Whiteness as a Property

What struck me the most about this week’s readings was Harris’ dissection of Brown v. the Board of Education, a case I distinctly remember studying and using back in high school to mark the end of legal racism. In the wake of Plessy v. Ferguson, Harris argues that though Brown formally dismantled whiteness as a property, Brown “…sheltered and protected [whites’] expectations of continued race-based privilege” (Harris 1753). In the court’s attempt to declare equality amongst races, it validated the whites as the preferred, normative race against which all other races must compare.

Pulido’s “Rethinking Environmental Racism”, I found simply disheartening. Neither the presence of toxic waste nor general uneven distribution of pollutants is new information, because, I mean, who hasn’t seen Erin Brockovich. But what I saw in Erin Brockovich appeared to be an isolated incident, where the possibility of a mistake still existed. Reading this essay, however, struck down this benefit of doubt. The maps of Los Angeles, namely Figure 3, reveal that toxic waste and disposal facilities are exclusive to neighborhoods populated by minorities. There are none in white neighborhoods.