The communities that have been suffering for all of these years really don’t have a voice. They are still invisible, and they are still underprotecte… - Robert D. Bullard

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The communities that have been suffering for all of these years really don’t have a voice. They are still invisible, and they are still underprotected. And as I said before, the most vulnerable population that we’re talking about is children. And if people don’t get angry or somehow concerned about children going to school or playing on playgrounds that’s on the fenceline with companies that’s pumping out dangerous chemicals and creating lots of environmental hazards—you know, you have to understand what kind of person would somehow just turn the other way, or governmental entity that would turn the other way, and say, “Oh, it’s about regulation. We need fewer regulations. And because the companies have to be competitive globally, and therefore the community that’s on the fenceline basically is a sacrifice zone.” And what we say in the environmental justice community, we say no to our communities being sacrifice zones.

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About Robert D. Bullard

Robert Doyle Bullard (born December 21, 1946), formerly Ware Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, is an American academic known as the "father of environmental justice" for his work beginning in the 1970s to extend civil rights thinking to issues of environmental inequality.

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Alternative Names: Robert Doyle Bullard Robert Bullard
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Additional quotes by Robert D. Bullard

It was very clear that people who were making decisions — county commissioners or industrial boards or city councils — were not the same people who were “hosting” these facilities in their communities. Without a doubt, it was a form of apartheid where whites were making decisions and black people and brown people and people of color, including Native Americans on reservations, had no seat at the table.

The course for justice is not a sprint. It’s more like a marathon or a relay race. You pass the baton to the next generation, and you hope there’s a smooth pass off. At the same time, you don’t leave that next generation to run the race by itself.

This whole question of environment, economics, and equity is a three-legged stool. If the third leg of that stool is dealt with as an afterthought, that stool won’t stand. The equity components have to be given equal weight. But racial and economic and social equity can be very painful topics: people get uncomfortable when questions of poor people and race are raised.

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