nvironment is
ByRo D
The T entielh Anniversary
of Earth D y wa an event
which received widespre d
publicity in virtual y every
aspect of the media. Informa­
tive educational features aired
on radio and television nd in
depth . I ran in magazines
and new papers nationwide.
The i u of aving planet
ear_th appropriately received \
senou focus as the evidence
mounts that the enviroment IS
in rious and dangerous dis­
repair. That the public paid at­
tention at all was a tri umph for
the environmental movement.
With dogged determination
th environmental movement
has bios omed to the point that
"green" i now near the top of
. the American Agenda and
world agenda.
What I found striking and
larming about Earth Day,
however, was the noticeable
ab cnce of an Significant
African American presence at '
the variou forums, debate
and events a sociated with the
Earth Day activities.
OVERWHELM) .LY
'I'll E co II'LJ.:X)() of the
Green movement in America is, .
elp poor �eighborhoods-a
By Ro L oodson
In communities across
America during the Depres­
i n, churches, neighborhood
ociations, and families stood
bet een the private lives of in­
dividuals and large-scale
government programs. This
gave communities cohesiveness
of spirit and purpose during a
time of setb c and retrench­
ment. Rent parties, rummage
es, quilting bees, church so­
cials, homecomings, lodge
meeti g , and neighborhood
gath rings around a communal
potbellied stove served as
meth ds of information ex­
change and resource sharing for
neighborhoods throbbing with
the will and desire to survive.
Such gras -roots, self-help
approaches were, however,
b ndoned by the liberal social
policy-makers of the New Deal
er nd beyond. Since the
196Os, there been 25-fold
iner in the amount federal,
te, d local dollar pent to
meet the needs of the poor. Yet
-third of black America is
ill in danger of becoming a
permanent underclas.
Moreover, the number of
children living in poverty has ex­
p nded while the quality of
their education has declined.
e funding that d ig-
nated to help poor people has
go e, for the most part, to sup-
Envlronm nta"
d tructlon
an human
tructlon,
while. It is as if Black people
feel that the green issues are
not pertinent to our survival
and development as a people.
Some of thi lack of an active
presence by African Americans
in th green movement can be
traced to the 60' and 70's.
With the advent of the
Black Power movement large
numbers of white activists no
longer fell that there was a
meaningful role for them in the
civil-rights movernc nt.
Many white ctivists turned
their creative energy to or­
ganizing around nuclear 'disar­
mament, peace and the
environment. There was a ten-
'dency to isolate these issues
from the immediacy of the
civil-rights agenda. and the in­
terest of Black people.
Because th-e initiative
around these i sues was prin­
cipally carried forth under
white leadership, African
Americans increasingly came
to perceive peace, disarmament
port a large class of counselors,
bureaucrats, and social workers
- what I call the "Poverty Pen­
tagon." There are hundreds of
aid programs that administer
over $100 billion e ch year. In,
ew York City, the Community
Service Society (a 100-year-old
social-work agency) examined
how funding intended to meet
the needs of that city's l.4-mil- .
lion poop people (or one-fifth
of its population) Wei actually
spent. The results: of the 14.5
billion spent to help the poor in
1983, 74 cents of every dollar
.went to the service industry;
only 26 cents was spent on rent,
food, clothes, and other such
needs. In many cases, social
welfare programs. actually ex­
acerbate the very problems they
were designed to solve and
destroy families in the name of
helping.
Americans, especially black
Americans, have become
frustrated and infuriated with
well-intended programs that do
not lead to the desired results.
They are not prepared to con­
tinue to have money thrown at
the problems.
Old-line government
remedies and patchwork
programs have not significantly
helped the unemployed under­
class, who by their sizable num­
bers seem to mock the ideals of
a free enterprise system. But it
is this very system that could
....
not a
and the environment as "white
issues".
IT OCCURS TO me that it
is time to correct what is ob­
viously a mis-perception.
Saving the environment is a
Black issue too. African
Americans mu t be clear that
global warming, ozone deple­
tion, acid rain and toxic waste
in the land and rivers are not
phenomena which will spare
African Americans imply be­
caus of our kin color.
Environmental destruction
means human' distruction
including Black people in
Am rica and the world.
In fact African Americans
and Third WorJd people have
an urgent stake in saving and
preserving the environment.
Within the United States
African American and poor
communities cern to be di -
proportionately targeted for
(oxic wa te dumps and Africa
and (he Third World are in­
crea ingly seen by the west as
a dumping grounds for toxic
wa te. .
Similiarly it is' the land,
resources and forests in the
Third World which are also
being disproportionately
enable them to join the
economic mainstream. Aggres­
sive efforts must be made to in­
troduce new approaches that
build on both the free
enterprise system and the
, strengths and resources already
existing in our communities.
Many analysts cite poverty as
a condition inextricably linked
to racism. The argument is
made that racial integration,
nurtured by preferential
.govemment programs, will ul­
timately bring blacks and other
minorities into the economic
mainstream. But this strategy
has been tried and hasn't
worked.
An alternative approach
rests on a cardinal principle:
Those suffering from the
problems must be involved in
designing the executing solu­
tions to them. They have
firsthand kno ledge, and they
have the greatest interest in the
outcome. A successful com­
munity-ba ed development
strategy therefore must be
based on se eral steps:
- Give assistance to com­
munityefforts that are genuine­
ly the product of neighborhood
initi tives and that have shown
themselves capable of mobiliz­
ing local resource and sustain­
ing an organization to deal with
local issues.
- Explore welfare assis­
tance approaches that enable
ravished i ,'the i merest of
profit for na ional and multina­
lion corpo lions and giant
developers.
THE
materialism rom capita ist ex­
ploitation i the we t and
mechanical Marxism n the
east must stopped if the
human race i to survive.
African eopel eed not
take a back s at to an one as it
relates to a appreciation for
nature and the en iroment.
Within traditional African
society there was a definite
value placed on the need to be
�n harmony with natu'f and th
Importance of mainta ning th
delicate balance th
chemistry between uman
beings and th envirom nt. It
i PI" cisely this hannon�, and
balance which is being
jeoparidized by' greed and
materialism.
The unfolding of the
modern commercial and in-­
dustrial revolutiona dn the a -
qui rive drive for "progres "
has lead to the sacrifice �f na­
ture and the environment inth
interest of achieving the good
life". The victims of this
progress cannot allow th s in-
ane trend towards uni ersal
recipients to-invest public is­
tance payments in small busi­
nesses or job-tr ining
programs. There are everal
ways in which welfare cou d be
restructured to stimul te
general economic improvement
in poor communities. One
would be to convert assistance
payments into vouchers to be
used by employers as wages.
This action would make low-in­
come residents in distre ed
areas more competitive in the
employmen; market as well as
promote greater self-sufficien­
cy. A simple voucher plan also
would be more attractive to
employers than complicated tax
credit programs. In addition,'
policies which prevent the u -
skilled from getting entry-level
wor experience, sueh as the
minimum wage and labor union
licensing restriction, hould be
eliminated. ,
- Explore ways to provide
private .healtb insurance to
families who leave aid to
familie with dependent
children (AFDC). This would
eliminate one of the most ig­
nificant barriers to w If re
recipients takingjobs - t e 10
of medical benefits in the fo m
of voucher to newly employed
low-income persons.
With these and other innova­
tive self-help ep, Ameri 's
• most depressed neighborhcods
can be nurtured back to good
OF
elf-destruction to continue.
Green is Black and Black is
Green. African people are once
again ch lIenged to afro-centri­
C�lly e rch our own p st to
discover the basis for the olu­
tion to a problem which
threatens the very survival of I
humankind.
The piritual and ethical
values which lead our ances­
tors to have a whole orne and
healthy re pect for nature and
the environment must be OUT
guide a we joinin and indeed
a ume a leading role in per-
erving the planet. Saving the
environment is not a hile
i ue. African Americans and
Thi rd World people have too -
much at take to lay back and -
let others lead on this i sue.
TII� FUTURE BELONGS
to the developing people of
African and Third World. Bul
there will" be no future if all we
inherit is .an overhe ed, toxic
waste intc ted and disastrously
polluted planet.
ve view
health.
Note: Robert Woodson is
presiden: of the National Center
for Neighbothood Enterprise.
This essay is adopted from the
Heritage Foundation
monograph ·A Conservative
Agenda for Black Americans,"
published as part of the think
tank's recent Black History
Month observatiOlLf.
Dal FDa
IE II PUILIC SCIOOL