so there was a disconnect. We needed someone to kind of elevate the environmental issue. All of these different things kind of pushed the environmental concern to the bottom.
But I had to begin to educate folks that your environment is at the core, right. It’s where you recreate, it’s where you pray, it’s where you work, it’s where your kids go to school, and so that’s how I got involved, to kind of be a voice that will lift up all the other voices that wasn’t being heard.
Arambi:
I’m curious to talk more about the incidence of COVID in Newark because I know that the mortality rate is higher in Newark compared to the rest of New Jersey. We know already that Black and brown people have been experiencing a disproportionate impact of COVID, and there has been, sort of, a narrative trying to imply that this disproportionate impact is due to lifestyle choices, and I’m curious about how you respond to those kinds of implications.
Kim Gaddy:
There was a study that African Americans, people of color are five times more likely to come down with COVID and two or three times more likely to die of COVID, and that’s not a lifestyle. It’s because we live in communities that are disproportionately polluted upon because of the zip code we live in or our economic status. It’s going to have a different kind of impact on us.
Arambi:
I have one more question for you Kim. What would you want individuals who may never have thought very much about environmental justice before to take away from your experiences as an activist? What do you think people should know?
Kim Gaddy
These polluting entities have to be better neighbors to the communities that they are adjacent to, and understanding that the lives of these individuals, in these frontline communities, are valuable. That’s what I would want to leave to people.
Be mindful that what is helping this economy thrive is also something that is harming and killing people who live right next to it, and it should not be an either or. We should be able to have economic improvements in the city of Newark without the bad pollution. Let’s create a greener, safer, healthier community for us to live in.
[Transition music]
Afia:
Wow that was a great interview. Kim’s final statement, when she said that the lives of the people who live in these environmental justice communities are valuable, feels pretty inextricably tied to the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement has gained a lot of traction this year. We saw protests all across the country, from the smallest towns to the biggest cities, but a lot of times it’s perceived as mainly a response to police violence. But it’s really about asserting the value of Black lives in the face of systems that disregard them, whether it’s the police or environmental racism or food insecurity or anything else.
Arambi:
I was thinking the same thing Afia. Kim’s statement really encourages us to remember that the lives of Black and brown people matter, whether they are in environmental justice communities or whether they are facing violence at the hands of police. This is something that’s so basic but remains so critical. Black and brown people should not be sacrificed in the name of so-called economic productivity.
Afia:
Not that we need another reason why Black lives matter aside from them mattering to begin with, but we should remember that if something harms our environment and correspondingly the health of millions of people, it can’t be economically productive, right, like how you have an economically productive labor force that’s not alive.
Arambi:
Yep I completely agree. I think that’s exactly right.
Afia:
Well thank you for joining me today Arambi, this was so great!
Arambi:
Thank you so much for having me Afia. I can’t wait till the day we can see each other in person, and not just through a screen.
[Outro music]
Alyssa:
Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed our second episode of Pandemics and Power! My name is Alyssa Panton, and I am an author of this episode of Pandemics and Power. We hope that this episode inspires a deeper conversation about the significance of environmental advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you resonate with this conversation, we encourage you to stay engaged and learn more about this topic. We recommend using Clean Water Action of New Jersey as an educational resource. We also want to highlight the importance of being an active participant in local and federal politics through activism and exercising your right to vote! We would like to give a special thank you to this episode’s guest Kim Gaddy. This episode was written, recorded, and edited by Arambi Eyong, Nora Marzouqa, Alyssa Panton, K. Stawasz, and Afia Tyus. This episode was produced as part of the Harvard University History of Science course Significant Stories, taught by Dr. David Unger and Shireen Hamza.