Environmental Racism

San Francisco Bayview Newspaper - 11/8/00

Prop P and Prop 36 win by a landslide San Francisco says ‘Clean HP Shipyard all the way up!’

California says ‘Treatment, not jail, for drug offenders!’

Editorial by Willie Ratcliff

What an election! Some historic victories. Some painful defeats. Plenty of cliffhangers.

In the victory column are Prop P, Hunters Point Shipyard cleanup, and Prop 36, treatment instead of incarceration for drug use and possession. Targeting two taboo issues straight on - ending environmental racism and the war on drugs - issues that are rarely discussed in the major media, except in ways that make Black folks look helpless and evil, political pundits would once have called these propositions sure losers. These are issues that are rarely discussed in “polite (white) society” - and even more rarely in the major media.

Yet these propositions, issues of life and death in the Black community, when put before all voters, won by a landslide. Prop P, on the San Francisco ballot, won nearly 87 percent of all votes; over 221,000 San Franciscans voted yes to environmental justice in a Black neighborhood. Prop 36, on every ballot in California, won nearly 61 percent of all votes; over five and a half million Californians voted yes to largely end the war on drugs.

Why did so many people vote our way? I hope the Bay View helped our readers of all races and persuasions to see the issues from a Black perspective and helped convince the Black community that despite the fear that can cloud the sunniest election day, these issues were worth voting for.

For me, the most painful election news was our beloved Marie Harrison’s third place finish in the race for District 10 Supervisor. First or second place would have put her in the runoff election Dec. 12. Why, when she’d won respect and loyal, enthusiastic support in every corner of the district, when she was the main proponent for Prop P and Prop 36, didn’t she win just as they did?

Election day was warm and sunny - but threatening storm clouds hung over the race for District 10 Supervisor. From the moment Marie entered the race, we heard from all sides that Mayor Brown and the powerful corporations he works for wanted nothing more than to defeat her. After searching for months to find an appropriate opponent, he chose Linda Richardson and endowed her with a $200,000 war chest.

Even pitting Linda’s $200,000 against Marie’s $4,000, Marie could have won. After all, it was the Bay View, including Marie’s columns, that was credited with winning 97 percent of the Black vote for Willie Brown and making him mayor just five years ago.

But it wasn’t just the money that put Linda in first place. The same kind of “election irregularities” that are coming to light in Florida appear to have clouded the District 10 race with fear and intimidation. I urge you, if you know of any wrongdoing, to call the Bay View at (415) 671-0449. Let’s tell the world that the Black vote is not for sale.

Though District 10 drew the most money from the machine controlled by the mayor and his corporate backers of all the 11 races for Supervisor, the machine pumped a total of over $2 million into yesterday’s election. The battle is between the machine and the neighborhoods. And the neighborhoods, fighting for survival against the forces of oppression, eviction and gentrification, will prevail.

By taking on the neighborhoods, the mayor and his corporate backers have put themselves on trial. To the mayor, the neighborhoods say: Either change your focus or face a recall - plus a sentence of legislative impotence once you’ve lost control of the majority of the Board of Supervisors.

And here’s our warning to the corporations: Like the young people who took their fight to defeat Prop 21 last winter straight to the offices and lobbies of that proposition’s corporate soft money backers, if you try to buy another election, we’re coming straight at you and calling for a boycott of your businesses.

Never before has the Black vote been so pivotal, either locally or nationally. We can build on that power. We can overcome the legacy of slavery that gave us the anti-democratic electoral college and stole the vote from the one out of eight Black men with a felony on his record. Our fight for freedom has just begun.

What an election! Victory for Prop P, reports of election fraud!

by Marie Harrison
Director, ABCDpac

Letting no grass grow under our feet, we now go on to our next step: Housing Is a Human Right, or H.I.H.R. (pronounced “higher”), continuing to work with others across the city to gain safe and truly affordable housing for those of us who have worked for the best part of our lives and still are being treated as if we were the enemy.

If we are not being evicted, then we are priced out of housing. We can put a stop to this by asking all of the new members of the Board of Supervisors to sign on to our 10 points - the ones I raised during my campaign.

They call for a housing emergency to be declared until we can find ways to save and increase our vastly inadequate affordable housing stock. That includes putting a stop to takeovers and conversions of buildings, where people and small businesses are being pushed out.

The second point is a home ownership program to help residents of public and subsidized housing buy their homes.

Point 3 is grandparent assistance. It’s past time to honor and help grandparents who are doing the hard and thankless job of raising their grandchildren - instead of evicting them.

The fourth point calls for an investigation of the San Francisco Housing Authority. Contracts for construction, consultants and vendors need to be scrutinized, and contracts for all Hope VI developments need to be investigated.

Point 5 would create a Hope VI Monitoring Committee to identify and solve problems in Hope VI housing developments.

Adequate funding of all tenants’ associations is the sixth point.

Point 7 calls for re-establishing the Resident Merchants Association. The association had made a good start at economic development for public housing residents but was discontinued about two years ago.

A loan program to assist public housing residents who are starting their own businesses is the eighth point. Community Development Block Grants can be used and the Community Reinvestment Act leveraged.

Point 9 calls for drug treatment centers to be established in all developments so as to allow residents to remain in their homes while in recovery.

Finally, the 10th point would assure true representation for residents on the Housing Authority’s Resident Advisory Board as mandated by federal law.

Proposition P approved by a landslide!

We are moving closer to our goal with the huge Yes vote for Prop P, the measure on the San Francisco ballot calling for the Navy to clean the entire Hunters Point Shipyard to residential standards. Ballots counted so far show 221,013 San Franciscans - 86.4 percent of the voters - agree with us on Prop P.

Now it should be clear to City Hall and the Navy that all of the landfill on Parcel E must be removed before any building is done on any part of the Shipyard. That landfill is a toxic bomb waiting to explode, and we will not let this City or the Navy put any other people’s lives in jeopardy as they did ours.

Only when community ownership and control over whatever happens at the Shipyard is a reality can we afford to move on to other things.

Lessons from the election.

Even though I am not in the runoff for Supervisor, that does not take away from what we have accomplished by my run. Things like letting it be known that we do not have to give up any part of our souls in order to run for office.

Almost all of the calls I received yesterday during the election and today told tales of election improprieties. People are asking, “Do you think the powers that be were that afraid of really having to make a change, so they had to try to buy the election?”

One caller told of people coming into the polls and saying things like, “I got a gift certificate and 10 dollars.” Was one of the candidates trying to buy votes?

Another told me, “The president of the United States called me and asked me to vote for one of the candidates running right here in District 10.” But what really puzzled her was how did they get her cell phone number. You know it’s not listed.

Another caller said that one of the candidates had paged her twice and left two messages that she should vote for this person. Again the question came up: How did they get the pager number?

I was asked to look into people coming into the homes of seniors in District 10 and voting for them - telling them who to vote for - then taking their ballots and dropping them off at the post office for them.

How about this? At least three voting stations in District 10 did not have their voting machines for a major part of election day. Some voters were told to put their ballots into a plastic bag. Others were told to use the blue box and not to seal it.

I was told, “Things were bad - but they were not this bad - during the last election.” People are saying to me, “Find out what is going on, then tell us.”

Yet another caller said that by her house - in fact, right next door - is her polling place. Just as she started to leave her house to go next door to vote, a cable car came down the street real loud and stopped right in front of the polling place. The adults on the cable car sent some children riding with them to stop people going in to vote and give them a slate card advertising their candidate. Then they asked people who had voted whether they’d voted for their candidate.

Well, all I can say is, it seems that we were not the only place that had some kind of problems going on with this election. People are up in arms in Florida and other places.

But this cannot stop us from moving forward. We have too much to do.

Cleaner, more affordable power.

One project I’m working on is establishing a Municipal Utilities District to put our electric power in the control of the people of San Francisco. I’ll be needing you to come out and support the Coalition for Lower Utility Bills. Soon there will be a board to be seated, and we can put in place some of our progressive candidates.

And for those of us living anywhere near the power plants, the pollution they pour on us is as great or greater a concern as our utility bills. PG&E has done great harm to our community’s health and wellbeing.

Standing together.

As for all of the election problems and wrongdoing, take heart. There has been so much going on that I’m told there may be an investigation into some of these things. You know that if you want to see things change, then you should call me at (415) 822-8126 and tell me what you know and have seen. I’ll get you to the right person.

In the meanwhile, we have a City that is about to put into office 11 Supervisors, most of them new to the job. Stand with me and others who advocate for us and say to them, “Sign the 10 points, then make them your first priority when you take office - or we will recall you too.”

For more information, call (415) 671-2862 and visit SF Bayview Newspaper and
Marie Harrison

Community Demands:

Immediate Clean-up
Better Safety Standards
Emergency Response Systems in place

Involved Groups:

Bayview Advocates,
Community First Coalition,
Literacy for Environmental Justice,
Communities for a Better Environment,
GreenAction,
Green Party,
A First Amendment Center
and many more...

Environmental (TOXIC) Racism in Hunter's Point
SF(SF Bayview Community Newspaper)

Marie Harrison - for Supervisor
District 10 (San Francisco)

Resources Outside Our Community

Concerned Citizens of Tillery (North Carolina)

Toxic Trap

RICHMOND, CALIFORNIA, story: Toxic Risks Near Projects

Study: Toxic Risks Near Projects

DALLAS (AP) -- Nearly 46 percent of the nation's federally subsidized apartments are within a mile of factories that produce toxic pollution, The Dallas Morning News reports in a three-part series. "It is an American tragedy," said Henry Cisneros, who was secretary of housing and urban development from 1993 to 1996. "But we sweep it under the rug and forget about it."

A study by The Morning News and the University of Texas-Dallas found that some 870,000 of the 1.9 million housing units for the poor, mostly minorities, sit within about a mile of factories that reported toxic emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency. The pollution included legal, permitted emissions and accidental releases.

HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo declined to be interviewed for the Morning News' three-part series, which started Sunday, but issued a statement calling the charges "outrageous." Cuomo said the story "advocates an unrealistic and unbalanced approach to managing environmental concerns." He said HUD is getting a bad rap, that it is local governments that determine the locations for the federal developments based on growth plans and other criteria.

Economics played a role in locating developments in many communities, the Morning News said. As whites who formerly lived near polluting plants climbed the financial ladder and moved away, the property that they left behind was inexpensive enough to attract officials for places to build public housing.

"Everyone you see here is low-income, poor and black," said Sammy Smith, who lives in a HUD-subsidized project in Bossier City, La., next door to land where toxic waste has been dumped for decades. "It's like we're in the jungle and we're at the bottom of the food chain."

The Morning News reported that people living in subsidized housing complain pollution causes health problems in their communities, including cancer, birth defects, respiratory ailments and developmental delays in children.

However, those claims are hard to prove. The EPA warns that exposure data for particular neighborhoods might not be sufficiently accurate to guide local policy decisions or predict an individual's risk of getting sick. "Public housing developments are not isolated enclaves. They share the same air with surrounding neighborhoods, and public housing residents make up just a small fraction of the people living and working near sites of potential air pollution," said Leland Jones, a HUD spokesman. "It has long been the nation's policy to clean up pollution, not to run from it by relocating tens of millions of people and abandoning our cities."

But critics say a federal program to rebuild the worst housing projects, called the HOPE IV Urban Revitalization program, is simply entrenching a system that already pushes poor people into polluted areas, the newspaper said.

Elinor Bacon, the HUD official in charge of HOPE VI, said she is confident that the agency has enough safeguards -- such as environmental reviews of each project, to ensure that families live in safe places. However, the Morning News said records it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that in some cases the environmental reviews failed to note the existence of these hazards.

===== "We're all downwinders!" Check-out We're All Downwinders

Environmental Racism in Chester, Pennsylvania

Community Resources

Bayview-Hunter's Point Map
High Rates of Disease in Bayview
Bayview Fights the Power by James Whooley
The Shipyard's Promise - SFBG, May 3, 2000

More Community Resources

The Toxic Links Coalition
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Transnational Resource Action Center
Military Toxics Project
Community Coalition for Environmental Justice
Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
Environmental Justice - Environmental Racism
EcoJustice Network
Environmental Justice Clinic - Thurgood Marshall
Fighting Environmental Racism: A Selected Annotated Bibliography
Dumping Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality
Environmental Equity: A Critical Review From All Perspectives
Links to Environmental Racism Subjects

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