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Thursday, December 22, 2005
Activist criticizes long-standing racist institutions
Continued from page 1A
abroad She is best remem
bered for her outspoken
approach and a 16-month
stint in prison while fitting
for equal rights of African
Americans.
Tbday, Davis is a professor
of the History of
Consciousness Department
at the University of
California in Santa Cruz.
She has also written five
books, including the recently
published “Blues Legacies
and Black Feminism:
Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey,
Bessie Smith and Billie
Holiday”
Davis, who is Sum the
South, remembers protest
ing outside the old Central
Prison building in Ralei^.
She said a structural contin
uance of racism exists in
today’s society She told the
audience to look at clear
examples of racist trends,
such as the educational and
the prison systems that she
feels should be overhauled
Davis said the educational
system serves as a pipeline
to the prison system, where
teachers are forced to put
more emphasis on discipli
nary matters instead of help
ing students develop a love
for learning. ,
“No wonder the childrai
tend to see school as boring,”
she said
Davis also described capi
tal punishment as barbaric
and racist.
“TTie institution itself is
also racist,” she said. ‘Your
state killed a white man last
week, and I argue that he
died under the arm of
Dirtiest air likeliest breathed by blacks
Continued from page 1A
what it was,” Williams, 58, a
reading specialist at a Gamer
elementary school
Tfests couldn’t find anything
wrong with her claasroom,
leaving Williams to worry
that something in the air out
side her home is the cause of
her health problems and
those of her neighbors.
She may be ri^t. Tlie air in
South Park —a neighborhood
founded by freedmen 100
years ago wh«:« about half of
the families currently live
below the poverty levd - is
among the most unhealthy in
the country, according to a
government research project
that assigns risk scores for
industrial air pollution in
every square kilometer of the
United States.
But while her circumstance
is not unique nationwide -
black Americans are 79 per
cent more likely than whites
to live in neighborhoods
where industrial air pollution
is suspected of causing the
most health problems - it’s
not as common among blacks
and other minorities in North
Carolina.
According to an Associated
Press analysis, blacks in
North Carolina are 12 per
cent more likely than whites
to live in the 10 percent of the
state with the worstlndustri-
al air pollution. are
just as likely as bl^lra to live
in those neighborhi»(33,'whife
Asian residents ahe 25 per
cent less likely
Only eight other states
fared better in the compari
son between blacks and
whites, and in seven of those
states, whites were more like
ly to live in those areas. By
comparison, black residents
are 72 percent more likely to
live in the worst areas in
South Carolina, 91 percent
more likely in Tfennessee and
more than three times as
likely in Virginia.
The AP’s analj^is used
industrial plant pollution sta
tistics gathered by the federal
Environmental Protection
Agency to calculate pollution
scores, then mapped those
scores with the help of gov
ernment scientists for every
neighborhood coimted by the
Census Bureau in 2000. That
analysis was th^ used to
compare risks between
nei^borhoods and to study
the racial and economic sta
tus of those who breathe
America’s most unhealthy
air.
In North Carolina, 38 cen
sus tracts — each the size of a
small neighborhood — were
among the worst five percent
of tracts nationwide. The
South Park tract had the
highest rate of radai dispari
ty in the state. Wiliams can
reel off the fiiends and nei^-
bors who have suffered respi
ratory problems, as well as
possible causes for the pollu
tion; a nearby soybean miU,
power station, traffic and sur
rounding industry
No one can say for sure if
pollutants are to blame for ill
ness in the neighborhood, but
Williams wonders if that’s the
reason. She said she was
somewhat glad to learn about
the research.
“At least I know Tm not a
hypochondriac,” she said.
Two doors down from
Williams, Gwendolyn Peacox
said her husband died at age
57 after experiencing breath
ing issues.
“We were kind of shocked
because he didn’t smoke or
drink or do anything,” she
said. And when Peacox’s
grandson moved in with her,
he had his first asthma '
attadc within a month.
When the attack comes on,
‘T can’t hardly breathe,” said
Demetrius McDade, now 7,
stopping to rest while playing
with his sister and cousin.
Of the 38 North Carolina
census tracts in the nation’s
worst 5 percent, 15 were
located in New Hanover
County on the state’s Atlantic
coast. Only four of diose 15
tracks have a blade popula
tion that exceeds the
statewide average, one only
by a tenth of a percentage
point.
TTiere are several emission-
producing industries in New
Hanover and nearby
Brunswick County, including
plants belonging to vitamin-
maker BASF Corp., diemical
producer DAK Americas Inc.
and building supplier
Louisiana-Pacific, according
to the state Division of Air
Quality. Prepress Enei^ also
operates the largest coal-fired
power plant in eastern North
Carolina in New Hanover
County, just outside
Wlmington.
Althou^ the 2002 Clean
Smokestacks Act is reducing
emissions at North Carolina’s
coal-fired plants, the Sutton
Steam Plant still ranks
among the region’s largest
emitters of sulfur dioxide,
which causes add rain, and
nitrogen oxide, an ingredient
of smog, according to state
data.
“If an area has a concentra
tion of industry, you’re going
to see people that (are)
exposed more to pollution in
the aggregate,” said division
spokesman Tbm Mather.
But Mather said that does
n’t necessarily mean people
in those areas are breathing
an ‘\mhealthy concentration
of air pollution.” Wilmington
resident Bill Walsh lives in
the Wilmington’s Kings
Grant neighborhood, a mid
dle-class subdivision of 20-
. gjid 30-year-old homes that’s
inside the census tract that
registered the hipest health
risk in North Carolina,
‘T don’t see a whole lot of
people who are sick,” Walsh
said.
But Dr. Debbie Leiner, a
Greensboro pediatridan who
worked largely with indigent
patients for 18 years, said she
has seen respiratory prob
lems in her new practice,
which includes many whites.
“There’s no question we’re
seeing an increase in asth-
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ma,” Leiner said. "It is dear
to doctors that environmental
issues are causing a lot of the
problems that we’re seeing
now, and I believe it’s going to
link to more problems in the
future.”
On the Net:
N.C. Division of Air Quality:
wwwjicairjorg
raciam.
She urges people to take a
stand against capital pun
ishment regulations and
become the force behind
changing laws,
“The death penalty has no
place in a sodety that poses
itself toward justice,” Davis
said.
Ra-Jah Kelly, a junipr
media communications stu
dent at NCSU, said he has
always been inspired by
Davis’ woihs.
‘Tt was a great opportunity
to see her,” he said.
Student Candace Powell
said she never linked
radsm, the school system
and prison together before.
Tt was interesting how she
(Davis) made connections
between racism and the
prison system,” she said “I
didn’t know about that.”
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