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Re:A small town, a chemical plant and the residents' despera... by otikik on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @10:03AM (#19849401)
The problem I see with your argument is that you see things done by the rich (mostly white) as "things that just happen" and things done by the poor (mostly white) as "reaction".

The plant did not just "happen to appear" in a black neighborhood. A group of someones decided where that plant was going to be installed in the first place. I'm sure there were lots of other "equally good" candidates.

Your argument would work similarly for the incarcerated. Black people make 10% of the US population yet they make 40% of the incarcerated. They lose the right to vote. There's allegedly forced labor and poor sanitary conditions.

Do you think this is also "likely incidental"? That black people "just happens to be more incarcerated" than whites? Please consider the recent US history before answering.

Re:A small town, a chemical plant and the residents' despera... by ajxs on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @05:08PM (#19853464)
I disagree with your reasoning. Your use of the word 'someones' sounds rather sinister, the _Someones_ involved in building and running chemical plants aren't going to choose to pay extra to inconvenience minorities, I assure you. I am absolutely certain however that building such industrial development in lower socio-economic areas is advantageous for the companies, as local residents are less likely to be able to litigate, or less integrated within the democratic process overall. I'm not being unsympathetic to the victims of this issue, I'm just not going to attribute this process to outright malice or racism. I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Is the plant really there _because_ it's a black area? Or is it there because it's a poor area, and is it also a predominantly black area because it's a poor area? What economic impact has the introduction of the chemical plant had on the community, did it make it poorer? Correlation does not imply causation, I think there's other explanations for the plight of the area that aren't predicated entirely upon racism.
Re:A small town, a chemical plant and the residents' despera... by Dylan16807 on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @05:50PM (#19853771)
Building somewhere because the residents have bad access to the law and government is malicious.

In some specific decisions the racial bias is all incidental. But that's still exacerbating past racism, and if even a little bit of current racism slips in it can be massively magnified. It's not cheap or unfair to highlight these effects. Decisions don't happen in a vacuum.